BTKATGBV - Press Release

Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire Press Release 1985

Bruce Plays T.O. (The One), Billy's manager

Short Biography

Bruce Payne is an important new actor worth watching. He also sings - Brilliantly. BTKATGBV offers him his biggest chance to date to show what he can do. His performance in Steven Berkoff's WEST brought a rave review from Time magazine and led to a promising film company partnership with Berkoff.

Bruce Payne

At 26 Bruce Payne has four feature films behind him, a stack of television and theatre credits and a future that looks very bright indeed. BTKATGBV seems to give Bruce Payne's career a huge boost and will be followed by a second film musical, Absolute Beginners.

In the film Bruce plays Billy's manager, T.O (The One). He describes the character as "a very sophisticated con man. He's in trouble, the Wednesday Man is just around the corner."

The "trouble" that T.O. has got himself into is financial and he sets up a snooker game to get himself out of it. High stakes are involved, the heavies are breathing down his neck and he is being manipulated by the Wednesday Man. Will T.O finally ruin the career of his own protégé?

The part gives Bruce the opportunity to sing and singing has played an important part in his career. His first major film role, for example, was in Michael Blakemore's Privates on Parade, in which he played a cheeky young cockney - a part that Ben Cross originally played on stage.

How did he come to get that part?

"I have always sung, but not been paid for it. I do consider myself a singer now, but I had never really considered it up to that point. I have always been, first and foremost an actor."

Since Privates on Parade he has done a good deal of theatre work and has mostly chosen to steer away from television, despite recent appearances in Tyne Tees Television's Operation Julie and in the BBC's Oscar.

'I've just tried to find out what Bruce Payne, in his short life, would like most to do, rather than sitting by the box and settling back. I'm mostly self-educated, I read an awful lot, and I train a lot, and I just think I'd rather let the things that are in me come out rather than be dominated by our very, very media-filled world."

About films, however, he is far more enthusiastic:

"The level at which you attack films, in which you do films, is far more serious, far more honest in its detail than television. You can't settle for anything less."

The urge to get into the acting profession came early when he was eleven or twelve. "I knew I would never be happy sitting behind a desk and looking out of a window. I tested the water a great deal, though, before taking myself seriously, rather than just assuming I would get into films."

But the films came, and theatre and television. There was the Keep, following Privates on Parade and then Oxford Blues. Later, in quick succession, came Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire and Absolute Beginners.

Theatre gave him plenty of singing opportunity with PIAF at the Theatre Royal, York, the Rocky Horror Show and Steven Berkoff's WEST at the Warehouse, and most recently, ALICE at the Leeds Playhouse.

A lot of people saw him in WEST and wanted him to continue with the aggressive approach he brought so successfully to the role. "Time" gave him what he regards as "one of the best reviews in my life".

His professional relationship with Steven Berkoff was so successful, in fact, that the two men are now forming a film company and hope to make a feature of WEST. They have aspirations to do more, including EAST, a bold piece concerned with "The murder of Jesus Christ. If it ever gets on it will rock the West End because it is a frightening piece."

Bruce's range, in fact, as can be seen in his television credits, is very wide: there was Birth of a Nation in 1982, followed by four productions in 1983 - Diana, Keep it in the Family, West, and Rough Stage, In 1984 he appeared in Operation Julie, Oscar, The Brief and The Bill.

Bruce's cockney accent slides in and out. In Oxford Blues he played the captain of the boats, he donned all the gear and assumed the "tight voice and that kind of horrible rat face" and was three months in Oxford before anybody knew that this was not the REAL Bruce Payne.

A compulsive and interesting talker, Bruce Payne has clearly considered the background to T.O. and understands the character - his philosophy, his financial problems and his relationship with Billy.

"T.O. is a survivor" says Bruce Payne, and the same can be said of the actor - not only is he a survivor but a winner. He made his debut as recently as 1982, but his relatively short career has been both successful and impressive, and there is promise of much more to come.