It is somehow fitting that I meet Eddie Marsan not in the lounge of some swanky West End hotel or members’ club, but amid the worn wooden chairs and scuffed 1970s wallpaper of his local pub in the villagey West London suburb of Chiswick. For Marsan is not a movie star, but an actor — and that’s the way he likes it.

“I have friends who are leading men, and they’re only ever allowed to play leading men of a certain type,” he says over a lunchtime drink once we’re settled into a corner booth. “But as a character actor, there’s a wider variety of projects available. On the big Hollywood films, all they care about is having their lead in place, so it’s actually easier for someone like me to slip in. And I’m happy to do so.”

“Slipping in” is precisely what the 39-year-old London native has been doing to impressive effect over the last couple of years. After a long apprenticeship in British television, he can now boast having worked with such A-list auteurs as Martin Scorsese (2002′s “Gangs of New York”), Terrence Malick (2005′s “The New World”), Michael Mann (2006′s “Miami Vice”) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu (2003′s “21 Grams”).

2008, however, has been Marsan’s breakthrough year, with two major credits on opposite ends of the creative scale: an appearance opposite Will Smith in summer blockbuster “Hancock,” and now, a career-best performance in Mike Leigh’s serio-comedy “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is garnering well-deserved awards buzz for the actor in the supporting race.

Leigh’s film has just opened in the U.S. to rapturous reviews, much to Marsan’s delight. “I thought the film might go down well in America — better, even, than at home — because they’re not quite as cynical as the British,” he offers, with a slight eye-roll. “I think they’re more willing to buy into an optimistic character.”

That character is most certainly not the one played by Marsan: Scott, the misanthropic, conspiracy-obsessed driving instructor of Sally Hawkins’s permanently sunny protagonist Poppy. His performance is the darkest, most unsettling element of a film described by its own director as “anti-miserablist” — a contrast Marsan wasn’t aware of when he signed on.

“Well, it’s a Mike Leigh film, so of course there was no script,” he explains, referring to the director’s famous workshopping method of script construction, whereby actors build their characters in isolation, oblivious to the larger story or context. “So when I started work with Mike, I thought this character was like Travis Bickle, he’s just so dark and tortured. I thought we must be making ‘Taxi Driver’ or something. I had no idea it was a comedy.”

Marsan laughs at the recollection, but while the film turned out somewhat differently, the Bickle comparison isn’t off-target. “Scott’s driven by fear and resentment,” he says. “The only things that gives him pleasure is blaming other people for the state of his own life, which he takes absolutely no responsibility for. Funnily enough, a lot of people have told me they actually empathize with Scott and can relate to that kind of anger.” He pauses, a wry smile crossing his lips. “I just think he’s a prick.”

That’s not to say he can’t relate to the character at all.  Marsan says Scott represents a part of humanity we can easily slip into, when we let our insecurities get the better of us.  Poppy, on the other hand, is what we should aspire to be.  “She may seem flighty at first, but as the film unfolds, you see how hard she works at making her own happiness,” he says.  “She’s made a decision to be happy. It’s Scott who’s taken the easy way out.”

So genial and good-humored in person, it’s difficult to imagine Marsan tapping into a character so riddled with rage and self-loathing. “Maintaining that level of anger is hard,” he admits. “After my friend Tim Spall saw the film he said to me, ‘Mate, you must be knackered after playing that bloke,’ and he’s right. I think it affected me off-set too — I got really snappy. That’s never happened to me on a film before.”

So he did sympathize with the character to an extent? Marsan shakes his head emphatically. “No, not at all. But I understood him. I hear some actors talk about needing to love every character you play, but you don’t. You just need to understand them.”

“Happy-Go-Lucky” marks Marsan’s second film with Leigh after 2004’s “Vera Drake,” and he’s honored to be a repeat collaborator. “Twenty, thirty years ago, an actor’s versatility was more valued,” he says.  “Now the industry is driven more by casting directors with defined opinions of you and what you can play. Mike is a throwback — he still believes in actors. He’s the antithesis of celebrity.”

While Marsan admits he was more comfortable with Leigh this time around (he admits to being “in awe” of the director at first), the challenge was just as great.  Leigh demands a lot out of his actors, Marsan says.  Developing the character first and building a story around him is certainly a reversal of typicality.  But he frowns, recalling a phrase.  “He tells us, ‘You have to lose sight of the shore to cross the ocean.’”

In comparing his experiences on the two films, Marsan concludes that “Vera Drake” is a “political” film, while “Happy-Go-Lucky” is a more “spiritual” one.  He says the film “moves around in circles,” and in the end, the characters don’t change as much as the audience does.  “I think it’s more about the audience than the characters, and how they see the world,” he says.  “Maybe that makes some audiences uncomfortable.”  And with a shrug: “Good.”

Next up for Marsan will appear in Richard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles” as John Houseman, a producer andtheater collaborator of Welles’s who himself went on to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “The Paper Chase.” On finding archive photos of the young Houseman, it’s difficult not to be struck by the actors’ uncanny resemblance. Marsan nods. “Yeah, I thought Richard had cast me for my acting ability, and I was quite flattered. Then I saw the pictures and I realized all they were after was a looky-likey!” He roars with laughter.

Meanwhile, Marsan has just wrapped a “massive” BBC TV adaptation of Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit,” and this week he began work on Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Tongue somewhat in cheek, Marsan notes the irony that, despite his working-class East End upbringing, he never landed in one of Ritchie’s Cockney gangster sagas, but here plays a Scotland Yard detective.

With so many balls in the air, awards season isn’t exactly the first thing on the actor’s mind, and he admits to not having seen much of the competition.  He has three kids after all, each of them under four.  “I see you have me as a ‘dark horse,’” he notes with a sly smile. “Obviously, awards would be great. I just don’t really think about that.”

He’s less reticent on his co-star’s chances, however. “Sally deserves it all,” he says, his face brightening at the mention of her name. “She’s amazing; I’ve never seen an actor do quite what she does here. Also, it would be so great to see someone like Sally win — someone you don’t know every detail about, who she’s going out with, what she’s wearing, and all that. A real actress.”

It’s another of several mentions Marsan makes of “real” actors; he applies the same adjective when naming the thesps he most admires, including Alec Guinness and Philip Seymour Hoffman. “You look at a guy like Hoffman, and then at what he’s done… he’s an inspiration for any character actor. That’s how you do it.”

It’s an apt note on which to conclude the interview. Looking at Marsan’s steadily ascending career trajectory, and the unnerving power of his performance in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” one senses it might not be long before he’s the subject of similar sentiments.

Related Posts

• INTERVIEW: Sally Hawkins
• U.S. critics wild for ‘Happy’
• Patrick Goldstein falls for ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’
• REVIEW: “Happy-Go-Lucky” (***)
• OFF THE CARPET: Enough foreplay
• Suspicion of optimism