Following my recent posts of early RSL interviews from English teen magazines, I have managed to obtain another from my source on ebay! This is from Mizz Magazine (which is a British teen girl's magazine that I used to buy back in the day! hehehe) in August 1993.
Robert talks about Much Ado About Nothing, living in London (quite fitting since he's coming back in May!) and is full of lots of great Robertisms. Enjoy! [discofunction]

Robert Sean Leonard is always cast as the shy, sensitive type who everyone likes, and nothing's changed in his latest movie, Much Ado About Nothing. But he's really not the likeable little sweetie the movie makers would have us believe...

It's four O'clock in the afternoon and the sun is beating down onto the veranda of a swanky hotel in the South Of France. It's the sort of place where the staff walk around looking very French and very efficient (which indeed they are) and a plate of chips doesn't leave much change out of a tenner.
Fortunately your Mizz reporter is not here to eat, but to meet Robert Sean Leonard who has dissappeared off the face of the planet, or most certainly from this veranda where our rendezvous is supposed to take place.

As I kill time translating the menu and laughing at the price, a strange young man in a tweedy jacket and spectacles comes and plonks himself next to me. It's a full 5 seconds before I realise that this is Robert Sean leonard, jogged a little by his opening words ('Hi, I'm Robert Sean Leonard').
He apologises for being late and explains that he's just been for a walk along the beach and forgot the time. Nobody recognised him on the seafront either, which is hardly suprising as he looks more like a schoolteacher than a Hollywood actor!

He turns round to find a waiter to order some mineral water, and before I can warn him about the prices, he's done it. He sits down and deposits a hefty book on the table, which turns out to be a copy of Shakespeare's King Lear.
"I carry that with me to impress the girls." he smiles. He's lying. He'll be acting in a stage version of it in America and is doing a bit of last minute swotting up.

The waiter arrives with his mineral water which he gulps down in a matter of seconds. Having just done two films away from America - Swing Kids in the freezing cold of Czechoslovakia and Much Ado About Nothing in the blistering heat in Italy - he says he's looking forward to working in the theatre because it means he can go home at night. So what exactly does he get up to when the working day is done?

"I do normal things. Sit around and read books and wash the dishes or sometimes I read the dishes and wash the books." he quips. What about watching the telly?
"Oh my TV doesn't work," he explains, seemingly not that bothered. "It's been broken for some time now and I haven't got round to getting it fixed. Anyway, I've got used to not watching it and now I have more time to write in my diary every day."

Robert Sean also says that he tries to make sure he gets round to replying to his fan letters. "I get a few," he says modestly, removing his glasses and looking a lot more like Robert Sean Leonard than he did before. "I get a lot of letters from Japan for some reason. They really like Dead Poets Society over there. I don't get as much fan mail as Ethan Hawke, though. He got to play the cute guy while I was just a bit weird and sensitive in that film."

Does it bother him - a. not getting recognised and b. no getting as much fanmail as Ethan Hawke? "Not really. I've never been into that superstar thing like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, where they can't go out into the street and do normal things, like go to the store."
And does Robert think that perhaps Arnie and Sly get all their clothes out of catalogues to save them going to the shops? " I beg your pardon?" he says looking a bit confused. Oh, never mind. So is all that star stuff a waste of time?
"Oh no I didn't mean that." he continues. "I mean, I think it's good for people to have something to be passionate about. I remember having posters of pop and film people on my wall when I was younger - I even wrote a fan letter to James Stewart!"
"To people in America, film stars are like our royalty. We don't have a Royal Family, so like Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are our King and Queen." Are you sure about this Robert? "Yeah we need to have those sorts of figures in our lives. You British are lucky having the Royal family."

Robert is well up on all things English, having spent a year in London while he was on stage in the west end. "I can't remember where I lived -whether it was north or south or whatever, but you know if you go down Shaftesbury Avenue and then Old Brompton Road and..." He gives a detailed account of most of the roads in the London A-Z, trying to remember where he stayed. He seems to know his way around the Capital, even if he had no idea where he was when he got there. Had he ever thought of becoming a London taxi driver? "No. Why?" he says, missing the point, then -getting all excited- he suddenly yelps "Radcliff Gardens! That was it! That's where I stayed- do you know it? great coffee houses there..." And his face goes all dreamy and distant at the thought of it. Robert tells us that he picked up a few habits from the English when he was over here. "The English always seem to end everything with a question, don't they?" he grins. "I did, didn't I?" he demonstrates further, complete with a rather accurate English accent. "One thing I don't understand though is why you say 'a' coffee rather than 'some' coffee. I mean, you don't have 'a' tea - you have 'some' tea!" He's getting a bit carried away here...

As much as Robert Sean likes England, he's not sure if he would like to live there permanantly. Robert, who lives in New Jersey, dusted off his English accent on the set of Much Ado About Nothing, taking the mickey out of British actors like Emma Thomson and Richard Briers. Although a Shakespeare film might sound a bit stuffy, Much Ado is actually easy to follow and rather funny with it. It's about a bunch of Soldiers - including Keanu Reeces with a wispy beard- who come back from war to a villa full of girls who haven't seen a bloke in ages and have all gone man daft. Robert didn't get to spend a lot of time on the set with Keanu even though they were roommates. "Yeah, we shared a villa, but we were all really busy. He had to go off about a week before anyone else because he was doing another film, so I didn't get to know him that well. But he's a nice guy."
Except in the film, Keanu plays the bad guy who scowls a lot and tries to ruin the two young lovers' relationship by telling Robert's character that his girlfriend has gone off with someone else...
Well theres a bit more to it than that, but basically everyone is trying to get off with everyone else. It's hot and Robert's tanned and he looks quite, um, sexy in his soldier's uniform, not at all like the trainspotter he looked today before he took of his glasses.

Robert plays the romantic and sensitive Claudio who falls in love with Hero, the beautiful daughter of the owner of the villa. What we want to know is: is he romantic in real life? "Oh yes, " he confirms. Does he buy Champagne and flowers and all that sort of stuff?
"No, that's boring and predictable. It's too cheesy." Oh, right, so what would he class as romantic in real life? "I don't know. Falling over a table on the first date. Making someone laugh -that's romantic."

But doesn't he ever fancy playing a baddie in the movies, since up to now he's got a Radox-clean reputation with all the characters he's played? "Yeah," he admits. "It's starting to get a bit annoying. I always get cast as the sensitive young man and people think I'm like that in real life. Every article I read about me goes on about me being sensitive. Actually, I'm insensitive. People hate me," he jests. "Just for once I would like to play someone nasty. Someone really mean and angry- like a homocidal murderer."
It might happen sooner than he thinks. Like any moment now when he finds out how much that mineral water has just cost him!
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