Actor takes green message to the screen

TWICE in the career of celebrated actor Pete Postlethwaite a role has come along which meshed perfectly with his personal passions.

First in 1993's In the Name of the Father, he played Belfast father Giuseppe Conlon who died while behind bars protesting his innocence at terrorism charges. Eleven years after his death, Conlon's conviction was overturned.

"As well as being an actor, I'm a human being and I have my own spiritual and political views," says Postlethwaite.

"When you're asked to do something like In The Name Of The Father - a case of injustice I'd followed for many years - well, you just leap at the chance."

Similarly in 1996, Postlethwaite grabbed the opportunity to star in the unexpected hit Brassed Off, depicting the hard-bitten lives of miners whose pit was facing closure.

"Even the miners would say that fighting for this kind of work seems odd - there's a paradox," remembers Postlethwaite. "Who wants men to go and work in those conditions? But you don't risk a community by closing them down carte blanche."

Postlethwaite admits that his latest film, The Age of Stupid, part-documentary, part-social commentary, opening this Thursday, is another occasion when "form and content" came together.

"You grasp it. You believe in it and endorse it," he says.

"Yes, you are still being an actor, but I found that very exciting."

In The Age of Stupid, Postlethwaite is thrust forward to 2055 to play a caretaker who is looking after the "global archive" in a post-apocalyptic world broken and torn by climate change.

From conception to realisation, The Age of Stupid is unlike any other major documentary film.

Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and producer John Battsek worked for five years on the film - originally a documentary about the impact of the oil industry which became a film about the impact of climate change.

The movie was "crowd-funded" where 228 groups and individuals contributed between $1000 and $70,000. A hockey team and a woman's health centre were among the funders.

Even now, the film is still actively raising cash through its internet site to help distribute the film in Australia and New Zealand. A $900 donation can pay for the certification of the film or $30 can pay for copies of the film sent out to cinemas.

Battsek has said that going to such extraordinary lengths meant that no external forces could dictate the content or subjects of the film which reveals the conduct of oil company Shell in Nigeria and is critical of the all-pervasive nature of rampant advertising-driven consumerism.

"I don't know any films that have been done like that," says Postlethwaite, whose arrival on the project was also unconventional.

Not until late into the film's production did director Armstrong create a central character to ask - from the perspective of 2055 - why the world had failed to act on climate change.

She was desperate for Postlethwaite to take the role of the archivist but initially conceded she would never be able to afford him.

But after reading a newspaper article on Postlethwaite's plans to install a wind turbine at his Shropshire home, she wondered if his passion for the environment might swing in her favour.

"Originally I thought I was booked to do a voice-over," confesses Postlethwaite.

"But when I got there Franny said, 'Now you know I've not got much money, but we've got this little caravan over there with a costume'. It was all a bit of a shock, but that's just the way these things get done. It was all a bit on the hoof. You get involved with them and you just do it. And we did it.

"There are times when (the film) makes you very angry but it also makes you feel pretty chastened."

Shortly before the movie premiered in London, Postlethwaite had publicly stated that if plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in England were allowed to go ahead (plans which, along with all building of coal power in Britain, is now the subject of a moratorium), he would hand back his OBE to the Queen.

"With Kingsnorth, I was very angry at the time but now there's been a stay of execution," he says.

"We can't suddenly scrap all the power stations, but we can start to look at replacing them with better things and that takes time and money. But that's what it needs.

"The Age of Stupid is there to create debate and to be in the public forum. I like it because it's not didactic - it's just what we found. You can take it or leave it."

Postlethwaite's own passion for the environment has been translated into solar panels, wind turbines, biomass heaters and lambswool roof insulation in his home.

During the film, Postlethwaite's character reports how his children were too busy trying to cope with social unrest and wild weather to find time to be angry at his generation.

But the man himself is more hopeful that the current generation - including his own children aged 13 and 20 - will be able to turn the planet's fortunes around.

"I think they are on to it," he says.

"I think they'll show the way and they will show how we screwed up. I've a great deal of hope in that."

• The Age of Stupid opens Wednesday, when director Franny Armstrong and star Pete Postlethwaite will take part in a debate to be beamed live to more than50cinemas across Australia and New Zealand. For details visit www.ageofstupid.net