Chancer: A welcome glimpse of the young Clive Owen

by Robin Rowe

RATING: HHH

13-hour TV series made Clive Owen a star, available on Acorn Media DVD

SANTA MONICA: “I’m always attracted to dangerous characters,” says Clive Owen who played the lead role in the British 1990 television series Chancer. “Those roles are usually far more interesting, and I hold no fears about doing them. There’s something to play if there’s conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is that’s where drama is. If the character is grappling with something, you’ve got something to play. There’s layers there.”

     “For several years I did have the Chancer label around my neck,” says Owen, “but it’s never really worried me.” At the time, Owen was 26 years old. He had trouble coping with the attention of the tabloids. Under constant scrutiny were Owen’s marriage, the death of his best friend, and the relationship with his estranged Country and Western singer father.

     “I found the public property bit difficult to cope with at first,” says Owen. “Being recognized in pubs or restaurants and people wanting to know whether Clive Owen was like Derek Love took me a while to get used to.”

     “In the first series, Derek had little to lose but in the second he's even more dangerous because he's got absolutely nothing to lose,” says Clive Owen. “Although he's devious and dangerous, in many ways he is a very moral character. The dodgy deals he carries out are always on behalf of other people, not himself.”

      Clive Owen was a surprise break-out hit in the British television series about a lovable rogue who rescues a failing car manufacturer. Chancer had nine million viewers, 70% of them female. The lovable con man goes by the names Stephen Crane and Derek Love in the series. Clive Owen has much of the screen time in the 13-hour series.

     “The thing that I really like about Crane is that although he can be ruthless he is unerringly honest and never lies to anyone, he would never hurt people just to get his own way,” says Owen. “He’s dangerous but it’s clear from the outset that he’s no James Bond either. In the end that’s one of the things that make him such a real character.”

     Owen’s character in Chancer may be no James Bond, he was the public’s top choice to be the next James Bond, according to a 2005 Sky News poll. In 2005, Owen appeared in Frank Miller’s Sin City. The James Bond role went to Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Owen was the professor/hitman in The Bourne Identity, Arthur in King Arthur, and was Sir Walter Raleigh in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

     The first season presents a trader with a shrewd knack for getting out of and into financial difficulties. Susannah Harker, the girlfriend, would become identified later with the role of demure sister Jane in the BBC series Pride & Prejudice. In Chancer she has a hearty appreciation for sex. You’ll also recognize Jane’s father from Pride & Prejudice, Benjamin Whitrow. In Chancer he’s the struggling president of the motor company that builds Morgan-like roadsters. Louise Lombard, who was Evangeline in House of Eliott, joins Chancer in its second season. And in the second season, the show takes a dark dramatic turn. Clive Owen returns as a broken man pursued by crazed financier Thomas Franklyn. There are highly improbable scams and a shootout involving a baby, but who cares when the attraction is really the charming opportunist Owen?

Chancer, the DVD box set, is available from Acorn Media. The two-season series had an eight-month filming schedule. Now released on DVD in North America, the series originally aired in 1990 and 1991.

DVD 4-Vol. Boxed Set: 13 episodes, 650 min.

SRP: $59.99. http://www.acornmedia.com/