The Last Romantics

It was always rather exciting when ever my agent phoned with a job. You never knew what production she was going to put you in or what stars you would meet along the way. It must have been Spring 1991 when she rang me and said do I want to have a small part in a film called 'Q'. She said it stars Ian Holm and Leo McKern.

I decided to accept the job. I would appear in the film as one of the students and would be in several scenes. Basically the film was about Cambridge University in the 1960's and was based around the study of English verse.

On the first day it was the usual thing. Arrive at 6.00am have breakfast from the catering van then go into make up and get that days clothes on, then hang around for hours doing nothing until the crew were ready for the first shoot.
The first couple of scenes we filmed was myself and a few others walking through the grounds protesting and chanting 'We haven't got a dean we've got a nazi' or something like that. Then we had to confront Ian Holm who was a teacher, with an argument on a stair case.
But the guy who told us what to chant was not a director but one of the protesters! He seemed rather upset that he had to tell us what to do himself and not some Director! Anyway we filmed this section all day. In between takes I chatted to him, he was a nice bloke.

I did not know him, at this point I did not know it was Rufus Sewell.

When we had lunch we all sat on the grass and soaked up the sun. Ian Holm kept himself to himself in his trailer. But Rufus sat with us on the grass and chatted to us. I remember him telling me that he had just finished a film were he had to snog Patsy Kensit. So as time went on I realised that he was an up and coming actor. He was very down to earth. He liked his smoke in between takes and I remember thinking that he had a great voice.

So through out the 2 weeks working on the film I spoke to him quite a few times, just general chit chat. When I actually saw the film on television which I think was the following January I did not realise how much of a big part he had. He did say that 'Q' was just the working title and it would probably be released as 'The Last Romantics'. Little did I know that one day Madonna would want to go out with him or that he would date Kate Winslet! I did this kind of work from 1991 to 1994 the last one being Eastenders. Then I knocked it on the head because I was fed up with all the waiting around on sets. Very boring! But a couple of weeks ago I phoned my old agent and told her I would not mind doing some more work. So I am now back on the books. Anyway Rufus was a good bloke! Kevin Dean 14/6/99