(W Magazine) With his moody pout, cascading curls and buttery diction, Hugh Dancy has played his share of literate hunks and dashing princes—from Prince Charmant in Ella Enchanted to the handsome science fiction fan in The Jane Austen Book Club. But the British actor has also taken on darker dramatic roles, among them the WWI soldier in the 2007 Broadway revival of the play Journey’s End and a young engineer with Asperberger’s syndrome in the 2009 film, Adam. The son of a philosophy professor and a mother who worked in academic publishing, Dancy, who married Claire Danes last year, studied English literature at Oxford before turning to acting. Tonight, Dancy returns to the New York stage in the American premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride at MCC Theater, starring opposite Ben Whishaw and Andrea Riseborough. Dancy plays two Londoners named Philip, one in 1958 who refuses to acknowledge his homosexuality, the other in 2008 who is openly gay and longing for a committed relationship. Dancy chatted with W just before opening night.

What drew you to The Pride?
The eloquence of the writing was just gripping—and I thought the structure was incredibly intelligent. It dramatizes a point—that the assumptions of a culture 50 years ago can still permeate and affect our culture now. To put it bluntly, I don’t often sit down and read dialogue between two characters that I think feels real and rich and heightened without being unnatural. So I was just sitting at home reading this stuff to myself and having a wale of a time. I love investigating a character who can not only lie to other people about who he is, but really, truly lie to himself about who he is.

Having worked here and in Britain, do you think Americans make much more of an issue of the fact that a character is gay than the Brits do? Especially when played by a straight actor?
I think probably it is more of an issue here. The tabloid press in the UK is as bad as it gets in terms of many things, but it seems to me that here in the States, there’s a particular fascination in terms of unearthing the idea that somebody might be gay. It’s not something I understand. It’s a strange form of paranoia.

You’ve played a number of literate heroes. Any roles that you’d love to play that are against type? Any dream roles that you’d love to tackle?
I think that I’m always interested in what I haven’t done. I see great variety in the roles I’ve played whereas some could say, “Well they’re all bookish hero types.” Wouldn’t everyone love to play a villain?

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(New York Times) Even at this point in awards season, things can begin to seem a fait accompli, with the same names — Mo’Nique and Christoph and George and Kathryn — getting, and giving, the full-court press. But the Bagger is mindful that there are always wrenches in the final nominee lists (remember Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor” and Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”?). Also, it’s a slow week, and there’s time to luxuriate in interviews that don’t involve dodging trays of canapés and fans with outstretched camera phones.

So the Bagger had afternoon tea recently with Hugh Dancy, the fine-featured British actor best known for parts as the romantic lead in movies like “Ella Enchanted” and “The Jane Austen Book Club” (and for being married to Claire Danes). His performance as a young engineer with Asperger’s syndrome in “Adam,” a tiny film made and released on a shoestring, drew critical praise. (As Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in The Times: “Playing a character who is mentally disabled can be a fast track to Oscar or to oblivion, and rare is the actor who can resist the statuette-winning, Hanks-Hoffman strategy of mannered tics and mechanical talk. And when you consider that not even Sean Penn could pull it off without making our eyeballs cringe, the performance of Hugh Dancy in the charming romantic comedy ‘Adam’ is all the more impressive.”)

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@JenniferBeale1 interviewed Hugh for The Coastal Source. You can check it out by clicking either “Read more” below (the player autoplays) or clicking that link.

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Sophie Kinsella’s bestselling book series, which started with Confessions of a Shopaholic and spawned four additional novels, heads to the big screen with Isla Fisher playing Rebecca Bloomwood (the ‘Shopaholic’) and Hugh Dancy co-starring as her editor/love interest. At the helm is director PJ Hogan, no stranger to the romantic comedy genre having directed Muriel’s Wedding and My Best Friend’s Wedding. Hogan welcomed a shot at bringing the popular fictional characters to life onscreen.

At the press conference to promote Confessions of a Shopaholic, author Kinsella, director Hogan, and Dancy talked about the timeliness of the film which follows the exploits of a young women who can’t stop herself from shopping.