Actor Laurence Fox Swears at Heckler During Play, Apologizes

Actor Laurence Fox in London
Laurence Fox attends the 'W.E.' premiere during the 55th BFI London Film Festival at Empire Leicester Square on October 23, 2011. The actor broke from his performance and swore at a heckler this week. Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images For The BFI

The British actor Laurence Fox has apologized for stopping his performance and swearing at a heckler during a play in London on Tuesday.

The TV and stage star—a member of the famous Fox acting family who is married to former Doctor Who actor Billie Piper—became distracted by an audience member in the front row while onstage in a production of The Patriotic Traitor at London's Park Theatre.

Near the end of the performance, he reportedly said , "I won't bother telling you the story because this c--t in the front row has ruined it for everybody," before storming off stage.

Fox says he was "very upset" by the outburst which came at a seminal point of the play in which he portrays former French president Charles de Gaulle. "Can I just start by apologizing to the other 199 people in the theatre for my use of language," he said in appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today show on Thursday. "It was a very emotional part of the play and I was very upset about it and am upset about how I behaved."

The 37 year old, best known for his role in ITV's detective drama Lewis , told the programme the patron "started muttering and heckling" earlier in the evening and it eventually "became so loud and impossible to deal with."

In hindsight, however, Fox wishes he had handled the situation differently—sharing advice his father, veteran actor James Fox, gave him after the incident. The senior Fox told him to "prepare a little speech" and address disruptive audience members politely.

"I really should have had a little speech prepared and gone, 'Excuse me, sir, you can either leave, or whatever.' But instead, in the heightened emotion of the thing, I told him to er…," added Fox.

The Patriotic Traitor is a dramatization of Charles de Gaulle's fractured friendship with French politician Philippe Petain—played by Tom Conti—in the midst of the Second World War. It continues at the Park Theatre until March 19.

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