British actor Anthony Head is probably best known for his roles wielding coffee cups and crucifixes: He played the smooth-talking neighbor with the mysterious smile in the soap opera-style Taster's Choice commercials, as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fatherly "Watcher," Giles.
Head has since added safe-cracking criminal to his resume with the BBC TV series The Invisibles, which has just been released on DVD in the United States. In it, he plays Maurice, a criminal who comes out of retirement only to discover that his knees — if not his nerves — are not always up to the job.
The Invisibles was also a family affair: One of Head's co-stars was his daughter, Emily.
But Head says his grumpy character, Maurice, was difficult for his family to live with.
"You do, as an actor, you do bring the characters home with you, and they've had to put up with some fairly annoying people in their lives," he says.
Head also talks with Scott Simon about his singing career and those Taster's Choice commercials — or "Gold Blend" commercials, if you watched them in the U.K. Click the 'Listen' button above to hear the interview.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.