Death On The Nile remake

ALASTAIR Mackenzie has swapped the Scottish Highlands of TV's Monarch Of The Glen for the beach in California. The actor, best known as Glenbogle's Archie MacDonald, is trying his luck in America.

He's rented a beach house, and is living there with his wife and young daughter Martha. He was back in this country for the launch of Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile, in which he plays the mysterious Ferguson, a man who isn't what he claims to be.

A legacy of the film was the beard he grew for the part. "I got quite attached to it, if you'll pardon the pun. It took quite a lot of effort, so I kept it for a few weeks afterwards," he says.

"The beard was part of the appeal for me. They said, 'do you want to play a Communist cruising down the Nile?. You can smoke a pipe and grow a beard'. It was a nice change, location-wise and character-wise, from Monarch. It was a great little mini-adventure."

A month's filming in studios near London was followed by three weeks on location in Egypt, cruising down the Nile on a 1920s paddle ship. The cabins were the actors' dressing rooms. "We left the hotel and got on board at five in the morning, then waited until we were called for filming," he recalls.

"The heat wasn't too bad, it was December and in the high 80s. Every day we had a different archaeological site to visit. Some were closed to the public, but we were lucky enough to be able to see them. It was a good way to see the country and to travel, with all the practical details taken care of by the film-makers."

Mackenzie hadn't seen the 1978 movie version and resisted viewing it until filming was completed on the new TV film. His character was an amalgam of various people in the book, so he thinks it would have been confusing for him to see it earlier.

After five series of BBC1's Monarch Of the Glen, Mackenzie is trying to establish himself in America. The series is "quite big" out there and he's capitalising on its popularity.

"I'm talking to people about both TV and movies," he says. "I don't live there, I'm just hustling. I don't think I could live there, although I might have to if the work demanded it.

"I realised when I was there last time that this country is my home and where I want to be. I'm 33 and to go moving lock, stock and barrel to the States is a big thing. I enjoy it when I'm there, but there are cultural differences to live with. It's a very different business - they treat you in a different way. I was over there during the season for TV pilots, which is a bit of a meat market.

"It's a different world. The grass is greener for a bit, and I'll come home when it turns brown."

His director brother, David Mackenzie. is also making a name for himself in the States, on the back of The Last Great Wilderness, a low budget film he made, with Alastair starring.

"It's opened a lot of doors for me there," the actor. "The film world is like a club and quite difficult to get membership of, but once you get a film released it's been quite useful for me.

"There are a lot of sitcoms being made. One they claimed was the next Frasier. I've read a lot of rubbish and a lot of good things. A lot of film-makers are making pilots for TV shows. These are things they sign you up for seven years. It's a bit scary, they make you very rich but drive you mad."

Despite his reservations about the US, the country is somewhere he gets excited about being in. Driving along Sunset Boulevard still gives him a special feeling.

"There's a lot of superficiality about the place," he says. "I want to use America rather than let it use me. That's my philosophy. I've quite a few mates out there."

Mackenzie's daughter is getting used to having a father who's famous. "She said to me the other day, 'when are you going to be on telly?'," he recalls.

Perhaps more disconcerting was the time he was shopping with her in the supermarket, and his picture was on the cover of the TV listings magazines. "She was slightly bewildered by that," he says.

Best friends, deadly foes

ON screen, Emma Malin and Emily Brunt play best friends who become bitter enemies after falling for the same man. Off screen, they get along rather better.

In the new TV film based on Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile, Emma plays Jacqueline de Bellefort, whose fiance Simon marries her best chum, heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Brunt).

Emma won the role after director Andy Wilson spotted her reading a Christie thriller on the set of The Forsyte Saga, in which she played the young Fleur. "He said he had no idea anyone of my age liked Agatha Christie, and asked if I'd like to play Jackie," she says.

When she's not acting, Emma makes her own films with a group of friends in a company called Redeeming Features. One of them, a five-minute short called The Modernista, won a short film festival last year. "I had to collect the award and make a 45-second speech," she says.

She directed that film but says they swap roles all the time. "We make films for fun, and it's a good way to get experience and go on to better things," says Emma.

They tend to make very low budget horror movies. The latest, Suckers, will be their first feature-length film. "I'm pulling in a lot of favours. All the people in it are doing it for free, and the love of it."

She and Emily took advantage of free time away from filming in Egypt to visit villages, take camel rides, and go horse-riding in the desert.

Emily is well-used to working in costume dramas, having appeared in both Boudica and Henry VIII last year. As Linnet, she wears an intricate wig "with so many curls, twiddles and waves that my make-up artist would be up all night setting it".

She adds: "I had so much make-up as well, I was verging on being a transvestite. You do transform when you put on the costumes. They are so exquisite and swish. I felt extremely arrogant.

"I've been waiting around for a role like Linnet for a while. I've done characters who were softer and nicer. I wanted to try something different."

Emily got into trouble by sunbathing by the pool when she wasn't filming. Her pale complexion acquired a bit of a tan. "Before I was so pale, you could see my veins. They had to start powdering me down to hide the tan," she says.

After Egypt, she's heading for Rome to work on a new series for America's ABC network. It's called Empire - as in the Roman Empire, around the time of Emperor Augustus. She'll be filming for four months, playing a vestal virgin.

"I've never been to Italy, so that's an attraction," she says. "It's hard being away from home and those you love for a long time. You have to find a way to get back as much as possible. It's only a two-hour flight."

Published: 08/04/2004