thanks to Battlecat on .net

There is a lovely interview with Darius in the Daily Record:-

 

Fame And Fortune? Frankly I Don't Give A Damn

Apr 14 2008 By John Dingwall

 

Exclusive Father's Cancer Battle Convinced Scots Hunk Darius That The Trappings Of Success Mean Nothing Gone With The Wind Star Has Made Being A Fantastic Stepdad His Top Priority

 

DARIUS Danesh has a new ambition in life - he wants to be the perfect role model to Canadian girlfriend Natasha Henstridge's two kids.

 

The singer - who once correctly boasted that he would have a No.1 single and platinum-selling album by the time he was 25 - has shifted his priorities after seeing his dad, Dr.

 

Booth Danesh, successfully battle cancer.

 

And Darius says being stepdad to Species star Henstridge's sons Tristan, nine, and Asher, six, is more important than fame.

 

Darius, 27, said: "I have befriended some very famous and wealthy people and the vast majority of them aren't happy. Most of them are miserable and focused on the next step in their career. They've lost sight of what's important.

 

"What I realised after my dad's trials and tribulations was that it is important to be with the people you love and to create a family that is stable, loving and nurturing.

 

"The biggest challenge now isn't to do with my career.

 

It is to do with trying to live up to the image of my father, who is the most consistent, patient and loving father and the most loyal and dignified husband.

 

"My biggest challenge is not financial or career goals.

 

What is often most important is being with family or kids and spending quality time together.

 

"My focus now is being the best partner I can be, the best brother I can be, the best son and the best role model for the two children in my life."

 

He added: "I have learned that my goals are not material.

 

A career is something that happens if you work hard.

 

My grandfather worked at the Glasgow docks from the age of 14 and supported a family.

 

"Coming from that you would be ashamed if you didn't work hard.

 

That's my focus now, but one day I would love to get married."

 

The Scots singer-turned the spian is working harder than ever after landing the role of Rhett Butler in director Trevor Nunn's West End musical adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gone With The Wind.

 

Many were surprised when Darius landed the role and he admits the audition process was tougher than anything he endured on Popstars or Pop Idol.

 

"The auditions had been going for six months on both sides of the Atlantic before I was asked to audition," Darius said. "I flew to LA and I didn't have any lines when I auditioned because Trevor was trying to keep the script a secret.

 

"I hadn't even read the book, but I got the call.

 

I did six auditions and that was the toughest audition process I've ever gone through.

 

It put both the Popstars and Pop Idol auditions in the shade.

 

"Trevor Nunn never gave anything away.

 

Then I got a letter from him saying he had no doubt I was Rhett Butler.

 

It was like having a platinum record and a No.1 all over again."

 

Showing nightly at the New London Theatre, Drury Lane, London, Darius shines as Butler, originally played by Clark Gable in the 1939 movie.

 

Sporting a moustache, the dashing Glaswegian towers over his leading lady Jill Paice.

 

She plays Scarlett O' Hara, the fiesty heroine who struggles to keep her Georgia plantation from the carpet baggers after the American Civil War.

 

The actress bears an uncanny resemblance to Vivien Leigh, who starred opposite Gable, and the musical is a heady mix of drama, song and romance.

 

But Darius says his very convincing love scenes with Paice are nothing less than the performance of a lifetime.

 

He laughed: "I assure you it is purely a professional relationship.

 

If we can't make you feel the characters care for each other, we're not enjoying our job.

 

It's absolutely within the remit of the characters.

 

"Trevor made it clear he wanted to take the stage production from the novel.

 

So I deliberately didn't watch the film, although I saw it years ago.

 

It's an incredibly well known film.

 

Even people who haven't seen the movie know the characters."

 

After a preview performance last week, Darius explained just how seriously he is taking his latest acting role.

 

"I didn't get my accent from Clark Gable.

 

I got my accent from recordings of confederate gentlemen from the British library, where they have some of the earliest ever recordings," he said.

 

"I worked with a voice coach on the idea that Rhett was not just a Southerner, but a man who had travelled to the North.

 

"He would have been clearer and would say the ends of words that normal Southerners wouldn't have done.

 

"It's been fun learning about different cultures and about the way people spoke."

 

And Darius believes he has much in common with Rhett Bulter.

 

It's a popular misconception that the character is the cad in the story, when Ashley Wilkes - Scarlett's original love interest - encourages her to love him while married and joins the Ku Klux Klan after the slaves have been freed.

 

"I have grown to identify with Rhett a lot through reading the book," Darius admitted.

 

"He has some qualities that I associate with being Scottish. He is a very passionate man and a deep thinker.

 

We are a country of deep thinkers with a sense of passion and we identify with the land we are from.

 

"Rhett would rather sit down and have a cigar and a whisky and work it out rather than take up arms. I feel honored to portray him. He is not just a rough diamond but someone who has a lot of substance.

 

"At the beginning of the story, Rhett is accused of being a number of things but by the end we realise he was making anonymous donations and giving black families a chance to have their own farms. He also saves Tara."

 

Darius added: "Gone With The Wind is a timely piece of literature.

 

"It ties in the futility of war with the idea of freedom for the black slaves and also features the first female heroine in Scarlett.

 

"There is now a woman and a black man in the running to be US President. We are also going through a war which has many of us scratching our heads."

 

A key turning point in the story comes when Rhett's daughter Bonnie dies and, again, Darius feels he can relate.

 

He said: "I am lucky because of the experiences I've had over the last five years, particularly facing the loss of my father and the idea of facing the death of a loved one. Thank God he is alive and well.

 

"Subsequently, nurturing the lives of Natasha's children and taking on the role of a protector, I'm proud to be in that role and have found a sense of fatherly duty.

 

"You get upset if they fall and hurt their knee. If someone touched a hair on their head, you'd kill them.

 

"All those emotions I'd never had before. All of that has gone a long way toward informing me as a man and an actor for this role of Rhett Butler, who has a child he is incredibly fond of and, ironically, two stepchildren.

 

"Life has a funny way of helping you along. Nothing happens by chance."

 

'My focus is on being the best role model for the two children in my life'

 

 

 

DAILY RECORD

 

can we see any thing similar between Darius and Rhett.."who" people think he is and who he actually is

 

 

Yes, as I said from the beginning, the more I read the more Darius WAS Rhett.

A nice double page spread with pics.

I love this interview.

The way he speaks about the two boys shows he has a lot of love for them and that even though they might not be his!

you get a feeling that they are

They are his step children and he's probably as close to then as he would be ones he fathered.

This forum is dead...like his career.

You know I personally thought that the UK media were sitting on the fence until they worked out whether Darius was up to the job or would fall on his face. I'm not now convinced it was that because I found some of the GWTW pictures online and they said "UK tabloid newspapers out" which could mean access was embargoed to a some extent.

 

However it's nice to see a decent Darius spread in The Daily Record again.

 

I think Darius's desire to have a balanced live is admirable but if he's going to bypass offers of work and even put his own career on hold to 'babysit' while Natasha works, then I'd be very unhappy.

 

He's still very young to have achieved all he has and I feel he has so much more to give. He is so talented. He should be finding out how far that talent and his will to learn will take him.

Just being considered for this part is a great chievement - getting it is even better. I still want the album though. He's not likely to release it it's in conflict with Gone With The Wind album, or I wouldn't think he would.

..................getting it is indeed amazing, but aceing it in practice is even more satisfying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm glad they've not cancelled my preview. I' d be slightly miffed to have to cancelled

According to Rachel 2 more Scottish newspapers will have articles - The Sunday Post and the Scottish edition of the Sun. I can't wait to see what the latter says.

 

I'll get a Sun every day until it appears and similarly a Post this Sunday.

I can't get hold og a Scottish Sun. I'll see if my newsagent will hold a Post for me.

Nothing in today's Sun.

 

A long article from a journalist complaining about the casual attitude to drugs while there's a crack down on booze and fags and moaning that the stars who take them are feted.

 

Err......I think the Sun's played its part in giving Pete D, Kate M., Amy W and such plenty of column inches and deriding anyone who showed any decency and good manners.

 

Cliff was perhaps the first whose career was destroyed by being uncool in the media's eyes. Darius has certainly suffered at their hands - cheesy, smarmy, fake, smug, loser, reject - are about all they've said about him for years. He suffers in silence but continues to talk about what he believes and the things which have brought him real happiness.

It's Scottish media so I'll put this here. Darius wasn't on STV's 5.30 Show tonight.

 

 

He got yet another mention tonight but he's on later in the week. The female presenter was asked how was Darius - usual ...tall, lovely, cheeky little moustache which she thinks he likes, but is only for the show. She wouldn't say if he kissed her.

Why couldn't he have done Scottish BBC1 instead? Then we could all watch it.

The 5.30pm show is a bit like the The One Show on BBC1 - a lighter current affairs related programme.

 

Maybe Darius will appear on the former later in the run.

I hope so.

I'm going to set an alarm to remind me to watch the show tonight. I always get so engrossed in what I'm doing that I forget to look at my watch.

How many alarms have you got? Set them all. You're listening for all of us.

Oops. I'll have to go out. I'll have to get a Sun, won't I?

Edited April 16, 200817 yr by Baytree