Benedict Cumberbatch & Claire Foy | Actors on Actors - Full Conversation

[Music] benedict cumberbatch yes Claire for you when did you first have the kernel of an idea to be an actor well careful to mention everyone's full name so just in case people don't know who we are yeah it's a good start and I the kernel of the idea that's a tricky one because I can't I grew up with it mom and dad are both actors and I sort of you know a bit of you know born aside the trunk I'd been on tour with them I'd seen them I've been stuck around backstage I'd be an on-set side I'd had that sort of understanding of what it was they did for a living very early on I didn't I don't remember there being a thing of oh I have to do this although my godmother says there was a moment I stood on the stage at the RSC where she was working we went to visit her I literally held the Spearmint darkened oratory she was like holy crap he's only about and whatever six or something I just swore as it is a right sick crap okay it's okay we can say that they said on The Simpsons so yeah exactly that's okay but did you your mama dad too kind of repartee theater English corner they were so mom mum's Wanda Ventham and she was she is she's much left and was a big star the sort of 60s 70s did lots of cult classics like UFO the saying the Prisoner and sort of standalone dramas like fallen hero and breakdown and all sorts of things that won her accolades she started in the theater she was going to be part the Peter Brooks band she was pregnant with my sister from who's my house sister but my sister from Mom's first marriage and she then she couldn't do the tour she couldn't commit to the RSC because of because of tracks coming into the world that's her name or our nickname for her and so she started to do more television and film work and just sort of took off dad much more theater he started out I mean he did a huge Center the RSC no sorry not the IC the Royal Court that's really where he in distress he was no Jorge D'Avino me right at the birth of kind of kitchen-sink drama and the working class act and he was the token posh show he was the guy whose petrol tank with a piston by Dennis for he a nice position to be repeatedly in yeah yeah and you know he so he did some extraordinary work using some of John Aldens original pieces like I'm Sergeant Musgrave starts and Patriot for me John Osborne's Patriot yeah very very cool stuff and and then some TV work as well so by the time I came along you know mom's definitely the better known of the two but Dad was working non-stop partly to pay for an education to basically pull me into line with the idea that it was madness to be you know yeah you know peripatetic not me want to plan your family holidays not knowing where the next you know income is going to come from all the uncertainty which was on display in their lives our lives and yet they managed to dial in particular squirrel away enough for a ludicrously expensive education but you know he started that one minute I was born and that was purely to make me see sense and become a doctor a lawyer teacher just something of use to society well yeah continually disappointing them by continuing to be an actor well it's one of the reasons I do it I guess and one of the key motivations is to keep them happy and proud it really is and I might dance it's such a huge thing it makes me sort of well up every time I think about we you know after a wild gang you sure you sure he then saw me at university and I was playing Sonny Aryan Amadeus which is you know it's a wonderful part and he went as in the car park after as he said you're you're better at this than I ever was or ever will be I can't wait to watch you and support you all I think it's gonna be fantastic career I'm going so yeah that was amazing he's amazing when when you were growing up that what they did for a living that's what I don't understand having a truck I don't quite understand how you explain to a child what you do that's it storyteller I think storyteller I think I knew I didn't quite get it I remember one at one time being in the audience of a musical about dr. Bernardo and it wasn't great and he was so sick of it that he I when I waved during one of the big songs and he was back he just completely broke woman much more excited about so I think that was he just dad still you know hmm but then I you know then I did get it and I loved it I remember being backstage my mum went on once an array Cooney fastened behind stage you know it's like buying this that's just a few you know triangular things and some stage weights and people came downstage left exactly like died did you and you are suddenly the minute that door opens and the lights and it sort of heat of it all there's this instant transformation I would just remember my mum just kind of like just becoming something else before going on I went that looks amazing that looks crazy fun and so that's kind of yeah so all over the place as far as a moment I guess because I grew up with it it was a it was a slow burn how about you Claire for I take things I ever did I think I sort of live in denial about the fact that I have in some way ended up actively choosing to do this with my life really yeah because I don't think I ever I think there's a I think I wanted to be really good at something I think everybody does when they grow up they want where you are I could ask you a question you are quite anxious to be on believe you can do any scale upon us you just you are mesmeric to watch on screen and I know what a joy you are cuz you're a friend to work with as well you're kind of you're the full package you're the real deal and it's just it's it's magnificent that the world on the stage of the crown has got to see it on mass and you just it's just the beginning it's so exciting but you get so I think you get so used to kind of I don't know I don't know I really genuinely don't know I think I wanted to I wanted to be good something and I don't think academically I kind of I went to a grammar school which I was really lucky to go to but you know when you're with lots of people who are incredibly gifted because their that's what the probably you go how did you get in was it your acting what did you know so I failed my 12 plus and I got in because my mum had to go to a loose it accounts and I kind of give them like a portfolio of and why I could possibly get in you have to appeal okay what really worked in my favor was the fact that my brother and sister had both got in on their own merits and my parents have got divorced I think my mom went she's actually very clever it's the fact we've got six years ago but I'm so glad that she did fight for me to go to that school because I don't think if I hadn't have been surrounded by people who were really gifted in lots of other ways at maths and science and English and I sort of was looking at them going I'm not good at any of these things really I'm not I'm you know I can I can work really hard and my sister is the same they both are aware that in order to be good at something it's you have to work really hard but I would sort of work really hard and then just be like but it's still not happening on if I'm still not going oh if I you know paint that picture somehow it's amazing what if I write that essay somehow I'm someone saying to me that I'm really good at it so it took me a really long time and my sister well you good at it when you first started them no well no I was it was being English prohibits you from saying you're good at anything did you I mean did you know not particularly wasn't like oh she's it happened at university right but it didn't happen at school because at school I you know I played various men in various places my five I paper as girls yeah yeah but there's an itch there throughout training it's a good training keeps those I did win I mean this is this is now a ridiculous thing to say but I won best actress in the school play because I played a man with post-traumatic stress disorder in the war once in the First World War was it it was it some Aussie shows no it was written by one of the other people's and oh wow yeah Wow and I remember walking around already gifted school this is but I was walking around like my form room knowing I am David I am David cuz I thought that's what actors did like just of walk I was so nervous I was so still now yeah God really weird I just remembered that really so the minds nothing isn't it just repeating a truth or repeating a line so that's something something suddenly becomes so automatic you don't question it I think it's quite a build things to do Oh God I would love to have been a fly on the wall but it's whatever gets you there you got the prize and then what's so after school where did you go to university oh cool okay was that performing arts or was he were you studying something else and then doing a lot of plays no well no because what happened was I was wasn't brave enough to do the audition to do drama right I didn't want to audition so I did drama and screen studies because I thought I'll make films okay because I love I've always loved them and so I thought that's what I do and then I did sort of two years of making loads of films finding it really boring in the editing room and just not having any ideas like we'd once did I could entire film about a CCTV camera about the camera not what it was saying just about but it was like the life of a CCTV camera I mean so obviously that wasn't going to happen and then in my final year I just sort of really like sort of came to the understanding that I could do it and not really care and do it for me like not really care if anyone was gonna watch it and so I did and then one of my um one of the lecturers would have said what you're gonna do when you finish I was like I don't know he was like if you thought about going to drama school and I was like oh I thought have been waiting for someone to say I just did it he do that because I didn't know anyone who did anything like that I've had three Prime Minister's all of them ambitious men clever men brilliant men not one has lasted the course can I fight yes did the crown choose you or did you choose the crown or was it a bit of both that's that's a sign that's it was yeah it was it was both I think and I was you know do you know about it before you were you were called up for an audition or chance or offered no no no no no I think they've done like a read they did a reading right of it to sort of try it out which scripts days rather than people in it just yeah yeah yeah and it's a Morgan sorry Peter Morgan the creator of the crown and I didn't no I was five months pregnant and I'd been working I just done wolf hall and so I had done Wolf Hall and gone okay I can have a baby now like it wasn't like I didn't actually think now I'm gonna have a baby but I just sort of went absolutely on all right time to do that I'm done I was like I'm done I felt like I was like that was a good dream job for me and so I just was like if this is the end of my career then I'm happy so I you know was really happy to be pregnant and just loved not working and I loved the idea of like he Yeon's of time ahead of me where I bring up my child and then you get the invitation to go and meet Stephen Daldry who I just think is extraordinary and so then I went in with that sort of impression of going one I mean this is ridiculous I'm in a room with these people but to in what well they're gonna give a pregnant woman the role of the Queen of England I just five months five months yeah so my nose has started to spread and I was like quite sweaty a lot of the time and also just because it's one of those jobs where I just I don't whether you do this but I definitely do it right I think in my head I know all the incredible people that I know Oh always always you feel a sense of guilt about like are you sure you've got this right I mean there's literally five people I know who would cut off their right hand to do you know and it would be much better in my opinion all the time all the time and it's like you just you know how lucky you are when it works out for you and that's that's another key motivator for me is just to sort of prove people's trust or faith or whatever you want to call it in me or idiot idiot trust or faith I just go kit right well they've made this choice I've really really got to fulfill I guess but it was different wasn't it with perhaps Melrose because you were at the very very very beginning of it weren't you Benedict could you please inform us of well I was California I was I was I was at the beginning of it because I mean the books have been out for a while so the first one was written it's a it's an adaptation as you know five novels and the first was written in 2001 I think the last in 2011 maybe even later and so I'd read these books come to them quite late by word-of-mouth and just immediately was like this is extraordinary material I mean it's some of the most four stunning pros in the 21st century in the vein of even in war and and Woodhouse it's got that incredible ease about it and wit and it contains multitudes and a line you get the whole picture of a character in a page a world and in a book the entire story and it just holds you they're amazing I mean unbelievably funny moments laugh-out-loud moments but also this this trauma at the center of it this man who's you know abused by his father from the age of five onwards and then you've jumped forward to the next decade each book's about a decade forward and it's him as a full-blown drug addict which is actually our first episode going to pick up his dad's ashes then he's sober without purpose and I don't to give too much you had seen them all yeah no no okay but I mean that was they were there as pieces of fiction and I although thinly disguised alter-ego for the author so I read them and I was doing a reddit question you know the Bradley online and so I said they said as I'm often asked what do you want to do next I don't have bucket list summary really lazy about that anyway you know terrible and I've just been really lucky to kind of go from vine to vine in answer to how you choose your jobs as much as I do so much of it's just what's in what's in front of me you know and that was the moment I said well you know what I did I really want to play Hamlet because I sort of flirted with it at school but not done that was yeah and so that came about and then I said yeah and I really want to play Patrick murrow's and they were like okay and I went well I want to play Patrick my Rosie and I explained what it was about and I think that day Michael Jackson heard it bounced around the Twittersphere or something who's with Rachel Horovitz his wife the producing partners owned the books that copyright and property there rang John my agent in England and I met with him like a week later having sped read like reread the book it was incredibly fast it was kinda like gone [Laughter] in a filmic remake of that's another great oh my god it were to case your Avenue they should do that and I think you know they should also do super ground we need in this great for superheroes we also need a female superhero of an age yeah it began to be brought back amazing or just just a super gran she said you know maybe I know hey I've got it Emily she's first time I am sorry I yeah it came about like that and then and then very late in the day I produced on it as well with adamak that my production company heard yeah I was sunny mother's like wonderful because you're creatively kind of fostering this thing which like I said partly because it's an alter-ego to the author and I'd formed the relationship by then before coming as a producer with teddys and opened the writer I wanted to care for him for the cipher of reality that he made into a fictional character much loved by those who've read it into our screen translation of it so it was out of a duty of care but also creatively it's just wonderful you're involved in forming the production team has a department you don't you have an opinion about casting but I was very wary of that amazing class though it's an incredible cast and Nina she's she's brilliant was it Nina Nina gold gold Nina gold is pretty much responsible for everything she's still doing the crown I mean she will forever be doing the crown I know I think that's an incredible thing for her as a casting director because she gets to do like 250 characters I mean like personal series it's incredible it's gonna she's gonna be Kiki she's gonna go through absolutely every single English actor there is I hope so at some point I think you know that thing of being at the front door is it's a wonderful experience it's my first feeling of that inception to completion in English I kind of I kind of wanted that as a director at some point mm-hmm but I'm terrified of that so I'd probably start incredibly small but you said it now it's gonna happen I would like to be director here we want to do avatar - that would freak me out would you like to do that you'd like to start to direct I would love to I would really love to I don't think something I'm in I'd really like to just have the experience of being behind the camera but in all honesty a bit like going back to the theatre because the family wanted to be more present dad much that's involving I mean ed Berger who directed Melrose directed all five of them and it's just he's not stop working for that you know he's still in the Edit for five and it's just on and on it has got an incredible kind of I love watching things like that that have a something that's incredibly unique about them but you don't know why it is unique I feel like it's you and him together isn't in is a combination I can just sort to see it I can see you is knowing you as an actor and having worked with you I can see that you put so much of yourself into the role and so much of it's about you being free like I saw you make choices and do things that would I could just see that you risk in your head we're going oh I'll do that now oh that's exciting and especially there's this one incredible sea which I'm going to watch on repeat where you take I mean about 400 different types of drugs but when they're all they all have their own different personality in your in your body so one drug is telling you to do one thing and it's just the most exquisite thing I've ever seen but all but see also just watching you just fly and it takes a very strong director as well to allow you as an actor to do that it's true and it's it's he is that he facilitates and he's a great first audience but he's also just like you know I think we you can definitely go further and risk failing as well just bring a bit of risk screwing it up and not have that thing of like you know time brushes or everything else that kind of crowds in on creativity with filmmaking out of the necessity of you know getting the day done and and money of just being free to fail and fail better which is all we can ever really do it's all in perfectible isn't it so do you feel like you're getting better at that the more you do it a little bit yeah a little bit looser a little bit looser and with this as well I'd you know with that particular scene as well the hotel where he's just all these voices are coming out of him that kind of schizoid episode there's that I was rewriting it I was rewriting at the day before and putting things in from the book David Nicholls didn't know how to give and he says this I'm not criticizing him easily adapt he's wonderful David Nicholls an amazing amazing writer in his own right amazing writer and he has done an extraordinary job there was so much metaphor and imagery in the book and to translate that you know you want dialogue and action as a writer so he stands the most amazing containing that and Edie with the wonders of cinema and filming has created space for metaphor within subtext and looks and everything care for it how do you care for a desert I'll have a creme brulee on a multiple coin but it's still not heroin is it heroines the cavalry missing chair leg heroin is love simply call five five five one seven two six cowboy mm-hmm I want to ask you about the exquisite craft on display from you in the crown I mean it is just it's groundbreaking its its inspiration well I know I disagree you know you've created something quite unique out of a character that's very very difficult to crack with you've created a huge amount of empathy enigma vulnerability humor and with so little I mean it is a masterclass in restraint but my god it's all going on and your your physicality the way you hold yourself detention your hands the shift of the skirt and a seat at the powerplay but also being completely cut off at the knees whether it's by Philips behavior or a courtier or an unexpected challenge it's it's a real Marvel and I thought it really geared up in this series how could it be better but it was it was extraordinary and I'm really interested to know with you how was Stephen and Philip and Ben and am I forgetting Philip ah no thought Philip oh my god that the episode was spectacularly good she's amazing how they give you your freedom how much it's based on what the success has been before how much you got more room or less room or the same room to explore did it feel different in the second series um it's about five questions right I don't know it felt I think there were I known as there was sort of a by that point we all knew what we were doing yeah in the sense that the kind of any sort of ambiguity there was about how you would be with the Prime Minister or anything like that it all formed its own rhythm really so you sort of knew how her approach would be to certain things but the thing about Peter Morgan who's the writer of it is that he watches you knows you're getting comfortable and so then gives you a scene which is incredibly difficult we're yeah yeah so he will give you then a scene where it's an incredibly emotional scene and he knows that the choices you have are restricted and he wants to see you struggle with that that's what he writes as the writer for the actor and for the character so I was constantly going on in the first series it was that very much more markedly there in the second you think it was going on and it was going on in the first series but I think the second series was very personal it was very for me anyway it felt very much about their marriage absolutely and her world was so small she became so kind of cut off and there was less direction she could go in and so I felt it was it was quite relentless in the in the in the culmination I felt of her emotionally current becoming like unraveling really but having nowhere to go it was a real pressure cooker to watch yes relief at the end that compacts that love learning that understanding of what's gone I was gone but the love is still there which I just thought it was heartbreaking yeah the directors they really of the show they really really we were all all over the show because it was it was filmed out of sequence out of location all the time had all five which is a mammoth time yeah Melrose but at the same time every burger story the director but my god in a way he could keep sewing all of the narrative to get how did that work when you were crossing episodes and times and different directors it was tricky but that was also tricky because you know for us the show had been so successful there were so many things that we then had to do around that yeah which we never would have changed but it just met added another element for production who were going please can we make the program and you know we had to go off and do different things but but the directors or they have such a passion for their episodes and so and they all work together and there's a real sense of camaraderie and the show as a whole as opposed to a director coming in and going this is my episode I'm gonna make it completely different that's real respect David a unified field yeah yeah and I'm also we had you know incredible DOP Adriana Goldman here all the way through yeah and and Stewart he was with him as well so it was kind of like it had a kind of unity and a thing otherwise we would like I love the differences and styles like I remember Philip as episode like really as sunny was like this is this is definitely a different both cameras on and storytelling was you just want a BAFTA for it know if you want to after four three girls we all closed our eyes our ears to what was being said about you but when the truth finally came out there is no possibility of my forgiving you the question is how on earth can you forgive yourself Benedict I already sort of know this yeah because I know you but I know that you're not on social media nope nope neither am i but i do know that you have played Sherlock Holmes for example and that when you play a character like that people feel like they have a certain amount of ownership and love of you which obviously is amazing look therefore it comes with it kind of price where you're sort of always on display yeah yeah what do you do about that much very honest I kind of do I mean you know in environments where it's about being on display like this or you know doing a reddit or a Twitter thing through someone else's hashtag or whatever they call it because I don't do any of that myself I'll play the game and have fun with it for five seconds and then shut the door and run because you know Fame is that you as you must know know as well ask the crush interviews well it's um it does require you in this weird way to sort of become your own narrative you have this preconceived idea of who you are that's out there is separate narrative to the truth of who you are and that can be even after a detailed profile interview and you think oh well that's going to be a very reflection due to the conversation we had because you know our Steph's and papers need to create a sort of exclusive so it gets farm that as a news story with a quote out of context and that's all very tiresome and I have to say just being recognizes okay there are days when I just would rather like anyone be under a duvet pretending I don't exist that famous for whatever I do and other days when I'm find out my head up behind go thank you but most most of what you meet in in the flesh is benign it's people just liking what you do yeah which is lovely but the demand on your time is something that you I have to navigate and I think it's always easy if you do have a purpose when you're in public that you're going from A to B or you're with people that you're helping with it's children friends and family so but I love also giving back and being you know very warmed and and grateful by the sort of following I have and and realizing that that's part of the reason I'm able to do the projects I want to do and it's because there's an audience that's keen to see my work so I'm incredibly grateful for that and in the right contacts happy to acknowledge it and thank people are shake them by their hands and take a photograph but I did the selfie thing is a bit weird I do still feel that could you out can we not just have a moment can we not just how though I know selfie with you know I don't know Paul McCartney I want to talk to him I'm talking about chord structures and albums and life not you know what I mean I would dig a bit deeper but um it has just become the modern handshake and I really realized that in Wales once I stepped out of the the you know the make up truck was something is unsure and all these kids had sort of formed in heard that we were there and instead of going well we're waving or anything they just went it was like a salute of phones it's like some sort of totalitarian states like showing an ID card or something but and then just looking you know enchanted by whatever I was doing on their phone but not at me I know really weird but that's the thing we haven't really got it yet already evolved into it or know quite how to do with it and I know great things about it but there are also things we don't really know the cost the outcome of the case there is a real there's definitely I mean how do you deal with it cuz I know your boy you said you'd your non social and no but you must have had a huge amount of exposure beyond what you had before with the success of the crown yeah but I think I'm really fortunate in the sense that I have always you are a very distinctive looking person I'm not looking no you're not it's not about being odd-looking but it's about if you're out of the ordinary of you know normal life anyway me and Matt Smith you can kind of see yeah you and if you want to remain aware now want to go oh no you were interesting whereas and it's I'm not like being humble I'm just that's the reality like I walk in a room and everyone goes no I work no is she my cousin I don't know yes I'm familiar to people but I'm not I don't attract attention and I'm realizing that now and I feel very lucky because I can go about my life yeah pretty much unscathed and I think that I do think that is to do with a certain amount of volume of attention then I think that would just because of how brilliant you are please don't tell me it'll change because I'm really enjoying it at the moment keep enjoying because it only happens when you actually interact with people on an actual like quite often the most the most of the time that it happens is that I'm on an airplane and the stewardesses or that they air stewards after a while of me sort of harassing them for cups of tea and stuff then go it's the only after I've actually really really spent time with people that happens oh yeah but I don't I find you know it's a personal choice for me it's not about being an actor or anything like that by my own social media is because I feel the effect it has on me as a person yeah I was on Facebook for about a year and a half when I was about 22 and it physically I could I could feel what it did to me it made me anxious it made me you know compare myself to other people it made me stalk people and I'd me feel it put a barrier up between me and other people and I just can't I can't live in that world and it's not about my job if something you're not getting it so it that's the thing is I know how it every I'd be so addicted to it I couldn't even dip my toe in it because I think it's so addictive it just that's it it draws you down to I mean oh I fight I fight for no fun time myself you know just yeah emails a text and and that's that's as social as I get like but that's it that's a struggle for me and I think I'm up later I would really like to get away from New York if at all possible your father's ashes will be available tomorrow afternoon I see no chance of a rush job I'll leave you alone with him I wondered if working on the crown has changed your attitude towards the Royals or what your attitude was before or I don't really wanted this I've been I've got a I have been asked to ask this question is the last thing I'm interested in I changed your opinion of the royal family yes watching it yes it did it did it really did and I mean or did it because you know behind closed doors families our families no matter what hmm strains and stresses and pressures and oddities that family indoors there's a grandmother there's an uncle there's an art as a mother there's a brother as a sister this manage oh I think I knew very little about the the relationship between Margaret Ann Elizabeth nuts and I'm about Margaret in herself and that's just it's such a perfectly toxic storm that story and you've come away with so much more sympathy for her because of how what we gossiped wise here has been created was created what it's interesting how history forms itself to focus on the on the story they want to tell yeah I think part of what we do you've experienced them and I certainly have in the media where it's like we want to make this really negative because that runs with that name and that's that's our that's our copy sold you know you see that then with the Royals mmm you do and I think it's a I think you you end up seeing them as human beings which is really good and I think but there's a choice isn't there I think with any sort of like day or two you're like God or anything you don't want to think of them as human beings yeah because it means that you have to then look at yourself I wonder if there's a generation that can't actually watch the crown because they want they want that distance they want to be sort of adoring at the feet of it rather than in the living room or the bed well I mean I think people were like how dare you talk about their marriage how dare you talk about the fact that I'm how you talk about not having trouble in their marriage and I have you spoken to your next-door neighbor recently yeah like have you spoken to anybody that you know about their marriage like do you think that everybody in the world is having a perfect representation or yeah chocolate box version and that's what I mean about social media as well I think that's what's happening is everyone's pretending that their lives are great all the time and we're losing any child sort of track of the fact that life is beautiful because it is hard and I don't I think that yeah that really worries me and I have to say as far as what they have to do as far as presentation and image as well as what we sometimes have to do now you just you crave the moment you can break that down a little bit although it's often then just run away with the misunderstood but if it's in person I find you can be yourself you can in person that's what's incredible at her the Queen of England is that she has never done that she's never she is always when she's at work she is always the icon yeah absolutely and that icon has been steadfastly the same yeah you know she the younger generation are able to become more kind of they're able to have more interaction and bliss you know and she isn't she everybody has a good meeting with you know I know this is probably the one bit that's going to end up on the Internet so I'm loading and asked it because it's so fluffy but are you excited about the royal wedding I could have imagined myself getting bit where's the invitation you know we moved into a new home recently so it's probably down to that yeah yeah yeah as is mine it makes me think it's got lost someone's stolen yeah why they wouldn't want me there [Music] you

Channel: Variety

Views: 280,229

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio

Id: iOdA1MnIY6I

Length: 35min 12sec (2112 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023