- The studio actually wanted
me to read for something else and I remember I was
late to catch a flight and I read it in a very hurried way and it must have sort of done something. - Right. - And the director called me
and I was in like a nightclub when he called me. He was like-
- In London? - Yeah, and he was like, "Emily." And I was like... (imitating beat music) He was like, "I want you to do the movie." (jazzy music) So do you love living in Brooklyn? - I do.
- Yeah. - Brooklyn is finally the
place where I've felt at home. - Yeah. - It's taken me a long time to
feel at home in this country. I used to live in Los
Angeles, but as I say, I ran out of farmers markets, so I didn't know what to do.
- Yeah, there's only so many. - When you, yeah, when that's gone, don't know, where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do in Los Angeles? Everybody's so miserable. They pretend they're happy, but they're deeply miserable, which is- - Yes.
- It's a great quality. - There's a buoyancy to Brooklyn. - Yeah!
- I feel and I love and it permeates my soul and I love it. - Absolutely.
- When you walk around now, as you are now known as this
like terrifying fuck-off guy, do people come up to you? Do you find people are
different with you now after playing this part? - I've been doing this for 60 years. - God.
- I know, I know. It's embarrassing. - No, it's great. - Well, it is embarrassing, well, yeah. It's partly great and it's
partly embarrassing, anyway. - It's great for us, maybe
embarrassing for you. - No, I've been doing it for 60 years, so for 60 years, most of
the time I've been on, "Oh you, were you? Oh no." "Oh yeah, you were in, oh yeah." So it's been like that. - Which is always so much fun, right? - It's much fun, much
nicer, and it's much better, but now I am the fuck-off man. I am always, and it has its charm. I'm not knocking. Believe you me, I'm not knocking, but at the same time, it's not easy. - Yeah, I bet. - To be an icon. (both laughing) And a cultural icon at that. - [Emily] Sure. - As they say in Scotland,
"It's an awfully big job for a little wee boy to
be this cultural icon." I'm gonna build something better, something faster, lighter, leaner, wilder and I'm gonna do it from
in here where you are! - Are you finding people, I mean, I will say it blew my
hair back when Logan dies, startling and tragic. Are people furious that you're dead? - Yeah, you know, the social
media's been going nuts. - Yeah. - I mean, we had to bring the
show to an end and it was, I actually pretend that he's not dead, that he just disappeared. - I thought he was gonna come
back 'cause there's no way. - No, probably it won't
happen, but I just thought what a wonderful idea
that you don't see him. You only hear sort of, you
got bits and pieces of him. I never watched that, by the way. I haven't seen that episode. - You haven't seen, you
don't want to see it. - I don't see very many of
them, to be honest with you. - You don't?
- It's bad enough doing it with having to watch it,
you know what I mean? - Do you find, do you not
like watching yourself 'cause you're self-critical
or because you just are bored with watching it?
- Bored, bored. (laughs) - Do you find when you watch yourself, 'cause I feel like the whole
experience of doing film or movie or anything is
that you're from the inside looking out and then to see
it reflected back at you is a completely different experience. - You've just hit on it. I prefer the doing of it.
- Me too. - I don't wanna see it, I just wanna do it because the doing, once you've done it, once you've committed it, it's up to them. It's up to the audience
to make their decision about what it's like or what
it isn't like or what have you. Especially playing somebody like Logan, he is so misunderstood. They all think he's this character, when in fact he's that character and having lived with him
for, how long, six years, I realize that, that it's
something that is very frustrating because they don't get him. They just see this anger and this rage. - Well, it's so, again,
I'm gonna watch you much more closely 'cause
I'm a geek and I'm a geek for the fact that you've
revealed the shadow of this man's life, like
that's what you see, so yes on the page, maybe
a more archetypal character and no one does typhoon
anger better than you. I've gotta be honest. It's incredible watching you
just pop off on that show 'cause some people are
unconvincing when they act angry and you do it so well. - Well, it's because anger
is always very close to me. - Well, but what I see
is right within reach. But what I see is fear also, the idea that when there's
distance between him and his children, he
becomes more untethered and then when he gets back with them, there's a sort of
reclamation of his identity and it's so fascinating watching
their need for each other that is so toxic and he
operates within his capacity, but I see this whole
shadow of this man's life. Like how did he grow up? What was that like? Why did he become that way? - You're such fucking dopes. You are not serious figures. I love you, but you are not. - It's so beautifully
pitched the whole way through and it's all freaking submarined with you and you just see glimmers of
it and it keeps you leaning in and it keeps, like, I feel
my stomach is as in knots as these kids sort of desperate for you to give them a crumb
of something, anything. And then weirdly, when you do give them
a crumb of something, I'm terrified for them because they're gonna be disappointed. - Yeah, well, that's a
problem with children. (both laughing) Children are always endlessly
disappointed in their parents and it's not just the
Roys, I mean it's other. I have it, you know, with other kids. Your kids give you a hard time. - Yeah, for sure.
- And they never stop being your kids, I mean, my eldest is 52 and he still behaves like
sometimes he gives me a hard time. - Are they proud of you? - I don't know. It's very hard because my
eldest son is an actor. He's a very fine actor, actually, and I think it's difficult. I think it's difficult, especially now, this whole icon thing. It's not an easy thing
to carry around with. I mean, people are always
nice, don't get me wrong. People always come up and
they're always very gracious, but when they come in swarms,
that becomes really tricky. - Yeah, it's hard to be on
the receiving end of it. - It is a wee bit
sometimes, but it's okay. Listen, I just wanna talk
to you about your show, "The English."
- Okay. - I thought it was exceptional. - Thank you.
- I really did. I thought visually it was exceptional. I didn't know this writer, Hugo Blick. - [Emily] Hugo Blick, yes. - Amazing work.
- Brilliant. - Amazing work.
- Brilliant. - And so wonderfully paced out
throughout the six episodes. Just incredibly so unpredictable. You didn't know where it was gonna go and it must have been a
great journey to be on. - It was an extraordinary one. They sent it to me as a pilot. Hugo sent it to me. He directed all of them as well. - [Brian] Yeah, I saw that. - And I honestly signed
on after the first page. It was such singular writing, you know, and you just realize how
much you read out there that's not that way, that's
derivative or something, and this was so unpredictable
and she was so unpredictable and certainly wasn't kind of conforming to the damsel in distress tied to a tree thing.
- No. - It's a shock. See the exact value of a man's
life laid out on a table. - That's what I thought was remarkable about it's her journey. Her journey was so surprising. And you kept thinking, well this is a sort of
upper class English girl who gets herself into this dilemma and she can't get out of it because of what's happened
in the possible syphilis. And I thought that was so
brilliantly revealed throughout, you know, right from the word go and then to have wonderful
actors like Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones in the first
episode and then their dead. (Emily laughs) I thought, wow, that's bold. - Yeah, I sort of love that about Hugo. He was so unafraid of the body count, even with some of our greatest actors. - Yeah, it was fantastic, and they all held their own brilliantly, and of course the visual
aspect of it was good, but also your journey
was really interesting 'cause it was, you could never anticipate anything at all.
- Yes. - It all came right off
the page straight at you and you did a great job. - Thank you. It was an extraordinary
experience doing it and a sort of beast to take on 'cause I of course knew
where she was heading, but it's how you calibrate
that and what you reveal and what you think you
see and don't see of her. That was the most beautiful
part of the journey for me. And I admired her so much as a character. I don't know if I've played anyone I've sort of wanted to be more like. I found her so brave and fearless and still empathetic in
the face of brutality that had been done to her, you know? - Yeah, and the fact that you tracked her journey incredibly well because nothing was anticipated
at all, it was all revealed, and that's what I thought was
so great about the writing and great about your playing as well. - Well, the writer is all, it really was all in that it was, Hugo writes in a way that I've never seen people write before
and brave and confident and succinct and spare. - But I was looking at
"The Honourable Woman" and the stuff he'd done before and this was so different in every aspect. Did he say why he had
written this, what it was? - His father ran a Greyhound
bus company in America so he spent a lot of time in America and he saw a grave once that
had "Unknown Indian" on it and he never forgot it. He saw this gravestone that said that and this Native American was
buried alongside US Calvary and just the fact that
everyone else was named and then you've got an Unknown Indian, like he just was completely
captivated by this image, couldn't forget it, and I
think grew up watching "Hombre" and all of these extraordinary Westerns and had spent so much
time in the American West and I think wanted to write
sort of to Trojan Horse a Native American story,
but he's Paul Newman, his character, this guy is Paul Newman, he just happens to be Native American, and ultimately, even
though it is her journey and she's the one that kidnaps
you and brings you into it, it's how do you sort of sneak in what's under the
floorboards of this country and how much blood there is on the ground of the birth of America
and the birth of industry. Someone killed my child. - Oh. - Now I'm gonna kill him. - Were. - "The English" is a very
extraordinary choice of title because I was expecting
the English when I thought, oh, well, it's all gonna be in England. I didn't expect it to be in the
wilds of Wyoming or wherever it was you were filming.
- Sure. - And that was what was so
interesting is why "The English" and I was trying to work
that out and I could see that it's all about people
being put in situations which they have no control over. - Sure.
- But they're there. It's happening to them.
- Yes. - So her journey was from being
this very upper class girl and going on this journey
that she had no idea that that's where she was gonna be going, so that's sort of, it's funny, I'm about to do a movie
myself which is about roots, about people finding where they come from. "The English" was interesting
because it was where she came from and how
much of that is in her and how much of that is not,
you know, how it motivates her and then eventually she
becomes really tough, she becomes really hard-nosed about it. So the journey was really incredibly good, but "The English" was, I just thought that was such
a kind of tantalizing title. - And really, you know, he says early on when she's doing a
voiceover at the beginning, she's saying, "It didn't
matter where we came from, Europe or Russia, to you,
we were all just the same. To you, we were just the English." And I guess it's that
feeling of the perspective of Native Americans of
what the invasion was. They all were just the same. - Right, right.
- You know. - That doesn't shift, even
though people become American, they're not English anymore.
- Sure, sure. - But she maintains her
Englishness throughout. - She does completely, yeah. - It's a really great show. You should be incredibly proud. - I am, thank you, thank you so much. - Tell me about your start
because devil, the Prada. What is it called?
(Emily laughing) - "Devil Wears Prada." - Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm saw it, actually it's
great, I loved it, I loved it. Would you consider that
your breakout role? - Yeah, I mean I think it's
the one that everyone saw and everyone liked, you know,
so I guess in that way it was. I had done theater in England,
some British television. I did this independent film
called "My Summer of Love," which was Paweł Pawlikowski's film. But "Prada" was, you
know, I think everyone went up for that role and
I never expected to get it and it's Meryl Streep and
Anne Hathaway and all these, you know, big names and
I went and read for it. The studio actually wanted
me to read for something else and I remember I was
late to catch a flight and I read it in a very hurried way and it must have sort of done something and the director called me
and I was in like a nightclub when he called me and he was like- - In London?
- Yeah, and he was like, "Emily," and I was like...
(imitating beat music) He was like, "I want you to do the movie." It was an extraordinary
overnight shift in my life when that came out. - Well, it was so effective, of course, to work with one of the
greatest screen actresses of all times.
- The best. - I mean, I so envy you. One of my ambitions is to
work with, before I snuff it, work with Meryl Streep.
- Oh, don't say snuff it. Well, you will.
(Brian laughs) She's abroad and amazing
and was slightly terrifying on that film 'cause it was, she said it was one of the
first times she's tried a bit of method acting to sort
of stay in her own zone, but it made her so
miserable playing Miranda. And since then I've
done two films with her where she's a completely
different, you know, wild, wonderful bird than she is. She is so unpredictable in the scene. It's what makes the screws tighten on you being on the receiving end of it. - I met her once and I used to say, "I never liked you."
(Emily laughs) And she went, "What?" I said, "I never liked
you 'cause I was jealous." (Emily gasps) I said, "I was so jealous of your acting because you were so good at it." - Really?
- I kept thinking, "How can anybody be that good?" She just is.
- She just is. - She's so free.
- And she's so centered. - Completely, completely centered, but I think that about you, I think that watching
you and I talked about it before with the shadow of
the life of the people, and you do keep us guessing, you do keep us in knots with who you play from like that caustic
fiery writer in adaptation and then what you did with Abbott, who's so dangerous and so wicked. And I'll never forget that
scene you do with poor Danny in "Bourne Supremacy" with Danny, where he's cracked the
case and he's telling you, "Listen, someone's in on this
and this is what happened." And you're listening and you're
just looking down and you just feel this sense of
foreboding that you've been smoked and you've been found out and you go, "Right, Danny, can you
just show me that again?" And he shows you and you just stab him and it was so shocking that
sort of casual attitude towards executing someone like that, but there's a storm in you in
that part and it's so clever. - Well, you know, I think what's important is really what's underneath,
what the motivating force is and it's very delicate,
you know, a lot of the time and you don't wanna, you
wanna just get it right. You wanna hit it, it's
like hitting the right note as opposed to the wrong note and then you can spring off from that. Everything can go from that
if you get that note right and I think that's what
interests me about the job, is just finding that one note, you see, 'cause I think that
there's this whole debate about method acting and
non-method acting and all that and I'm all for whatever gets
you through the day, fine. But the great thing about if
you really understand yourself as a transmitter is how
you transmit energy, that in fact, the energy goes through you and you don't have to worry it in any way, and if you hit it right, it works. It just works. You do that a lot. I've seen it, and even
with the "Mary Poppins," you come on and you just
hit it and you hit it absolutely accurately and
then it blows out from there and I think that's the most
important thing that we have as actors is that ability
just to go into something very quickly and come
out of it, not to dwell, that we move through
things very fast, actually, along the time.
- Yes, I agree. I think the idea, and I'm
in full agreement with you, so when it comes to people's
methods or approaches, it's sort of whatever floats your boat as long as you don't sort
of sink mine, you know, because mine's sort of like- - Exactly.
- Quite simple and quite straightforward and
not easy for me to talk about. There's really nothing to talk about. It's just a really rather
ethereal thing that is hard to, I don't know how it all happens really, it just does in some way. - Well, there's a mystery about it. - Yeah, there's a mystery about it to me. - Absolutely, and I think
you have to acknowledge the mystery.
- Yeah. - So I've come to the, I mean,
it's a sort of latter thing I've come to really is why act? What's the purpose of it? And we seem to forget that. We forget that we always
think it's, you know, it starts from vain gloriousness. It starts from all that
stuff is when you're young and you wanna do this, I wanna do that. I've been there, we've all been there. But as you get older, you say,
"Well, what's the purpose? What actually are you doing?" And I always go back to Shakespeare about holding the mirror up to nature. - Yes.
- It is our responsibility for what we do. I mean, I think the theater
is actually, you know, I'll be a bit pie about it, but I think it's the one true church 'cause it's the church
of the human experience. Everything else is about belief
systems that we bring in, whether we're Catholic,
whether we're Jewish, whether we're Islamic, but the theater is about
our relationship directly with something which is so
personal and so immediate and it's the effect that it
has on the people watching that that is what's so
interesting about it. We don't cater to that
effect, we just allow them, we just say, "All right, hook your boat, we're going on this journey
now, that's where we are going." And that's what I love about the job. That's what I think is
the most important thing about the job and it's
the most gratifying thing about it, really.
- For sure. - I think you can do something and I feel I used to trivialize it because there are people
saving lives out there and I do see though now, the
longer I've been doing it, the importance of
confronting and comforting and mirroring human experience for people. It makes people feel seen. I see it in my own children. People just wanna be seen. They just want to be understood and if you can create
something that will allow that for someone, it's of
great comfort in life. - I just wanna get us all together. What you kids don't realize,
this is a good deal. The world likes it, it makes sense. - The scene in the karaoke
bar, when he comes in, and it's a sort of cap-in-hand moment, but an olive branch moment. Did you feel it was authentic for Logan? Is he really wanting unity
back with his children? - Yeah. That's all he's ever wanted. - Yeah. - The intentions throughout
the whole of the story are very simple. He loves his children. That was the first time
I asked Jesse Armstrong, I said, "Does he love his children?" He said, "Yeah, he really
loves his children." And when you made that decision, everything just falls into place so it's about trying to reclaim that love. It's like when Roman at
the end of the third says, "What about love?" and he goes, he kind of goes crazy because
love is not being present. It's just simply not present. He's loving and his own way
and he remembers them as kids. That's the thing. If you've got children, and you'll find out when
your children get older, you will always remember
them when they're little and they'll always be
there when they're little and they'll be these two
different people, the people who, when they reach puberty
and when they become older, or when they were this innocent stage, this kind of clumsy, innocent stage, and I think that's what he
remembers about his kids and what he loved about his kids, their awkwardness and sweetness, could never express it
because his own background has not allowed that.
- Sure. - It's just the horrible things
that have happened to him. So from the point of view of that scene, he was trying to reclaim, he's always trying to reclaim something and then he finally has to admit, he says, "I love you, but
you're not serious people." - And what does he mean by that? - Well, he means they're
not serious people, that they're so kind of keen on success, keen on all the elements which
are not rooted in anything and he's rooted because
he's created this business, this is his life, this is what he's done. I mean, whatever you
think of the business, whatever, you know, we ever
think of it in terms of Fox News or what have you, that is,
and where he is come to that, he's come to that also from
a another place as well. His journey has been an extraordinary one, but he's created this world
and he's put these children in a very entitled state
and they don't know how to deal with it. They've never learned how to deal with a sense of entitlement. And that's also about where
we've got to in our society because we see, I did a documentary
series because I was so, I was so riven by playing
Logan for so long. I needed to readdress the thing 'cause I had come from
a fairly poor background and I just wanted to
look at the wealth gap, the fact that people are
getting richer and richer and richer and people are getting poorer, so it's getting wider, the
gap is, it's not closing. So I went back to my hometown. I did a thing called "How
the Other Half Live," and it was dealing with talking to people who were extremely poor and
people who lose dignity, like food banks make people lose dignity. But there're a thing
called Community Lighters where you pay a little bit for these goods and it just means it
alleviates the dignity aspect, that you still have your dignity. And that's what I've seen,
the erosion of dignity, and I went back to the place
where I was born and raised and it was a very happy time for me. - Was it?
- In Dundee, yeah, it was beautiful. It was a great, we had this
backyard green, which we, and were all these families
and I remember on coronation- - Did you go back to your house? - Well, I went back to my
tenement to where I lived and we had two bedrooms
in a kitchen alcove where my brother and I slept and my three sisters slept in one bedroom and my mom and dad slept
in the other two bedrooms and I went back to that and
it was a very happy time until my father passed away and my mom had a mental breakdown. - I'm sorry.
- But it was very happy until that time. And then going back there
and then finding how there was no, the whole place was a mess. The backyard had gone. There was no respect anymore. And the thing that was even worse for me was seeing that when I was a kid, everybody had their name on the door. This was the Robby family,
this was the Richardson family, this was the Brody family,
you know, and the Cox family. And then now they've all got numbers. - Wow. - It's not, it's so the
whole depersonalizing- - It must be about
dignity it is, isn't it? - It is, you know, and the whole depersonalization
of people that's happening. And you see it both because
I filmed it in Scotland and I filmed it in Miami, which was- - Wow.
- You know, really impossible. Boca Raton, the mouth of the
rat for a very good reason. - Wow.
- And it was just really hard and painful to watch how we've
deteriorated in terms of our, in terms of our relationship
to humanity, you know? - Yes, completely.
- It's become so, you know, and that's why our job
is more important now- - Yes.
- Because our job is about looking at what humanity is. I was gonna ask you one
other question then. Was playing Cornelia a big step for you in terms of something that
was not like anything else you'd done before? So in a way, it was a new,
you were at a new level. - And up on Powder River, there is a man trying to
forget that he ever existed. So I'm gonna go up there to remind him. - And I think you wholly
succeeded in that level, I have to say.
- Thank you. - But what did it feel
like for you in that way? - I think I always enjoy the great unknown right before you take something on and I'm usually frozen
with fear leading up to it 'cause I don't quite have a
tap on them until you start. I don't feel I'm immersed in it 'till I go and she had bewitched me as a character and she seemed so dexterously
written as a character so I did feel my work was
sort of cut out for me, but that element is sort of
putting your feet to the fire with someone who was so complicated. - Yeah.
- And had gone through something unimaginable.
- Oh, incredible. - And anything to do with children and anything like that
that I've ever played, I find those experiences
are heavier for me to carry and more traumatic, those scenes, where you're talking about them and talking about your children, and I think if acting is the
ultimate form of empathy, my God, did I empathize with her. I just felt she became like
this part of me, you know? The most unforgettable
character I played for me. The closest I felt to
someone was playing her. But do you feel the same? Like is there a difference in your process or how it affects you when
you play Leah compared to Roy or when you do the Bourne movies? Like what's the difference
in the effect or toll or not that it takes on you? - I think you sort of, I
love the fact that you don't, you start from a position of fear. - Yeah. (laughs) - And I sort of do as well. I don't kind of admit it as much, but- - No, I'll never tell anybody. - No, but I know exactly what you mean and it's also when you're
taking on a new human being, you really are taking
on a new human being. - Yeah.
- And that's the job. - And that's how you see them. - Exactly.
- You have to see them. - You've gotta see them
and you have to try and get into that, whoever that person is and unfortunately I played a lot of very not pleasant people. I don't know why. I think I'm perfectly pleasant, but. - (laughs) The socks say it, right? - The socks it, right. The socks said that
I'm allergic to idiots. - But it doesn't mean that
he's a horrible person, guys. - No, it doesn't mean
I'm a horrible person. But no, I think that that's what's, that's what I love about the job because it is always into the unknown, that we never know, like I'm
doing a movie at the moment and I'm kind of, I was dreading it. - You were?
- I was absolutely dreading it 'cause I just wanna stop. I don't wanna do anymore
and then you get into it and then something kicks in. - It's kind of intoxicating.
- Yeah, it is. - You sort of pretend it isn't, but it is. - Yeah, and it kicks in and you go, all right, I'm going down this road now. - Yeah, and it's fun. - And it's fun, it's
great because it's good and especially when you can play and it's the playing I
love with other people. - With other people, yeah. - That's the great thing-
- That's the addiction. - When you've got wonderful actors who just make it so much easier for you and that's where I love my community. I love our community.
- Yes, so much. - I think it's one of the
best communities they are because of that and I
know people are gonna say, "Oh, those actors, they're
so self-congratulatory," and it has nothing to do
with self-congratulation, it's to do with knowing
when you're at home. - Yeah, and it's a secret language that is so comforting to me.
- That's right, that's right. - I really love it. I feel the same, the camaraderie
and for me in a scene, it's not about my line or your line, it's the space between us. It's the stuff that I miss when I don't do it.
- Exactly. - It's so exciting.
- Exactly and it's good. I mean, the scenes I've done
with the kids in Succession have been wonderful
because they've all been extraordinary, extraordinary wonderful and they come and they're
there and it's formed and it's the best. - When you guys started that show, did you get the sort of tingly feeling that this could be something special? Or are you sort of resigned to the fact that you never quite know? - Well, to a certain extent, obviously I've seen Jesse's writing. I saw "In the Thick of
It" and the "Peep Show" that he did, which is- - [Emily] I haven't seen either of those. - Have you not seen them? Oh, you should watch them. - Okay. - "In the Thick of It"
is a really good show. It's looking at the political parties, basically looking at the
Labour Party through him, Blair and you know, all
that little and surrounding. - Oh, interesting. - And there's a character and
who's like Alastair Campbell played by Peter Capaldi
who does a lot of swearing. So I could see that there
was a line on his work and he also worked on "Veep" as well. - Oh great. - And it was through "Veep"
that our godfather is Frank Rich who has worked for HBO
and he used to be known as the Butcher of Broadway. He was the most vicious
theater critic ever. But he wasn't, he's a sweet man and he always gave me very good reviews. - I was just gonna say I bet
he just was so nice to you, like Frank Rich is a very nice man. - He's a very nice man. - He just tortured everyone else on stage. - He's a very nice man. But he saw this weekend
that Jesse had to rewrite a whole episode of "Veep"
and he did it par excellence. So Frank kind of got
onto his boat and said, "What else have you got? What have you gotten?" I think he'd written a
film about the Murdochs and then he said, "I've got
this idea for the series." Now, when it was pitched to me, I knew it was gonna be a
winner because it's very much in the line of "Dynasty," "Dallas." When you think about it. it's one of those shows
because it's a family show, but it's done with a satirical perspective and it's done looking at a real problem that we have at the moment about people who are live in that cloud cuckoo land. - Yeah, yeah, yeah,
with no accountability. But it's so Greek, the whole thing. - Yeah. Tell me about your theater experiences. Did you like the theater? - Very much, very much. I need to do more. - Is it hard to do more? - At the moment maybe
just 'cause my little ones are still so young. I would find not being there
for bedtime every night hard. I find that tough.
- Yeah. - I would like to do it. And my first year I did, so my first audition was with Sepita Hall for the Royal Family, which
I did with Dame Judi Dench, who was fab and I was 18.
- Was Toby Stephens in that? - Yeah. - I saw it.
- Did you? - I did. - I was her granddaughter and I had- - Right, yeah.
- I had done nothing. Had not trained, hadn't
done anything and he- - Well, you trained at some- - I went to Hurtwood House, which was a regular sixth form college, but they had a great drama department. - Yeah, I gathered. - I got an agent when I was still there when I was in one of their school plays and then he started
putting me up for stuff. He had to sort of beg
to get me in the room because I think for theater, I think they really want to
know if you've trained or not. - This is Ken McCready.
- Yeah. And then Peter gave me the
part and it was, you know, completely surreal to be
on stage with Judi Dench and not knowing anything. I felt so green and so
stupid and I felt like I didn't know what
anyone was talking about. Everyone in the cast was
over 50, apart from me. - Oh, Toby wasn't quite 50. - Well, Toby was my only
like young friend, you know, but it was talk about
being thrown into a vortex that I just was like,
"Wow, it's extraordinary." And everyone came to see that play 'cause everyone comes to see
Judi and yeah, I adored it. I adored it, I adored the
shapeshifting nature of it. I miss that, I miss the idea
of endless opportunities to play and explore and
not regret anything. - That's a great point.
- I want that. - I think that you've hit a
great point about the theater. That's exactly right. The opportunity to explore
it again and again and again. - Again and again.
- You never get bored. - Never, never. And then I did "Vincent in
Brixton" at the National Theater and then I did "Romeo
and Juliet" Chichester and then started doing television. - [Brian] Did you
directed Romeo and Juliet. - It was Indhu Rubasingham. She's this really incredible director, and yeah, it was, they had
the Montague as being Muslim and the Capulets being Christian and I think as everyone tries
to do with Romeo and Juliet, try and reinvent the
backdrop of it in some way. What was your background? Did you grow up religious? - No, well, I was a Catholic. - You were?
- I was born a Catholic and I, you know, I remained
a Catholic for a few weeks. (Emily laughing) - As soon as you didn't
have to go to church. - No, well, the last time I went to church was when John Kennedy was assassinated so it shows you how long ago that was. - [Emily] Wow. - I went to church out of
respect, but my church going days- - They're gone.
- Yeah, they have, I'm afraid. - I understand that. - I don't have that same feeling. I think religions create more
problems than they solve. - Yes, I think so too. - And that's my feeling about it. I really, really love
the fact of meeting you. - Me too. - You're very there.
- Thank you. - And it's a great quality you've got. - Well, I love talking to you
and I have so much respect. I was so happy it was you. - It was good, I mean, it
was good to talk to you and really, and I think "The English" is gonna be such a great thing for you because it's gonna be
an enormous springboard for your work now.
- Thank you. - Because you've cracked something really, 'cause it was difficult. It was not an easy part,
but you cracked it. - Thank you.
- You really did. - Thank you so much.
- Well, you did it. - Let's walk around Brooklyn together, - Yeah, we'll do that.
- All right. - We'll meet in Montague Street somewhere. - I'm gonna show you the
best croissant in Brooklyn. - All right, well, I'll hold you to that. - All right, done. (jazzy music)
