Darius World

Frankly, Darius, I don’t give a damn!

Daily Mail Weekend Magazine 05 April 08

He’s handsome, suave and has defied the critics to star as Rhett Butler in the West End show of Gone With The Wind. But Pop Idol reject Darius Danesh fails to charm Frances Hubbard

The sight of matinee idol- suave Darius Danesh, one- time national laughing stock- turned romantic lead, descending a sweep of gilded stairs at The Ritz hotel in London has gathered an appreciative audience. ‘ He’s very handsome,’ murmurs the hotel’s elegant PR woman. Indeed, he is: tall, impeccably attired in smoking jacket and positively luminous from the attentions of the make- up artist. ( His earlier request that his car wait outside a tanning studio while he was sprayed a more even shade of bronze was denied, owing to the shortage of available outlets open at 8am, but he doesn’t seem to have suffered.)

Smooth as treacle, he bestows equal charm on all, from the photographer to the waitress who brings the tea. ‘ Thank you sooo much,’ he purrs in his Scottish baritone as she delivers his cup. When I compliment him on his extraordinary eyelashes, which would not look out of place on a Jersey cow, he acknowledges it with a flutter and a ‘ gosh, that’s sooo kind of you’.

Not only is Darius lovely to look at, he is talented and successful. The theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn has given him the plum role of Rhett Butler in the musical adaptation of Gone With The Wind, a major West End production for which Hollywood stars such as the X- Men’s Hugh Jackman were considered. He has already starred as Sky Masterson in Guys And Dolls and Billy Flynn in Chicago.

Here’s the problem: despite Darius’s graciousness and undoubted ability; despite his melting brown- eyed gaze and his broad, hairy chest, glimpsed between costume changes, he has bored me stupid before we’re 15 minutes into the interview. Please, no more on the Meisner Method acting technique. Irritation sets in shortly afterwards. He is only 27, but speaks like a sage with a counselling qualification, or an addict of self- help books that preach balance and detachment as the path to true bliss. There are moments when his voice is sooo soft with compassion that it disappears from the tape of the interview altogether.

Darius’s tendency to waffle also makes him evasive. I ask about his girlfriend, the ravishing Canadian actress Natasha Henstridge, 34, whom he met when he went to Los Angeles to record his second album. They are now living together in Hollywood.

‘ Do you know,’ he replies, ‘ I would love to talk more about it, and I don’t mean in any way not to answer you or antagonise you after you asked such a simple question, and I understand the thought, but right now I’m in a relationship with a wonderful woman and the details are something we both wish to keep special.

‘ I realise, having spoken so openly and freely about my relationships in the past, that actually there’s something wonderful about knowing that part of my life is private.’

All right, all right. They have been together for almost four years, and it must indicate that things are going well when he refers to her as ‘ his other half’. Natasha has two sons from a previous relationship, Tristan, nine, and six- year- old Asher, whom he speaks of with great fondness. He seems so taken with the idea of fatherhood that I suspect he is broody.

‘ Rhett is certainly broody,’ he reveals, not very thrillingly. ‘ Of course, I’d love to have children of my own blood one day, but I feel, in a sense, that I am doing these things already. It is an incredible privilege and joy to be a responsible figure within the lives of two young children, and I can say that it has brought out a lot of fatherly instincts and that very protective feeling that, without a shadow of hesitation, you would die for them. I think the idea of providing and nurturing, that’s the most wonderful thing to do in life.

‘ And just going back to the idea of Rhett for a minute, it is through having a child with Scarlett O’Hara that he is absolutely transformed by love for his family. I think, to be a good husband, you have a responsibility to more than just yourself.’

It is possible that the rather earnest Darius I am seeing today is just trying to live up to the gravitas of his new role. Forget the Hollywood version of Rhett with his Clark Gable smirk and swagger, Darius is keen to emphasise the political importance ( sleep threatens) of the original Margaret Mitchell book.

Actually, Darius would be a most effective swaggerer. He was invited to audition for the part by the musical director Gareth Valentine, who knew him through the tenth anniversary run of Chicago, and must have appreciated his macho appeal. ‘ My first reaction was, “ You’re joking – Trevor Nunn is one of my heroes,”’ he recalls. ‘ I was supposed to be flying back to Los Angeles the next day, but I postponed my flight. I walked into the audition cold: I wasn’t given the music until I literally got in the door. I kept getting the call- backs and I couldn’t believe my luck, but I still didn’t think I’d get the role. Trevor didn’t have a finalised script, so the material kept changing and new songs kept on being thrown at me.

‘ It was always prefixed with, “ You don’t have to do this because I know it’s impossible to ask of you…” and that was like a red rag to a bull. I just couldn’t wait to get my teeth into it because I love to be in dangerous situations, and this was the musical equivalent of sky- diving. It was like an army assault course; like jumping through hoops of fire – the toughest audition process I’ve ever been through.

‘ Portraying one of the most iconic fictional characters in history is an absolute career highlight. It’s the most exciting and challenging thing that I’ve faced so far. I’m dedicating my life to this for the foreseeable future, because I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be in a position of working with a living master [ Nunn].’

To appreciate quite how far Darius has come, it is necessary to revisit his first television appearance on the TV talent show Popstars when he was a 20- year- old English literature student at Edinburgh University. Too hard up to get a decent haircut, he sported an unflattering goatee beard and made a twit of himself during the final stages with an overwrought version of the Britney Spears’ hit, Baby One More Time. Lesser men would have crawled away to die of shame. He came back the following year and finished in third place on Pop Idol, behind Will Young and Gareth Gates.

He made a typically defiant vow to have a platinum- selling album before he was 30 – though I bet he’d now distance himself from such bumptious behaviour – and a self- written number one hit single, Colourblind, followed. His first album, Dive In, went platinum. Within remarkably little time, Darius reinvented himself as credible performer, with help from producer Steve Lillywhite, who had worked with U2 and Travis.

He admits that he ‘ always, always’ wanted to go to Rada drama school as a boy, but didn’t quite have the courage to force the issue with his doctor parents. His decision to study English was a compromise between his thespian impulses and their more practical medical or legal ambitions for him. Barely three years ago he was still denying his desire to act.

‘ Ah, at the time, I couldn’t discuss it because my record company wanted the focus to be on my music. It’s so funny that people want to pigeon- hole performers: you’re either a singer or you’re a songwriter, and if you’re not that, you’re an actor, and if you’re an actor, then you can’t be a singer, and it’s just… wrong.’

His Iranian- born father, Booth Danesh, is a retired consultant gastroenterologist and his mother, Avril, is a Glasgow GP. Booth’s father had been an ambassador to the Shah of Iran and he had to flee the country when the old regime was overthrown in 1979 – the family then settled in Scotland.

Darius likes to talk of heroes and Booth remains his greatest influence; all the more inspiring since surviving what was thought to be terminal cancer. In 2004, after a long period of feeling unwell, he was finally diagnosed and given months to live. Against all the medical odds, he responded to treatment to shrink the orange- sized tumour in his pelvis and he remains in remission. Darius dedicated his second album, Live Twice, to Booth.

‘ My two brothers and I were gathered round his deathbed – that’s what we believed – and he said to us, “ I want you to make me one promise: that you will pursue your life passions and your dreams, and not sacrifice happiness for anything else.” His words really resonated. I realised how lucky I was to be given all these wonderful opportunities, but something I hadn’t fulfilled was my desire to act. So, I started pursuing that. The wonderful turn in the tale is that my father was able to then see the performances. He’d wanted to act himself as a teenager, but he wasn’t allowed. When he tells me how fulfilling it is to save lives, there’s still a twinkle in his eye, and he has a kind of romantic longing when we talk about the stage.

‘ I love the idea that I’m able to make my parents happy through my profession, absolutely. They gave me a moral compass and a real understanding of what it means to have a set of values as a reference for your work and your family life.

‘ The two things that have had a massive impact on my life in the past seven years have been nothing to do with the work that I do. They’ve been facing the prospect of losing my father and being involved with Natasha’s boys. I don’t think of myself as ambitious, but as someone who simply wants to be the best he can be: as a son, as a partner, as a singer – and to live in the moment. All the goals and targets in the world mean nothing unless you’re happy, you love and you’re loved.’

Whatever the mellow, new- model Darius says about his lack of ambition – which I don’t believe – does he ever allow himself a satisfied smile at what he’s achieved since doubters, such as Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell, sneered at his early cheesiness and boundless self- belief?

‘ Not at all! Oh no, no, no, no! It’s not in my nature to think like that. Not even a little of “ Nanana- na- na, look at me now!” I went through a hellish time at some points, but I absolutely believe in taking responsibility for your actions, and I truly believe in the idea of learning from your past experiences.’

The last Rhett may not have given a damn, but Darius cares very much indeed, about almost everything. Gone With The Wind opens today at the New London Theatre.