Phil Daniels: A mod for all seasons

Phil Daniels has been many things - a teen star in 'Quadrophenia', the voice of Blur's 'Parklife' and an RSC regular. Now he's returned to the stage, and Sam Marlowe asks him who he really is

It must be odd, at the age of 44, to be regarded as a teen rebel – especially if, like Phil Daniels, you've been so much else. On TV, Daniels was a lecherous drunk in Al Murray's comedy series Time Gentlemen Please and a bulimic restaurant critic in Tony Marchant's critically acclaimed drama Holding On. He's appeared onstage at the RSC, the National Theatre and the Royal Court.

He's made quite a few films, too – yet most people would be hard-pressed to name more than one of them. At 19, Daniels starred as the mixed-up mod Jimmy in Quadrophenia, The Who and Franc Roddam's tale of gang warfare and teenage kicks. And, despite all he's done since, that's how we remember him – speeding on his scooter through neon-lit London streets, high on life and a handful of pills, as Roger Daltrey screams on the soundtrack: "Can you see the real me? Can yer? Can yer?"

In search of the real Phil Daniels, I set off to London NW3 on a wintry afternoon. By the time I reach his home, fat flakes of snow are falling and I'm soaked and frozen. An unashamedly scruffy Phil, dressed in jogging pants and sweatshirt, glasses perched on the end of his nose and sporting a healthy growth of stubble, ushers me into his warm, bright kitchen, chuckles at my bedraggled state and proffers hot tea.

Daniels is a staggeringly good performer, at once riveting and utterly natural. After making Time Gentlemen Please with him, the comedian Al Murray waxed hyperbolical. "He's the most incredible actor. He could do anything. He's hilarious. And very clever, which he hides a bit."

If Murray is right about the last part, perhaps that's why Daniels makes a tough interviewee. Many of my questions elicit only the responses "I dunno" or "No, not really," followed by silence and an intense stare. It's not that he doesn't want to be helpful – he is friendly and very funny, his unmistakably London nasal drawl peppered with expletives and wry witticisms. But he's an instinctual actor, and I suspect wordy analysis just isn't his bag.

Daniels was born into a north-London working-class family in 1958. Like fellow actors Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke, he caught the acting bug when, as a teenager, he encountered the improvisation-based training techniques of Anna Sher. "She used to go around the local schools doing workshops. Me and a mate did it for a couple of days and took the piss really. But I quite liked it, so I got the address of her school in Islington and carried on going."

This training proved invaluable on Quadrophenia, for which the director Franc Roddam used improvisation heavily. Phil's performance in the film ultimately made his name, yet it didn't bring instant stardom. "It was weird, it only became a big movie later on. Because it had drugs and swearing in it – it wasn't like with that other film, Shoplifting..." Shoplifting? "No, what was it called... Scottish film..." Trainspotting? "Yeah, Trainspotting. When that came along everyone was into it – they were like, oh great, drugs, we love all that. But when we made Quadrophenia, people didn't like that stuff. So it was only about six or seven years after it came out that it became sort of culty."

Daniels is philosophical about the fact that, more than 20 years later, he's still so strongly associated with the role of Jimmy – "It's just one of them things" – but what about his second-most-notorious moment, as vocalist for Britpoppers Blur? It was 1995, the hot summer of Cool Britannia. Daniels was appearing in the West End alongside his old mate Ray Winstone in Patrick Marber's play about male ego and poker, Dealer's Choice. The slick production featured music from Massive Attack's hugely successful – and hip – album Protection. It couldn't all have been more in tune with the Mockney-accented cultural Zeitgeist. Was Daniels aware of that at the time? "No, not really. I hadn't noticed that Britpop was going on," he admits with a grin. "I play football for the NME team, and the editor rang me up and said, 'This band wanna get hold of yer, they want you to do some song.' I said, who are they called, and he said Blur. And I said, 'I've never 'eard of 'em.'"

The single "Parklife" turned out to be an anthemic hit for Blur, complete with Daniels's laconic performance of its nonsensical lyrics. So what was it about? "God knows. Don't ask me. I've done another one with them now that's even odder. It's a dance track, and it's gonna either come out as a white label, or it'll be on their next album. It might," he adds impishly, "be called 'Darklife'."

But pop stardom can wait, because he's busy with Doug Lucie's new play, The Green Man. Lucie gained a considerable reputation for his acerbic satires, notably Fashion, Progress and Hard Feelings, during the 1980s, but has done comparatively little since. He and Daniels met and became friends at the RSC in 1987. The Green Man, which opened last November at the Drum in Plymouth and begins previewing at London's tiny Bush Theatre next week, is set in a pub after closing time. A group of middle-aged men are knocking back whisky, philosophising and planning a fishing trip. Among them are Mitch, the owner of a building firm, and his foreman, Lou (Daniels).

"Lou's an odd sort of bloke – a bit like Doug Lucie himself. He's about 50, he's had two failed marriages, and he can't really deal with the modern world. The Green Man is the name of the pub, but Lou is also a green man. Mitch's firm builds mock Georgian and Tudor houses, and Lou is in conflict with that. He's into the earth and nature, and Blair's Britain is not about that. If you're like Lou, you feel a bit lost, a bit on your own. You're considered odd not to want property, not to want things. Doug's like that. He really does believe that all property is theft. I mean, he would never buy a house – not Doug. And his career has been hit by his beliefs, I think, because he's still very militant."

The play was well received in Plymouth, but Phil reckons London audiences will be "harder work. They're all – you know – critics," he says, with an expression of mild disgust. But whatever the pundits think, there's one bar-room drama on which he's convinced The Green Man is an improvement. "It's less boring than The bloody Iceman Cometh, I'll tell you that!" Not the legendary Almeida production starring Kevin Spacey, surely? The hot ticket most of us would gladly have swapped a kidney for? "Yeah, someone got me a ticket and I wish they 'adn't. Farkin' 'ell, I couldn't believe it!" He adopts a toadying pose and a prissy voice. "'Oh, here comes Kevin Spacey,' and all the actors practically got down on their knees!"

Phil Daniels may not be the skinny teenager he was in 1977, but just for a second, with that brilliantly debunking, bolshie manner and that exuberantly contemptuous tone, he could almost be Jimmy again.

'The Green Man' is at the Bush Theatre, London W12 from 19 Feb (020-7610 4224)