Betrayal: A Conversation with Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton and Charlie Cox with Ruthie Fierberg

thank you all so much for being here and thank you all for being here between shows you guys let's give them an extra round of applause oh I was just asking Tom backstage seeing that trailer again because I knew that that was not a line from the play and I said where is that from who wrote that and you said Harold Pinter not surprisingly yes the the voiceover or in the trailer is an extract from his Nobel lecture he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 and it's a really remarkable piece of writing where I became aware of it in 2007 during the holiday period I remember seeing it online and he talks about the investigation of reality through art and the difference between truth as a dramatist and truth as a citizen and when he turns to truth as a citizen he he's quite unsparing about the political reality of that moment but really if anyone involved in the theater for anyone involved in creating fiction the first part of it is his sort of explanation of I think his own modus operandi as a playwright the whole thing is about trying to find the truth the truth of human behavior the truth of being alive that there is no one truth there are many truths and they confront each other and tease each other and seduce each other and recoil from each other there's an amazing line he says sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand and it slips through your fingers and is lost there is no one truth to be found in dramatic art and that's what we're all gonna say we're gonna talk all about the many truths today show of hands how many of you have seen this production of betrayal yeah I love to see that I love to see that well for those of you who haven't a brief plot synopsis so Tom plays Roberts who is married to Emma played by Zoey who is having an affair with Jerry played by Charlie I feel like I'm unlike the dating game like and Jerry is was the best man at Robert and Emma's wedding and the two of them worked together Roberts a publisher Jerry is a literary agent so it's deliciously rich and although when Pinter was on this stage 55 years ago he said he doesn't consider meaning outside the text of his work we are going to defy him and dissect it so I know that this production began when the two of yous away and Tom did the tour cello scene at a gala for Pinter at the Pinter which was for director Jamie Lloyd's theatre company can you guys set the scene for me a little bit about the gala leading up to it how much rehearsal time there may or may not have been for this scene it was where it was a one-night one off to on his birthday what would have been his 88th birthday right ten years out ten years after he died and Jamie Lloyd our director had been directing a season of pin of Pinter in short Pinter plays less well-known Pinter plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London hence Pinter at the Pinter and it was a celebration of his work of some of his water considered his masterpieces and his poems and his short plays and and Jamie Lloyd invited a whole company of actors who'd had some relationship to Pinter back for one night to do little bit Simon Russell Beale did something from the hothouse Kristin Scott Thomas came back and did a bit from was it old times it was mostly people who were doing a show during that season yes there was a bit of the dumbwaiter or is about to be the dumbwaiter it was nice because people had sort of swapped roles you know like Kristen had done old times at the Harold Pinter before but was coming back to do something else and then someone else did it seemed from old time so it was almost like a an art gallery of Pinter you know there was sort of pieces in dialogue with each other and actors in dialogue with each other in that way and it was and so Jamie asked the truth you tease you betrayal yeah yes in front of a group of actors who've done betrayal was also there who'd played Jerry and he was doing a bit from no man's land and Sam West had played Robert at the Donmar Warehouse in London yeah but we it was a very very collegiate very joyful evening and and Zoe and I were asked to do this scene from betrayal which really is a masterpiece I think in its own right the scene itself this is an extraordinary piece of writing and we went through at once had you two known each other before we did we'd actually a little sort of bumped into each other in London we never properly work together but that was so so 15 minutes you do the scene and then what was it that happened during that scene that you were like ah maybe this is something we should examine more permanently and that you know Pinter is a great comedic writer mm-hm and in on that evening there were many very funny pieces and I remember thinking oh this one's gonna be a bit of a downer it's when Robert finds out that Emma has been having an affair I thought well never mind it's not new you know they're gonna be no laughs here but let's just play it straight and there was a really extraordinary silence remember that yeah it's a kind of quality of listening that's quite unusual and great to be doing that scene in the setup of Begala because it was literally act as a microphones there with no extras that the stage was completely bare and so it really was as Tom said it was the words and the silences in the pauses and the atmosphere and for whatever reason that that scene really lent itself to the sparseness of it and then you know fast forward however long you know we're in the production is has remained really true to that initial moment and so I think that was something that really kind of just fit with the piece but there was also this very incredible atmosphere because we were in the middle of a season that Jamie was doing of Pinter's one-act plays and so there were actors there who were doing scenes from those one-act plays and and suddenly felt as though towards the end of the season maybe there should be a presentation of something long for you know one of his long-form pieces and it just seemed to fit as Pinter right you know they've been seven Pinter's idea about the quality of listening because I think that that's something that struck me seeing it for the for the first time that I thought we don't we don't see things like this slowdown anymore you don't listen like this very often even in the theater I think that things are sped up and you know you have around the corner to kill a mockingbird where Aaron Sorkin is you know very that dialogue is very snappy and punchy in it and this is such a wonderful contrast within the season okay so you decide to do betrayal and you need a Jerry we did we didn't decide I should sort of say what the greatest compliment was that Antonia Fraser lady Antonia Fraser Harold Pinter's Widow was there that night it was it was very much a celebration for her and she said to us afterwards you know that perhaps you both like to do the whole thing and people like Sam West and Jeremy Irons are really generous as well and then Jamie said let's do the whole thing so we decided to do the whole thing and then of course what we needed was Charlie Cox exactly Charlie I know that you had worked with Jamie before on a different Pinter play what is it about the way that Jamie directs that you said oh yeah I wanted I want to jump on this if I can you know I just had a wonderful experience with him almost 11 years ago I wish I was both of our West End debuts my nan Jamie's and I remember reading the play that he'd sent me which was the lover in the collection but I was mainly gonna be in the collection and I read it and I hadn't read it before and I hadn't read a huge amount of Pinter and I I'd seen at school I'd seen the birthday party but I hadn't you know that was really my own experience but I've read it and kind of didn't really get it didn't write it I didn't really I wasn't particularly moved by it and I met with Jamie anyway and he convinced me that it was there was much more there than I was seeing and then in the rehearsal period I discovered that he was absolutely right and I was absolutely thrilled with how much we discovered and how much is not said and how you know how many different choices can be made in terms of the subtext and it felt like a really freeing experience for an actor and so I and I've always remembered that and I've always hoped that we would get the chance to work together again so when I was presented with the opportunity of not only working with him again but also on another Harold Pinter play and arguably his masterpiece did you read together before it was officially done because we kind of had this test run with the two of you doing that tour cello scene at the gala or was it Jamie just knew like I know who are third you know the third leg of this stool is my experience was I was getting I got in a cab to go to the airport mm-hmm and I I got a call in the in the taxi saying I would you like to do this play with Tom and Zowie and Jamie Lloyd directing and I said yes I'm very interested can you send me because I was in the I was go to the airport can you send me the the the script and then I got off the phone I was too impatient I couldn't wait so I text Jamie so I text him and then he sent me the script and then I read it in the cab and then I call her back and said I'm in I love that I love I mean I played hard to get you know but I mean the chemin you know even we see this on just like your Instagram stories the chemistry between you guys is very real you all seem to really enjoy each other like what was what was that like and the early days when you you know before you knew that it would be Charlie that you like what did you need to complete the trio well you know Charlie was was just at the top of the list it was quite simple and if you weren't there gonna say you were he was and it Jamie will back me up remember we talked about and actually the first time the first time Jamie called to check Charlie's every availability he wasn't available and and so we were like and you know tried to think of other people who who weren't as as they just weren't the right fit and it was an a just sometimes you have to kind of hold your hands up and say well everything happens at the right time and for the right reasons and and it has been very very special this experience you've done this play for the entire year and we started rehearsing on the first or second of February and here we are at the end of November and I remember those early we all remember those days Febby rehearsing it and it was very um it was very free and we were all ready to go we'd all learned it and we felt we had time in our rehearsal period to really explore the complexity of the dynamic between these three characters and that it that actually the pain their capacity to cause each other pain stems from their enormous love for each other these are three people who love each other very much and that's why they can hurt each other so much with three other actors we've you know a completely different chemistry this would be a completely different production and one thing I found so rewarding right from the beginning of rehearsing was it was clear that you could use so much of yourself and we could use so much of what was naturally happening between the three of us to really mine the text because what Harold asks you to do with his work I think is to just commune with it he's asking you to be with him in his not truth non truth and be extremely open if you try and overwrite his words and his work with your own ego your own need to perform in a certain way or to bend the character to your own ends he will from beyond the grave gonna give you a threat but at the same time like like Charlie was saying there's so many pauses and so many things that you all have to imbue into these characters because I guess I'm just wondering like where is the balance between Pinter being so clear about who they are and you all figuring out who your version is because there are things to mine do you know who your character is from the day you start or has it I told Tom has a really good quote and I'd of Harold's I don't remember exactly what it is but it feels to me that he's not I don't know that he always feel like he's clear about who these people are but he's clear about what they say and what they do yeah and there's a slight there is a bit of a difference there because it means that there is there he's he leaves you he leaves the characters open to a little bit of interpretation I think the thing that Jamie did so wonderfully is if you're gonna put a play up you've obviously got to in order to just to cast it you do have to have a sense of what you understand this play to be and who these people are what Jamie does so wonderfully is he he he has that he then costs it and then he throws it all out and says now I've got these three let's all these have many people I have to now let them see what they bring to the room yeah and let it grow from there because you can't with this play go of this you know this is a play about three very you know angry people or this is a play about three very upset people I think the the natural tendency in the natural chemistry between us from the from the get-go was so tender and so trusting that I think what this production has grown into is a play about about real but real betrayal and real tenderness and real loss of innocence I think in lots of ways and and I I get such a thrill when I still see moments that I know that we created all the way back in February but in that moment felt like oh maybe that'll stay maybe that will go it's like that happened in February that ended up saying that those lights you we created all of the moments where we are not one of us isn't speaking on stage so in our production each character remains on stage the entire time which is the first time that's been done with this play so there would be moments in rehearsal where two people would kind of be going at it in their scene and you'd think right I've got completely bare stage here what am I gonna do in the background shall I sit down shall I lean against something no I should start no so there's those moments for example where you know there's a moment where I trail my hand across the back of the stage and it was completely random at the time and it all came from just hearing the rhythm that was happening between these two in that particular scene but suddenly it became this moment where it's you know someone leaving a home or you know tracing their fingers across the wallpaper of a you know of a house that they shared with someone or the flat that they shared with someone and and those moments are so satisfying because they were completely pure and innocent aggressively overfilling Charlie's wineglass that's always been I mean I I think I feel like it really it happened in performance but early on in performance he doesn't just want so now at this point he knows no the affair is happening and it's not just that he wants to get drunk it's that he wants Jerry to get drunk as well it's also it's he makes inconvenient for Jerry I'm going to fill your glass up and you're going to have trouble drinking it and I'm going to enjoy watching that which is such a small it's a small element of control and contrasted with his internal chaos but we can talk about squash you guys did play squash we do play we've developed it we now do play squash routine you didn't play squash before this play now you do I played we both bladers riding as younger men [Laughter] I played a bit as a as a teenager and then we it was really and this was really interesting because there are so many references to squash and Robert usually brings them up and if you in the timeline it's very clear that the moment the affair between Jerry and Emma began was the moment Jerry and Robert stopped playing squash as if somehow there's some sort of transference of intimacy from the friendship to the affair and that squash is the intimate thing they did as friends and we had this idea let's go let's go and play squash and see see what it's like see if we get something from it and actually we then be played very early in the morning one Friday and then came into rehearsal and the scenes were completely different the scenes felt like squash rallies because in a squash courts it's a concrete bar right it's and the rubber that rubber ball is moving around very fast and it is quite violent and you can collide and run into each other and it's very loud and there's this great echo and I think Pinter so clever and he probably he probably disapprove of me going into it sort of trying to unpick his play in this way but some of the conversations between Robert and Jerry do feel like a squash rally I thought you knew knew what that I knew that I've known for years I thought you knew that you thought I knew what you said he didn't but didn't believe it anyway I think I thought you knew point so the energy is totally changes when you think about it in that way imagine that you would also feel that like perhaps even more so than they would because as the observer of that scene as the listener yeah you're really tracking you know what what their energy is absolutely a hundred percent the competition between the two of I think that was the day I realized the competition between these men is so important present as deeply as possible because actually that's where I think the three of them become entangled I could choose anyone to have an affair with and I choose my husband's best friend there's something else there's something between the two of them that it's kind of attractive to get in between to my character you know on the subconscious level you know they are so intimate and so intertwined that you know III feel like that's definitely part of where the impetus to to start this whole betrayal but I think that's so interesting about the transference of intimacy because so much of it I'm like what is the squash thing is it just that he wants to challenge him is it just is it about power is that about you know getting on his schedule like what is the preoccupation it's all those yeah I think I think it's a play about power as much as power and knowledge and three people trying in the contest for power or the acquisition of it the flawed logic is that one can control the their internal vulnerability and I think if especially I think he was fascinated there's a an amazing sequence of dialogue between Roberts and Jerry about the difference between boy babies and girl babies yeah boy babies cry more than go buddies do they and I think penta throughout his plays as Jamie was very generally because he directed so much of it but there is a theme running through Howell Pinter's plays about about the vulnerability of men and that actually women will prevail where men must and always will invariably fail and that perhaps Emma is stronger than Robert and Jerry in some way that she's able to confront her actions in a way that Robert and Jerry aren't really and yes so to go going back to the squash it's it just becomes another frame in which to explore the complexity of what's happening in the space between these three people and how and how honestly how you know we have a capacity Minh beings we have this infinite capacity for love and love can express in many different ways and and there are many betrayals as you've said the betrayal of the husband by the wife or the friend by the friend but also this betrayal between the two of us and this betrayal here because Jerry didn't when Emma asks have you ever thought of changing your life Jerry says it's impossible so Jerry starts something which he then isn't willing to follow through on and that's a betrayal of Emma and I think there's so much loss in the play and the loss of the friendship is very profound absolutely and it's a loss so many different intimacy's and losses too because it's a friendship but it's also a partnership in working and when she's you know when Emma's reading a book that Jerry really likes and you thought was awful not so good you know that's a betrayal in terms of intellectual sharing and and taste and all those things I want to go back to to boy babies and girl babies because you brought that up when we first met before mm-hmm I even saw the play before you started previews on them and it made me listen to that that scene in that line differently and I noticed that you come come back to it is that like is that the line that for you we'll always around you will always release you and you to have lines like that in the play that's the one that when you're I don't know having a hard day or when you're not sure how you're gonna connect you come back to always is that what that lies it's one of them it's one that's one of them I think I think he's it's a clue from Pinter for for the actor about his internal world about Roberts internal world that there is a very vulnerable boy baby behind that very bottled up controlled exterior and I hope that song that's somehow that's transmitted and the other one I really the other one I when I was learning it before we started rehearsing is in the restaurant scene at the end when when he when Robert says to Jerry when I walked about tour cello in the early morning alone I was happy I wanted to stay there forever and I think he's I think it's it's the most dishonest he gets and I think what he's confessing is his his eternal loneliness and that being on tour cello alone in the early morning is the most alerted most lonely he has ever felt and perhaps he will always feel alone and I think this plays as much about isolation as it is about betrayal and and the desolate quality of loneliness mmm perhaps the result of betrayal is yeah the many betrayals render Robert Emmet and Jerry more alone than they were before what about You Zoe well I said one to you and we have that lovely interview which is the line that happens at the end of the play which is also the beginning of the play because the players told backwards singers you've all seen it you know what I'm talking about Emma says to Jerry when he says in a moment of seduction the moment where he's trying to you know sort of confess his feelings for her he says oh I saw you glide by in white talking about my wedding and I say I wasn't in white and I just think that's such a telling thing if you're a woman certainly at the time when Harold was writing the play which is about 70s if a woman who decided not to wear white to her first wedding that's kind of a statement you know that says I'm I'm potentially not someone who's wanting to conform I'm potentially someone who is quite open with my sexual appetite but you know I'm not why would I wear white you know not virgin she's not willing to play pretend it's like I think I think that's a real symbol of strength that's that's written in there by Harold and something that I can imagine if he saw if you saw a woman at a wedding not wearing white you know he would he would read that symbolism so strongly and the fact that he's put it in the play I can feel that there's a there's a real connection there but I think more and more seem one in the play the end of the play has started to feel more and more deeply connected for me because there's this whole kind of you know passage that Emma talks about where she's describing going to the flat that she used to have the affair with Jerian mm-hm and she's years later after in years later after it's over and she's describing driving past in what is probably her family car driving past this address where this you know very very long affair happened and she talks about getting out of the car and looking at the bells the little names on the bells and the plays shifts all the time we've done over 200 performances now and so there are different lines that ring out on different weeks there are different emotions and there are different frames they're just happening constantly at the moment especially as we approach the end but that is just starting to really settle in for me 200 plus performances later a woman who goes back to the place that she shared this moment with this man at this difficult moment and she just wants to be with be with it and nostalgia is a human memory be with the memory this is one of Pintas memory plays and there's just something so deeply sad about that level of nostalgia that he's exploring through her and so that's something that I am sitting with a lot at the moment what about you Charlie I remember early on in rehearsals feeling like something that was for me felt like felt was very important for Jerry was that his love for Emma was matched by his love for Robert meaning that I felt reading it the more I read it in them and certainly as we were rehearsing it and as we were discovering what that you know the the energy the spirit of the play that we were gonna perform was gonna be it felt to me like it's really important that that Jerry loves really does love Robert as as well as love that's his great dilemma he he loves his his what his best friend that he also loves his best friend's wife and there's a line in scene two who's gonna say when where he says we used to like each other which I is to answer your question is always very grounding but also what I hear when I often when I say that line is not only did we used to like each other but we also used to like ourselves and I don't think Jerry likes himself very much anymore and I don't think he'll ever like himself in the same way and that I find that tremendously sad that realization right it can be immensely jory for nostalgia takes many forms I find in my life as well like you know there's a there's a certain type of nostalgia which is just it's a nice peaceful good memory of something that happened that was a wonderful time but but it's okay that it's been and gone raise another type of nostalgia which is like an egg which you kind of can't quite you can't take your claws out of somehow you can't you almost wish you wish for yourself to be back in that moment right memories are haunting none of them are like all that time when wasn't it great it's like that time when all the time went back I can't stop thinking about that's actually unraveling my mental stay you know what there's one really good example of that though in the play which is there's there's this there's this one memory that is discussed on three different occasions which is the memory of Jerry throwing em er up that's why I said that and so when I when she's about to walk in I see her in the wings and I often say oh there's Emma anyway there's a the memory is discussed on three different occasions twice in scene one and once in scene yes and then we in our production we see it yeah once in scene 6 that's right and I've always it's fascinating to me that the how Jerry feels about that memory is influenced by what he currently knows what he so when he first remembers it it's a nice memory but in that moment he doesn't yet know that Robert has disk knows about the affair so he's in his mind the affair is over they didn't get found out it's that's painful for other reasons but the memory of that moment this this something we talked about in rehearsals is I did it how old a theme that is in many of house plays which is a loss the lost Eden a moment in time that was everything was wonderful and perfect that we can never get back to even if that's even if it's misremembered so he remembers this moment as this lovely moment where everyone was happy and they were laughing and and it's a joyous memory and then he discovers that Robert has just found out even though that's not you're either just found out that about the affair and the first thing he goes to is this that moment that memory which is now horrible haunting memory and similarly when he remembers it in six it's during the affair where he's plagued by the ghost of Robert I mean so much of what you're talking about is is understanding when who knows what in this play that starts at the very end and then goes back to the beginning and then goes forward and I I know that you know it being in Reverse chronology but you guys spent time rehearsing it chronologically what did that change for you how did that inform what you ended up doing having rehearsed it in that way I mean it's a really interesting exercise because then you have even in rehearsal you have the memory of finding things out in the right order and also it's very it's it's curious because it there's very little in the if you organize the scenes in chronological order there's very little joy very little of people being happy or honest someone is always hiding something someone's hiding a truth that they know that they're not going to let the other person know that they know and I think the way he's organized it I'm is saying those words a lot but the way he organizes it is so brilliant I think because it's he gives the audience in the first two scenes the lay of the land it gives their no spoilers after that the audience are on the inside he says right these are our three characters these two have been having the fair he knows he doesn't know he sets up a very complex pattern of upright dominoes and then the audience are going to watch them fall and the interest I think is watching how they fall and when and trying to track in many different betrayals for those of you who haven't seen the show there are no spoilers that's the it was really useful to track the births of children for me when we did it chronologically and the timings from marriage to first child second child the introduction of Jerry and Judith his wife's children again like Charlie said to try and build what that happy moment before it all went crashing down might have been you know to sort of try and establish what their joy together might have been that was that was really useful at the very end of the play the very end of the play as you see it Robert enters the final scene unaware of what's just happened and he has I think I should have counted how many was it is mic encounter now it's quite right absolutely quite right five words so Robert has five words in the play oh no and then you are actually eight words eight words in the play where he doesn't know about the affair which is a really curious thing to do but arguably he has no words yes because the affair isn't there's a kiss hmm there's not an affair yeah yeah but that is a real something emma has I don't want to make a I'm not sure that's very true yeah the party and I can tell you the play I mean so this reverse chronology is how the plays were and it's always done this way what is not always done is what you brought up that all three of you remain on stage throughout the entire production in it it changes the audience experience certainly to see you know the specter of someone essentially lingering in the background I'm wondering how if at all it changes for you both when you're playing and when you're listening like the second time that I saw it Tom I noticed that you start out over Zoey's shoulder and then you move and you end up behind Charlie shoulder and I'm like are you guys feeling that while you yeah Tom's like yes I know I walk I mean it's it's a manifestation of guilt the presence of the third object is the other wronged party and so often in the play the scenes are two people in conversation talking about the absent so when it's Jerry and Emma they're always talking about Robert when it's Emma and Robert they're always talking about Jerry when it's Jerry and Robert they're always talking about Emma and the manifestation of the the literal physical presence like a ghost is a is a manifestation of the the object in the mind which I think makes things very uncomfortable I think there's a there's a energy between us that we hold together that it is a triangulation and what was once a couple has been triangulated and that's just very complex it's it makes it real whether it's me or Zoe or Charlie with their listening we're all listening into each other all the time how does it change things for you to on the listening end or on the playing and so to speak for me seemed six and seen eight I'll explain which was they are very poignant in that regard because scene six is this is a scene between Zoe and myself but Emma and Jerry and they in the flat that they that they rent mm-hmm in the apartment they rent and is this the one where they're breaking up giving no well they're never this is actually religion they're never really happy there's never really a see there's moments of happiness this is scene six yeah exactly right so this scene as written only includes Emma and Jerry and in our production of course Robert is sitting in this chair there's a bit there's a bit towards the end where I have the memory of the child throwing the child up and it's a the memory is and I and in rehearsals that felt very there was a sense of why why why am I having such trouble with this memory but it was it was almost like Jerry hadn't worked through those feelings quite yet and he there was it was almost just like an observation I'm still why I can't get rid of this memory it's frustrating but in the way that we staged it and Robert Tom you know walks over and looks at me before I deliver that and that has changed the nature of that moment so significant because it really feels like you he's being haunted by a ghost and the Met that he's haunted by the memory of it and so the gravitas of that I think is much heavier than it would be were we not to be staging at the way we are I also noticed that and I don't know if this is me really reading into things but in the beginning of the play whoever is in the background is generally standing and as the play continues you know in tour cello you're on the floor lunch you're on the floor was that intentional is that a way of just us like like almost like a camera like focusing point where I have the Apple but I'm supposed to eat and I thought I'm not gonna stand this time actually I'm standing but I think but I think that's a brilliant way to read into it because I think there are there are very deep instincts that we all utilized as actors when we were having to find those moments and I think the fact that maybe we get closer to the ground or something feels a bit more kind of strip back a little bit more fatigued maybe they certainly become more involved in the action as the play goes yeah they're more in that as you say at the beginning they're just kind of there in the background almost like a shadow by the end you know we're looking at each other right more claustrophobic is the key claustrophobic anxiety create yeah I mean I'm also just in terms of the focus I'm you all have done your fair share of camera work how if it all has that made you better on stage for this play it's helped I think enormously because we we even talked about moments in this play that were like close-ups in a film we have had to really stay true to the vision that Jamie had very very early one very early on which was that this was to be truly contained as a piece of acting Pintas words actually lend themselves to being contained being generally British and suppressed but there was also something that Jamie needed us to do on this completely bare stage that was to be confident enough to be still to be extremely economical with movement to feel as deeply as possible so that any any emotion need not be presented that it could just kind of radiate the way that it does in a in a close-up mm-hmm that's it I find that a thrilling challenge as an actor really sincerely is is to because the play I think contains enormous pain I think all three characters are in incredible pain and their lives are not turning out how they expected and there's a huge sense of loss but they're these are not melodramatic people and the internal chaos is not externalized in you know nobody's throwing furniture and you know nobody's um screaming or or shouting or yeah I really feel like I can see the silent lines in your faces there's so much yes suppress but absolutely telegraphed yeah to the audience and I'm wondering like do you have a consistent script for yourself in your head yeah yeah I find that's like you wrote your like it was like in the silences have you written something Robert or Jerry or Emma is thinking in that silence that's the same every night for you not the same every night but yeah you do fill it with with head chatter well Charlie I quoted a lovely line from Harold Pinter's about about the the pauses and the silences he writes them in and all he ever asked of a company of actors was that he that actors honored the words he wrote down and he gives very little in stage directions virtually none but you have to say what he the characters must say what he wrote and he must honor the pauses and the silences there are fewer silences than pauses but there are some and the difference in two poisonous silences a pause is when one character expects the other to speak or is decided not to say what they were going to say a silence is a moment a period of time after which both characters are irreversibly changed and so exploring Jaime's challenge to us was to allow the silences to stand to hold in tension and as an actor initially though it's difficult because you don't want the play to slow down you don't want the energy to somehow sag you want to keep the energy well that's what's so phenomenal about it is that in every single one of those be it a pause or a silence I'm not sitting there going to talk no it's really I mean but that's because of the energy and the focus and that's and I like like I said I see that I see what's going on in each of your heads you know I see him going like am I gonna tell him I'm not no I'm not going to tell him and that I know okay I'm not saying you know I think it's all it's all going on there there are three three people who are terrified of intimacy real intimacy and what one of the most exciting things about the pauses and the silences for me is all the things you could say to make it better in that moment all the things you could say in that awful painful silence that would remedy the situation I'm not happy in this marriage I'm not sure we're gonna make a you know I just wish you would leave Judith because actually I'm in huge amounts of pain every time you don't make it to one of our meetings I'm worried what will happen for the children I deeply love you and I'm afraid of the future there are so many things they could say and instead it's you know when are we gonna play school long pause so I yeah it's they do change every single night and and I wonder what it would look like if you suddenly wrote all of the things yeah yeah I mean speaking of how things change night tonight I cannot leave this stage without talking about the tour cello scene because all I want to watch that scene 15 times I and and like the first time I saw the play you were sobbing and nodding and you could and you're like searching for her eyes yeah and the second time I saw the show you were like you were angry and it was like jaw clenched and you couldn't even look at her interesting and those are such two very different interpretations of the reaction the same man can have to the same woman and how you handle his reaction in those pauses like what changes it for you night tonight do you even know I think it's something to do the momentum of the piece itself and that's the thrill of doing a play is that every successive moment you could you carry into the next scene and some nights certain aspects resonate more deeply than others this is an extraordinary silent there's extraordinary couplet couplet before silence in that at the end of scene 5 the Tortelli scene after Emma's confession we're lovers she says a few lines later I'm sorry and Robert says sorry question mark silence and and the nature of the apology is sometimes different and the nature of the way Robert receives the apology is sometimes different which is sometimes sometimes I feel the Emma is absolutely soul shattered that she has done this as soon as I feel that sorry is the only thing she could think of saying because there are no words we need to put to this level of pain and one night I might be feeling the loss of the friendship more deeply another night I might be feeling a kind of fury about the paternity question over who is Ned's father because yeh says you know how long has this been going on some time but how long exactly five years it's over five years and they're nuts soul-crushing devastating truly devastating he's been humiliated in this way the five years have gone by his wife's been having an affair with his best friend under his nose and I can feel the pain of that the loss of it the shame of it I feel like a fool or the fact that Ned is one year old the next question unspoken is what who's his father and that can sometimes the terror that I might not be the father of my own son it's something something that comes alive in that moment so it's a really interesting well and then what happens in that scene I feel like totally comes out in the lunch scene you know that how angry you are in one scene as well and then you know how what you're walking into in that scene and as much pain as there is in this show there is a lot of humor I'll erase yes and I think he means that important to say I think Pinter knows that on some level these circumstances are absurd the life is absurd the pain is absurd in some way and with it that there's a it with the enormous sensitivity we have as human beings to feel sometimes with time or with a different perspective these things can be very funny you know life's a dream and I he means for there to be humor in it there's a friend of mine made an observation which I'm obsessed with ever since he made it which is that in the second scene when when Jerry has just found out that Robert knows about the affair love Jerry is very perplexed and hurt and disappointed that he's that he's not getting the reaction that he expected from his quote/unquote best friend right he seems to be completely unwarranted and that's very painful too Jerry gets very upset about that what my friend the opposition my friend made was that it's so ironic that he gets the reaction that he wanted but he gets it in a restaurant four years earlier he gets it with a piece of melon attached to the fork yeah but that's that's a for me that's a really a really great element of genius from Harold's point of view that's so clever it's so absurd to so it's so absurd that you'd to put the situation Roberts best friend has been having an affair with his wife and rather than confront his best friend he confronts the waiter yes for not bringing the the poor waiter gets this extraordinary ferocity out of nowhere he confronts the melon he confronts the memory I mean let all the waiters of New York know it may not be you it's not they just we have a couple of audience questions can you talk about the use of the turntables please props to whoever asked that one great question great question very much an idea that came from Jamie Lloyd our director understanding that this is a play about the nature of the passing of time and memory and that that time is going backwards very obviously because of the reverse chronology but memory distorts the process of time and in some regard these three characters are in orbit around each other there's almost a gravitational force or a pull between them it was a very simple I think began as a very simple idea very simple that Jamie is very aware of the nature of subtext in Pinter's plays and that what people say is often not what they mean so there's what there's the words that come out of their mouths but underneath it there's a different meaning and the ground is never secure the ground is always shifting beneath their feet I almost saw it - as cogs in like in a clock like the actual cogs that one won't move without the other because I think is our you and I about you know the the codependence of the relationships and the betrayals and that you can't you know you were saying that once the affair and so does the marriage because they're all actually holding each other on the friendship and the friendship it's also like a clock it's it's a rewinding of time in a very useful way sometimes the the the use of the inner and outer rim was a very important thing at the beginning at the beginning of rehearsals we had to imbue it with meaning because you can't there's an inner circle that moves and then there's an outer rim that moves and sometimes though going at the same time and sometimes they're in they're going the opposite ways and you had to be very careful how you used both it couldn't be generalized so even though you see us or sometimes easily stepping from one one realm to another that it took a lot of time to really balance to balance it and make it emotional rather than logistical are there things that play differently here than in London and I don't just mean an understanding of Kilburn or yeah like are there emotional things that are landing people are laughing at something they didn't laugh at in in London I'm going at least that's how I'm going to interpret the question there's a few there's I think there's the there's a moment in scene I always find interesting is a moment in see him as probably doesn't mean anything but there's a moment in scene 5 which is the Venice scene it's funny that everyone calls it by the way the tour cello scene because it takes place in Venice right talk about cello but then well-thumbed copy of WB there's a moment where Robert when he's just found out that they haven't they have an apartment or a flat he asks is the flat nice he says nice and in London that was but the people found that very funny in here no it's not funny I found I know what the reason for that is this interesting I feel like actually get lost in there was like something landed oh yes something landed in the matter day today which was which was the few people really laughed at you having lunch with your sister oh yeah and that but that never really lies it added today they're a surprise laughs I would say Maureen I was like 200 i need like a little star chart with some of my well in that vein Jessica wants to know what was the funniest unexpected thing that happened on stage perhaps melon I mean the melon is Ellen's gone everywhere it can be so tricky there's a couple of things that have happened with the melon there was one instance where I picked up by stabbed a piece of melon with my fork and I we were talking about Sphynx this book that Jerry's given Emma and Robert refused to publish and I and the line is do you think that makes me a publisher of unique critical judgment or a foolish publisher and I flicked the fork in sort of some flourish and the piece of melon went in a perfect mathematical art into my wine glass I thought how am I gonna get out of this one I think I got Eddie back on and said new glass there was one one other night not the one one in the audience yeah front row apology and then one it was very funny where a piece of melon went on to the floor and I wasn't thinking because I was so caught up in Roberts diatribe about the awfulness of modern prose literature that I and I'm knowing I have to finish this melon by the time I get in his speech and I push my chair back and pick this piece of melon off floor and put it in my mouth and the audience did exactly that deeply on sighs five-second rule I looked up in to my esteemed colleagues I wish were very twinkly take a pause before continuing lose contact with the play I published a book whilst we were doing betrayal just because the day we came we did a performance the day of my book launch so these guys very kindly came to support which is about Casey this other writer in in the fabric of the play publishing a burg and your line is I say to New York someone wants to film that novel of his you didn't like someone that's my line someone wants to film that novel of his you didn't like but weed that week before we'd been to Zoey's book lon no that day that day and I went stuff for Monster someone wants to film that book of yours he didn't like for yen we didn't discuss this actually and we should have because you can do the clearing up of why is Emma barefoot throughout the play which is one of my favourite explanations that no it's not about anything about being tall no people ask me no it's not about height the two men of very decent height anyway and have a lot of good self-esteem so it's not about that it's it was something that I I rehearsed barefoot from day one really and again it was partly because we were faced with this completely bare stage and there's something about being barefoot that kind of creates an instant domesticity in a way you know there are scenes inside and in the afternoon and you know post-coital precoital that you're kind of trying to create from nothing literally nothing and so it just felt like the right thing and I also she's just a woman who wants to experience everything yes and that like connection i I think I described it as the pretty woman moment of walking barefoot in the grass that she just wants to feel everything me Julia Roberts absolutely right I really just yeah commune with each other well yes she says to him like having done it and then he does it yes yes before we go I just on that I just really could say so Zoe comes down before she walks on stage she comes down in some very very fluffy pink slippers the other day she forgot anymore one we walk on the same order every night tom there's our that's me I walked on and I saw this I was like I should probably say something but I kind of want to see what happens if I do luckily or unfortunately was discovered I'd love to see the place where amazing I mean it recontextualized okay two quick questions before we wrap and this one lightning you have played all have played so many roles screen and stage is there one role that past role that comes up for you most in building this character that you think back on like oh I'm so glad I played whomever what great question very good question yes I actually played an ax in old times mm-hmm Pintas old times when I was 19 I worked so hard you can I'm at being 19 and being faced with Pinter's work it's a it's a lot you either like I have no idea what's going on and I don't want to know what's going on and I'm just going to skip this semester of school but there was just there was just like an instant click I think for me I just there was something that I identified with instantly even though it's a woman in her 40s again trapped in this web of nostalgia and violence or to other people it's it's one of Pintas are the memory plays and it's a three hander as well and I remember just throwing everything I had at it I'm loving it so much and knowing I was good knowing I was good you know you just know you're good maybe you always think that radio 19 you're like I'm mailing this but I really I felt it I felt it so lately had a huge effect on me and really helped me grow as an actor at that point and and I got a bad grade and the teacher said if I'd known it was going to be that easy for you I would have given you a different role I remember thinking easy are you insane you know deepest reaches of my young you know exploration of this craft and and so I'm very thankful oh did that hmm what about for you Charlie well you know in theory of everything I play when I read that script I remember thinking the great challenge with that role was that I believe and I met the gentleman I was playing Jonathan Haley Jones I met him and I remember thinking what's really challenging about that role is he's I believe he was a good man I believe that he you know he was someone who was scrupulous in his in the way that he conducted himself and yet he still does you know I fall in love and have an affair with another man's wife and I remember thinking the challenge for me in that role was to be it's important that he's likable I think that was the truth both the script and but also the person that I met but also you do have to you know you know you have to engage in the betrayal and the infidelity of that similarly with Jerry I you know the great again the great challenge for this play is I do think that this play works when as an audience member you don't vilify anyone so that you've meet these three people and or at least you don't by the end of it you don't vilify anyone you're your allegiance almost shifts and changes throughout the play as you discover more information and as you and as these characters reveal themselves to you so that I think you should you should like all three of them and you should also dislike all three of them in certain capacity so capacity yeah and so I think it's really important that although Jerry instigates the affair and does you know that was what he does which is he has a seven-year relationship with his best friend's wife I do also think that he should be it in some you shouldn't be the body in this you should also like him so any any directors out there looking for someone who can who can be nice while they betray their best friend I'm your man I'm you go to yeah I think one of them is uh I suppose a kind of technical thing which is about silence and trying trying to explore a character's internal world without words which i think has helped explore these long silences and I think that the sort of I felt that when I was making the night manager playing Jonathan pine he says he doesn't say anything which has very little it's very economical what he says but what he feels is it's very deep and very varied but as the others were talking I was also also remembering a character I played I played 10 years ago 11 years ago in a film called archipelago mm-hmm which is directed by Jonah hog and his his pain is very repressed and he's get the complexity of his feelings it's locked away and there's some sort of I think he's his characters his name is Edward I think there's some something of Edward in Robert perhaps in sort of for the privacy of that vulnerability the containment of it hmm you really have to answer this one fast if you were to do this play again gender-bending gaber's and whatever if you could keep your role or switch to another role do you keep it or switch and if you were to switch who do you switch to I plan love it can I just say at this point what keeping it very quick that we actually have done this before I having lunch one day when we were halfway through the run in London and we just sort of jokingly said oh I wonder if we know each other's lines like how long have we been listening and we started to do it and actually got nearly through the whole play and what I will say is you were a lovely Emma so I think you've made the right choice you were lovely actually really moving I I was a wonderful Robert so I would I'd go with Robert you'd be a great Robin I was good yeah still no she's good and because you need to go to the theatre my last question is because writing acting screen theater I know that it's not really the medium it's the story what story what kind of story are you most attracted to coming forward I love a really good love story I love a good love story but it's good but it's got to be really good it can't be I can't do you not I mean they can't I'm not a sucker for any sort of ROM calm hmm you know it has to be really yeah yes you know when against the odds it's often not even just love stories it's often like scenes in movies where you know I've like one of my fear and an example but like one of my favorite moments in cinema history and this is probably gonna sound lame but is that when when Keanu Reeves we're gonna Reeves pulls up a Trinity in the matrix and the first one and she realizes what the what the what she's always known it's brilliant I think I think I'm the same I'm why I love doing betrayal it's because it is the sort of an auntie auntie romance if that's a genre you know things like the lobster for example is a film that I really anything that sort of explores the my new shy and the pain and the more difficult aspects of I'm the mass of love yeah I know I'm a masochist we've done betrayal for 230 times what about you Tom I think it's something about finding something meaningful in the experience of being alive which is that it doesn't matter what the story is that there is a kind of the specific is also the universal so if you tell a story about a specific human being with that specific human beings struggles and optimism and hope and fear and pain and suffering and complexity you actually express something Universal that we can all relate to and that's the whole point of theatre and cinema and and literature is to is to connect us together to find our common humanity the things we share as opposed to the things that divide us I absolutely agree and on that note you guys have an evening performance so we have to let you go thank you so much for being you wanna go again you can see the trail on Broadway December 8 you can follow the trail on social Instagram and Twitter at the trail b wy and you can follow me on instagram at Ruthie fierce burg we'll see you at the theatre thank you all so much [Applause]

Channel: The 92nd Street Y, New York

Views: 64,460

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, tom hiddleston, zawe ashton, charlie cox, betrayal, harold pinter, broadway, acting, theatre, theater, loki, marvel, daredevil

Id: cOHh8l__sKY

Length: 76min 24sec (4584 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 26 2019