Actor Clive Owen fancies a return to theatre acting after starring in a family drama as a widower. Steve Pratt reports.

IF Clive Owen listens to his daughters, Hannah and Eve, we’ll be seeing less of him playing a moody anti-hero and appearing in more familyfriendly movies.

“They’re very keen for me to do a film to give them bragging rights at school,” he says. “They’re putting me under such pressure, I’m going to have to buckle and do it. They’re going to say ‘you’ve got to do this one, Dad’ and I’ll end up doing it.”

The latest film from the star of Closer, Sin City and Duplicity is a step in the right direction. The Boys Are Back, which is based on journalist Simon Carr’s memoirs and was shot in Australia, he plays Joe Warr, who struggles with being a single parent to his six-year-old son after his wife dies of cancer.

The 45-year-old admits his own experience of fatherhood was a huge part of wanting to do the film. “I’m a parent and parenting’s a big part of my life. I recognised and felt I had similar experiences to a lot of things in this movie, so it felt reasonably familiar,” he says.

And Hannah and Eve can finally see their dad on the big screen. “The girls are very thrilled with this film because they can see it,” he adds.

Besides its appeal as a more family-focused drama, it was really the script that captured Owen’s imagination. “It’s a very beautiful script, I was very taken when I read it. I thought it was unusual in its delicacy and intelligence in exploring these relationships, and a beautiful exploration of both grief and parenting.

“It wasn’t sentimental, it was precise and I found it terribly moving when I got to the scene where Joe was telling the young boy that his mother might not be around for much longer. I found the whole idea of that conversation upsetting.”

The Coventry-born actor made it clear to director Scott Hicks that he wanted a film steeped in reality. “I’d seen lots of family movies where the family is in this lovely, warm bubble, and even when things get tough, everyone is very lovely and it’s all very sweet,” he says.

“Real families aren’t like that. It’s much more volatile than that and this script explored that in a very honest way.”.

Owen brought his real-life experiences as a dad into the role, particularly the trying times.

“I didn’t have the huge, big tragic loss that they have, but in terms of the ups and downs of parenting, I felt I’ve experienced quite a few of them,” he says.

“I was always interested in the scenes showing the tougher times in the film, for example when the kid has a tantrum in the car. I’ve been in situations like that with my kids, they go into a funk.

“Kids below the ages of eight are kind of crazy and manic depressive, and they go into their funks and you have to bring them out of it. I could relate to that scene and I was interested to make that tough for my character because all parents will relate.”

It’s clearly a different kind of role for Owen, but he denies he picked the part for that reason. “People have said to me this is quite a departure, I never saw it [as that] but enough people have told me now so I have to accept it,” he says.

“I don’t set out (to do something different). A career is made up of all the individual choices that I’ve made, it’s literally an instinctive response. I respond to the material: I laughed all the way through when I read Shoot ‘Em Up and I read this script and I wanted to do it for other reasons. I enjoy exploring new and different aspects of myself in the film, and this is one.”

Despite starring alongside Tinseltown’s most soughtafter actresses like Julia Roberts, Owen admits there’s no chance for him to get caught up in fame, with his children keeping him firmly grounded.

“They’re pretty disdainful to me generally and Hannah the eldest’s favourite line to me is ‘if only they could see what you’re really like’.”

There’s just one more dream theatre-trained Owen would love to fulfil and that’s a return to the stage. He thinking about doing a play.

“I haven’t done it for a very long time, so I’m trying to find a play I’m passionate about enough to want to do.

But I’m certainly talking about the possibility of doing something – either here or on Broadway – soon.”

■ The Boys Are Back (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow