Roth goes behind the camera

By TARA DEMPSEY

British actor Tim Roth has left the acting world for something he finds much more rewarding: directing.

Roth is probably best known to American audiences for his roles in the Quentin Tarantino movies Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. He also received an Academy Award nomination in 1995 for his role in Rob Roy.

Roth lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children. While he enjoys working in the United States, he is very concerned about the amount of guns in this country.

"You [Americans] have this huge addiction to guns," he said. "I don't want my kids to be a victim of a random bullet. And it's not helped by various bad actors and their attitudes to certain gun legalization."

Despite his worries, Roth admitted he has been treated very well in America.

"I have been treated better by press over here than I have in my own country. I've been treated incredibly well here, but [the guns are] a problem."

He made his directorial debut in the independent British film The War Zone, which endured a limited release in December, but was shown at numerous film festivals and screenings throughout 1999 and received rave reviews. The film, set in the English countryside, is a traumatic tale about a16-year-old boy, Tom, who discovers his father is sexually abusing his sister Jessie.Roth thought it was essential to get non-actors to play the roles of Tom and Jessie.

"I thought if I took two young people that hadn't acted before and put them amongst high-grade actors, it would rub off on them," he said. "The opposite was true: they rubbed off on the actors."

The War Zone deals with the tragedy of incest. Roth has been touring with the film for a year, attending seminars and question and answer sessions after screenings. Often the press was not allowed to attend these sessions.

"Sometimes somebody will start talking for the first time and it will be in the press the next day, and that's not fair," he said.

Roth not only demonstrated concern for his audience, but his cast and crew as well. He was careful to ensure that everyone had a good time on the set.

"We had a budget put aside for parties. Anyone who started moaning was fired. They were given a good letter of recommendation but were dismissed immediately," Roth said. "It was tough, but it was also fun. I designed it that way."

Roth first appeared on the screen in Made in Britain (1982), which is his favorite role to date, and has been featured in 37 films, primarily on the independent circuit. On film sets he was always interested in what was going on outside of his scenes.

"Your experience with filming as an actor is minimal," Roth said. "Actors just go back to their trailers, but there's so much going on Ð it's a fascinating place."

Roth learned about directing by watching those he worked with and said the directors who have had the strongest influence on him have been the bad ones.

"The bad directors I've worked with are really the strongest influence because to be directed by somebody badly is an abomination," he said. "It's so scary and I've worked with a lot of bad directors."

Roth refused to give names, but he did acknowledge that Tarantino was not one of them. Roth is happy to be behind the camera and is looking forward to directing more films.

"Maybe I've found something I was supposed to do in the first place," he said. "Maybe everything was training for this."