Portrait of the Artist: exhibition highlights – in pictures

Jane Asher gets into costume for The Importance of Being Earnest at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London, September 2011. 'I have interviewed both halves of several artistic couples for this series,' says Barnett, 'director Gregory Doran and actor Antony Sher; artists Michael Landy and Gillian Wearing; and illustrator Gerald Scarfe and Jane Asher. Asher was very charming. At heart, she said, she was a frustrated scientist: “I imagine myself in a white coat, making some amazing discovery.”' Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Wes Anderson at the Soho Hotel, London, February 2010. 'This interview took place in a dark hotel suite, next to a huge cut-out of the characters from Anderson's latest film, Fantastic Mr Fox. Anderson has a high, reedy voice; pale, china-doll skin; and a keen sense of humour. “I can't say I deeply appreciate tapestry,” he said when I asked if there was an art form he didn’t relate to. But he was candid, too: “Well, I'm 40 and I don't have children yet”, he said in answer to the question “Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?”. “I do want to have them: perhaps I already would, if I wasn't so involved with these movies.”'
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Singer Macy Gray, London, May 2010. 'I met Gray on a dull afternoon in the penthouse suite of a swanky hotel on London’s Park Lane. The interview was a little late starting, and as minions rushed around administering to the singer’s every need, I worried she would prove terribly grand. I was wrong: she quickly warmed to the questions, and was candid about prejudice in the music industry. “If you’re black and you don’t do R&B or hip-hop, then you’re going to have a very long haul – there’s only one Lenny Kravitz, one Tracy Chapman,” she said. “But the fans don’t care who’s singing. If you hear a great song, you don’t care if it’s by a 90-year-old green person.”'
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Actor Frances Barber backstage at Wyndham's Theatre, London, April 2009. 'Sarah Lee’s portrait of Frances Barber, sneaking a cigarette in costume for a production of Madame de Sade, captures her brilliantly. It’s exactly how Barber was when we spoke on the phone: funny and quick, with an infectious, throaty laugh. Judi Dench (her co-star, on the poster behind her) got a mention, too. I asked Barber what the best advice anyone had ever given her was, and she said: “Years ago, Judi told me, ‘Don't argue with the director, darling; just say yes and then do it in whatever way you were thinking of anyway.’ Now, I never, ever argue.”' Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Actor Meera Syal, east London rehearsal room, October 2011. 'Syal was frank and upbeat, describing her earliest experience of performing, aged three, on the bus with her mother in exchange for sweets. She also issued a challenge to casting directors. “It’s inevitable for black and Asian actors to be typecast,” she said. “It happens to everyone in our profession, whether they’re fat, posh or ginger. The challenge is to make people see you differently.”'
Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian

Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe in his London studio, July 2008. 'Linda Nylind took this wonderful photograph of cartoonist Gerald Scarfe at work in his home office. When we spoke, he was honest about his disdain for ballet – “it’s very strange that in such an elegant art form you have men with bulging crotches, and ladies continually showing their knickers” – and about the benefits of the internet. “At one time, when I worked for the New Yorker,” he said, “I used to have to put my drawings on Concorde to get them there on time. Now you press a button and they’re there.”'
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Singer and actor Minnie Driver at Gibson Studios, London, May 2008. 'Driver talked about her love of her black Labrador, Cate Blanchett and Stevie Wonder, and debunked the myth that making movies is “all Cartier jewellery and boob jobs. Most actors are actually busy working 15-hour days.”'
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Antony Sher backstage at the National Theatre, London, February 2013. 'I spoke to Sher during a brief lunch-break on one of the last rehearsal days for his play, The Captain of Köpenick. He spoke frankly about life with his partner, RSC boss Gregory Doran – “it works well: we’re able to be genuinely interested in one another’s work and come at it from a different perspective” – and about the lowest point of his career: a cocaine dependency, which he kicked back in 1996.'
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

Actor Olivia Williams, in her dressing room at the Vaudeville theatre, London, May 2011. 'Williams was refreshingly honest about the parts of her career she’d rather forget. “After my spell in Hollywood, I did a series of British independent movies, none of which were hits,” she said when I asked her if there was anything she regretted about her career. “But I did get to drive in a car with Bill Nighy.”
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Ballet dancer Tamara Rojo in a rehearsal studio at the Royal Opera House, London, June 2008. 'Rojo is now artistic director of English National Ballet; in 2008, she was an acclaimed principal at the Royal Ballet. She was impeccably polite, and revealed a questing, wide-ranging intelligence. Her favourite film, she said, was Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier; and, perhaps giving an indication of the direction her career would take, she said she often lay awake at night “worrying about the future of dance”.'
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Comedian Jack Dee working on his TV sitcom, Lead Balloon, October 2006. 'Jack Dee was our first interviewee for the Portrait of the Artist series. “Woody Allen has always been a hero of mine,” he said when asked who he’d most like to work with, “although I’d draw the line at a sex scene with him.” And the best advice he’d give a young comedian? “Don’t nick my jokes.”'
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Comedian Lee Mack, by the river Thames, near Kingston, November 2010. 'Mack expressed a distaste for realism in comedy. “Since The Office,” he said, with evident irritation, “everyone has this idea that comedy is only good if it reflects the way people really speak. But that’s nonsense.” He wasn't keen on dancing, either, despite being married to a former ballet-dancer. Which artist did he most look up to? Frank Skinner.'
Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian

Comedian Frank Skinner, London, November 2011. 'I expected a snarky, slippery comic who’d evade my questions with jokes. I got a polite, softly-spoken professional, with a wide-ranging taste in art that might surprise his average fan. The painting he most wanted to own was Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. “It reminds me,” he explained, “that you always think what’s happening to you is momentous, but in the whole scale of life you’re just a foot sticking out of the water.”'
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Jo Brand at the Dome Cinema, Worthing, December 2010. 'Brand gets the prize for telling me one of the meanest things any of the artists interviewed for this series have had said about them. On her wedding day, she said, the Sun newspaper ran the headline “Here comes the bride, all fat and wide”. “Luckily,” she laughed, “it was a few days after the wedding – but it was still hideous to read at a great romantic moment.” She remains one of the friendliest and funniest people I’ve interviewed.' Photograph: Andrew Hasson for the Guardian

Crime writer Ian Rankin by the Union Canal, Edinburgh, December 2012. 'I spoke to Rankin over the phone, towards the end of what I suspect had been a long and tedious day of interviews. But he was extremely polite, and as knowledgeable as his legions of fans would expect. (We ended up running an extended version of his interview online.) He talked about the potential of new media for writers – “there’s a great deal of opportunity out there if you’ve got the right story” – and was dismissive of novelists who claim to have spent many years writing a book. “Whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel,” he said, “I’d think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, ‘No – it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.’”
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian

Dancer Lauren Cuthbertson in a rehearsal room at the Royal Opera House, London, February 2011. 'Fun and friendly, with an admirable ability to laugh at herself, Cuthbertson gave a strong sense of why she’s such a popular dancer at the Royal Ballet. “Live a lot, love a lot and laugh a lot,” she said when I asked for the advice she’d give a young dancer. “It’s no good perfecting a ballet step if you don’t have enough experience of life to really put across the emotions of the ballet.”
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

Actor Mickey Rooney at the Sunderland Empire, preparing for his pantomime debut as Baron Hardup in Cinderella, December 2007. 'It was a freezing winter day, and I had been invited to the top floor of a shopping-centre in London for a brief audience with Rooney – what is known in the business as a “junket”: dazed actors paired up with journalists like speed-daters; worried-looking PRs hurrying about with clip-boards. Rooney grasped his wife’s hand throughout our interview, looking thoroughly bewildered – but the devilish humour captured in this portrait by Murdo Macleod came through. The best moments of his career, he said, had included “meeting US presidents - I’ve met eight of them, including Nixon and George Bush father and son - and the Queen. She had a real twinkle in her eye.”'
Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian

Artist Maggi Hambling in her London studio, next to her portrait of a fatally wounded hammerhead shark, June 2011. 'I wish I’d been able to meet Hambling in person: I’ve always admired her lack of pretension (just look at her brandishing that cigarette), not to mention her art. But our phone interview was still fascinating: her voice is deep and cultured, like a 1930s radio announcer. She was candid about the criticism – even vandalism - of her sculpture on Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk. “I learned very early on, from [an] art mistress, that criticism really has to be water off a duck’s back. You have to carry on, whether people want you to or not.”'
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

Magician Paul Daniels in the dressing room at Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage, December 2011. 'Martin Argles’ portrait shows that the life of a famous magician isn't all glamour. He was polite but brisk, and damning of modern art: “I can paint rubbish just as well as anyone,” he said, “or crush a dustbin up and put it in a museum.” I enjoyed hearing his description of his favourite trick, by a man called Max Malini. “He used to do this tiny little vanishing coin trick: you just pick up a coin and put it under a piece of paper, and it disappears.”'
Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Comic Phil Jupitus at the Stand Club, Edinburgh, August 2011. 'I spoke to Jupitus just ahead of his much-anticipated return to standup at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe. We discussed his Steve Martin obsession (“when I started performing as a poet,” he admitted, “I would occasionally nick one of his lines and stick it in between poems”), and how he would like to be remembered. “Fondly,” he said, adding, “but I’ll probably just be ‘that bloke off that thing’.”
Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian

Artist Marc Quinn in his studio, London, October 2008. 'What has Quinn sacrificed for his art? “My health and sanity,” he said. “When I started out, I lived in a squat with no heating – it was also my studio. I had to drink vodka to keep warm.” His advice to young artists? “Just get on with it.” He also fondly recalled an early review. “A newspaper critic said of my 1997 sculpture Shit Head that it was the first time he could truly say an artist’s work was shit.”' Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Actor Stephen Mangan, at the Royal Court theatre, London, July 2012. 'Mangan discussed the differences between British and American TV comedy. “Actors in America have to be prettier," he said. "Biceps aren’t as highly prized [in the UK].” What was the biggest myth about being an actor? “That we’re all needy, self-obsessed, narcissistic nymphomaniacs. We’re not needy.” He also revealed a serious side, telling me that his biggest challenge had been filming the second series of Green Wing while his father was dying of cancer.'
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

Theatre director Paulette Randall at the Tricycle Theatre, London, November 2008. 'Randall was about to direct the play Up Against the Wall at the Octagon theatre in Bolton. She told me that she didn’t like the idea of suffering – “I like hard work, but suffering doesn’t bring out the best in anybody” – and revealed her 24-hour rule: “I never make any big decisions without thinking about it for a day”.'
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Richard Hartley

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Portrait of the Artist: exhibition highlights – in pictures

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