That Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical adapted for the big screen would please Ozians was never in doubt. Debuting on Broadway in 2003, Wicked was a musical touchstone for audiences embracing the outlier characters as well as themes of female friendship and being your best bad self. Adapted for cinema by screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, and directed by In The Heights helmer Jon M Chu, it’s a story steeped in film history and designed for cinematic scale – pushing the lurid world of Oz beyond the confines of a theatre stage. So big they split it in half, with part 2 coming next festive season, and a winter release date that lands it right in the middle of awards season like a beautiful pink bubble coming to rest in Munchkinland.
For non-Ozians then, the premise: a prequel to the 1939 interpretation of L Frank Baum’s book, Wicked charts the key moments that turned two schoolgirls from frenemies to besties and onward to battling witches of the North and West. An origin story, it asks the question whether anyone is born bad or merely formed by circumstance or shaped by myth and media. Opening with the death of the Wicked Witch Of The West (a puddle and that recognisable hat), sugary pink Glinda (Ariana Grande) tells the munchkins that they are now safe and also the story of their friendship. As students at Shiz academy presided over by sorceress Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), spoilt, disingenuous Glinda is roomed with green newcomer Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a hurt outcast who is rejected by her father and harbours a telekinesis power that is unleashed by rage and sense of injustice. Both girls fall for vapid Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and both journey to Emerald City to meet the wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Both will have very different outcomes…
All of this is played out over nearly three hours and via numerous songs (two of the show’s bangers, Popular and Defying Gravity show up in Part One) and there is sumptuous production design, kinetic camera swirls, CGI cityscapes, technicolor hoofing and high-note hitting. All as expected from Grande and Erivo, two singers who certainly have pipes. But where Wicked succeeds in spellbinding an audience is not just in the comic hair-tossing of Glinda, the appearance of two OG original Broadway cast members,Goldblum’s jazzy line delivery, the majestic swirl of black cape as Erivo unleashes her full potential while riding a broom… but in the emotional punch it manages to pack.
The connection between Glinda and Elphaba feels true as essayed by Grande and Erivo, a sub-plot about the treatment of animals is distressing (possibly too much for young children), the parallels with modern polarising politics are uncomfortable (‘where I come from everyone knows the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy’ says Goldblum’s dodgy wizard). But the real gut-punch is Erivo – a moment when she wordlessly displays all her emotions at a bullying school dance is tear-inducing and the adrenal spike is sure when she belts out the bars of Defying Gravity from the boiling heavens surrounding Emerald City. At the European premiere in London, her end credit exit prompted a tearful standing ovation and it’s likely it will do the same in cinemas everywhere else. Cynthia Erivo may have departed from Oz, but she enters the awards conversation in a brilliant flash of light. Though unlikely to convert musical haters, Wicked is the sort of four-quadrant entertainment that most cinemagoers want at this time of year. Pink does go good with green.
The star of TV show Dune: Prophecy talks psychedelic bluebells, photographing rubbish and the impact of a cancer diagnosis when we catch up with her in London.
How important is a little bit of nonsense now and then to you? My favourite pedlar of nonsense was Spike Milligan, who had ‘I told you I was ill’ written on his gravestone. I quoted him to my oncologist when I was diagnosed with cancer. It was a little bit of nonsense then that is important to me now.
What, if anything, makes you believe in magic? I find things magical, but I don’t believe in magic. I love close-up magic. I think The Prestige is one of my favourite all-time movies. If we’re talking magical, a misty morning in the woods when the bluebells give off a psychedelic haze. The jacaranda in LA does it too. That’s magical. The teeterboard in Cirque du Soleil. That’s magical.
What was your last act of true cowardice? Since being ill I’ve become rather disinhibited – I‘ve stopped being afraid of the situations that used to make me cowardly. I have undoubtedly been cowardly, but one advantage of being forgetful is you forget things.
What single thing do you miss most when you’re away from home? Hugging my family.
Do you have any odd habits or rituals? I like to photograph dumped rubbish and report it to the council.
What is your party trick? Reciting ‘Matilda’ by Hilaire Belloc.
What is your mantra? Read the question.
What is your favourite smell? Penhaligon’s Bluebell.
What do you always carry with you? My place card from the 1999 Oscars with a little hand-drawn picture by David Hockney.
What is your guilty pleasure? Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Who is the silliest person you know? Doug Judy.
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and Royal Shakespeare Company alumni Olivia Williams made her film debut in The Postman before becoming an indelible screen presence in Rushmore and The Sixth Sense. Flashbacks of a Fool, An Education, The Ghost, Anna Karenina, Maps to the Stars and The Father are just some of the movies on her varied CV, and she’s also appeared on the small screen in Emma, Friends, Spaced and The Crown. Her latest role as Tula Harkonnen sees her explore the world of Dune 10,000 years before the events depicted in Denis Villeneuve’s recent movies. Premiering in the autumn on HBO, Dune: Prophecy explores the founding of the fabled matriarchal order, the Bene Gesserit, with Williams playing a Reverend Mother who is integral to its genesis – alongside fellow RSC grad Emily Watson.
Photographs by CHARLIE CLIFT Hair and make-up by Ciona Johnson King/Aartlondon Dune: Prophecyis on HBO and Sky Atlantic now
*Arguably one of the most memorable (and quotable) scenes in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is when Mr Salt mumbles, ‘It’s a lot of nonsense,’ to which Wonka replies, in a sing-song voice, ‘A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by GREG WILLIAMS& JANE CROWTHER
Gladiator II’s Paul Mescal saddles up to discuss the emotional, psychological and physical ride of acting and the crucial advice Sir Ridley Scott gave him.
On a warm Saturday in July, Paul Mescal is galloping round the indoor riding school belonging to UK movie horse providers and trainers, The Devil’s Horsemen, on a beautiful dark bay 15-hander he learnt to ride for his role in Gladiator II. He nudges the horse, Duke, towards me, clicking his tongue and talking in a soothing tone looking every inch the ‘son of Rome’ that he plays in Ridley Scott’s long-awaited epic, Gladiator II. Despite his easy laugh and Gucci suit, it’s easy to imagine him charging into battle. Set two decades after the events of Scott’s 2000 film, the sequel finds Mescal’s character Lucius – the son of Connie Nielson’s Lucilla from the first movie – in hiding in the province of Numidia when the Roman Empire stages a bloody siege on the port, taking him prisoner and killing his wife. Transported to Rome as a plaything for the city’s brutal games, Lucius crosses paths with twin brother emperors Geta and Caracalla and a gladiator master, Macrinus (Denzel Washington). Driven by vengeance and survival, Lucius challenges the rot of Rome via eye-popping arena battles (rhinos! sharks!) and learns about his own backstory as he does it.
It’s a juicy role for any actor – following Russell Crowe’s indelible performance as Maximus – and one that Mescal admits could have been daunting had he allowed it to be. He’d first watched the original film with his dad at the age of ‘12 or 13’ and it was a movie the family revered. ‘I didn’t fear it,’ he says of taking on the mantle. ‘This ties back to something Ridley said on the first day of filming when we were waiting to get going, and we were all in these little tents. He comes up, smoking a cigar, and he slaps me on the back, and goes, “Just remember, your nerves are no good to me.” I was like, “What the fuck does that mean?” What I took from it was: “This isn’t about you. So whatever legacy the film is taking, you’re actually doing it a disservice if you can’t wear that. It’s bigger than us all making the film. Just go make the film. Go play Lucius.” He might have meant a totally different thing, but I found that comment very liberating. That’s something I’ll always keep forever for big films and small ones: “Get out of your way. Let your ego sit in the corner, and go and do your job.”
Given the job after a half-hour chat with Scott (‘We spoke for about five minutes about the blueprint of Gladiator II, and then we spoke for about 25 minutes about life and Gaelic football and everything inbetween’) the Irishman got straight into training, building up his physicality to convince as a deadly fighter and learning to ride a horse, as well as complete stunts with his four-legged co-star. ‘I had one of the best trainers in the world telling me what to do, when to do it, what to eat, when to eat,’ he says of working out to get the physique that prompted his fellow actor Pedro Pascal to call him ‘Paul the wall’ on set. ‘I wanted him to feel strong. But as much as you have a team of people around you, they can’t lift the weights for you. As much as it’s a physical preparation, it’s also a psychological preparation. You’re preparing your body to be somewhat violent.’
Mescal also wanted to be fighting fit in the saddle. As he strokes Duke in the stables he recalls his equine experience pre-Gladiator being limited to riding – and falling off – a horse in County Clare with his uncle. ‘The thing about horses is that they’re so enjoyable and present. The minute you’ve come to a position that feels kind of dangerous, you suddenly realise that they’re 10ft or 12ft tall, and they weigh a tonne, and they’ll run through you for a short cut. It’s mad.’
The Devil’s Horsemen have worked with Scott for years and horsemaster and stunt performer Camilla Naprous took the actor to task at their Milton Keynes HQ, helping him feel comfortable around, and on, horses. ‘We did 20 to 30 hours of riding and now I’m fully in love with horses,’ Mescal smiles. He takes Duke to the indoor training area for a couple of laps of relaxed cantering as the stable’s resident dog, Bertie, follows to watch. He looks like a pro, the hours in the saddle having paid off. He admits to pushing his skills further while filming. ‘I like getting technical so when you go to shoot, you’re not nervous. If I’m going to get to set, I’m going to want to do more than we rehearsed – and the only way to do that is by spending time on it. So technically we weren’t allowed to gallop on the film, but I knew that on the day I was going to want to gallop.’ He chuckles. ‘I mean, it’s Gladiator… I’m not going to trot him down!’
The dark bay Lusitano 15.2-hand horse he rode in the film, Doctor (who is also the steed in the Lloyds TV adverts), is grazing in a nearby field and is brought out to Mescal as he stands in dappled sunlight under a tree. He greets him as a long lost friend; ‘This is the greatest horse on planet Earth!’ he says affectionately as he pets him. Doctor began film work on Ridley Scott’s 2014 Exodus: Gods and Kings and is retiring after his stint on Gladiator II. In one key scene in the film, Mescal races to confront his onscreen nemesis, catching Doctor by the reins and running alongside him before mounting him as he canters away. He rides the horse through a baying crowd of hundreds to the outskirts of Rome… It’s a classic movie stunt and one that he was keen to do himself. ‘It’s such a brief moment in the film but I think that’s the kind of stuff that I love. It doesn’t matter how small a moment is; all of that stuff adds to the general texture of the film. You want to see the actors in the film doing the things that they’re setting out to do. That was a big day for me, because a lot of work had gone into it. It would have been a very public embarrassment had I cocked it up. Public shame. And probably an injury, and then the film would have to stop. If I came off the horse, Ridley said I owed him two Bentleys.’
As I watch, Mescal shows me how it’s done with a 16.3-hand grey horse that Denzel Washington rode in the film, called Caravel. In the outdoor school, he watches Caravel, mane rippling, as he canters around the edge of the enclosure. After gauging the speed, Mescal runs alongside the cantering horse, matching his pace, mirroring his gait and ultimately, making the fluid leap to the saddle, this time in Gucci and Cartier – a huge grin on his face as he rides in a circle around me. Caravel dances underneath him. ‘That is such a fucking buzz!’ he exclaims, his hand shaking with adrenaline, before asking to do it again. He’s thrilled he can still master the move months later. ‘I loved the physicality of playing Lucius,’ he says of the part. ‘I hadn’t done something like that. As much as I love independent cinema, that was always something that I wanted to do. I knew, also, I wanted to play with how an audience perceives you. I played these cerebral, heady, depressive characters – and this guy’s totally different. He’s direct and animalistic. Just a totally different texture.’
Mescal has certainly played different textures since his breakout role as Connell in Normal People put him at the top of casting wishlists. His turn as a depressed dad in Aftersun was so precise and heartfelt it took Cannes (where I first met him) by storm – and took Mescal on to the Academy Awards for a best actor nomination. His roles in The Lost Daughter and opposite Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers also netted critical attention. As we leave The Devil’s Horsemen to travel to my home by car for lunch, we talk about the journey he’s made from being the Gaelic football player in Maynooth, County Kildare, to appearing as Jay Gatsby on stage and ultimately beginning work on Chloé Zhao’s eagerly anticipated Hamnet the Monday after this shoot.
Born to a school-teacher dad and police-officer mum, Mescal grew up ‘sporty’ and with encouraging parents who ‘never, ever said no’ to his ambitions. ‘The only limitations we had growing up were maybe financial ones. But we never felt that. And it’s probably the greatest magic trick of all time that they were able to pull where I never felt constrained by that.’ A keen Gaelic football and rugby player, Mescal swapped the field for the stage when he attended the Lir Academy in Dublin, graduating with an agent and the lead in the prestigious Gate Theatre’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. That kick-started an informative two-year run of theatre roles before he was cast in his first screen work on the zeitgeisty Normal People in 2019.
‘The first thing I did was Normal People, and I don’t think you could wish for better material than that. I feel very lucky that I managed to kind of skip the point in people’s careers where you have to just shine in things that aren’t, maybe, as well-written. But I suppose there’s a different pressure that comes with that, because you’re in it at the deep end with material that if you’re not up to it, it will just chew you up and spit you out. That’s the great fear with any work, where the demands of a script are demanding a lot of you. If you’re not meeting the demands, you can’t hide. But that pressure is something I keep going to – I think I seek it out. The word that keeps coming to me is “capacity”. It’s jumping up on a horse, or it’s putting yourself in positions with work, or a shoot like this, for example, that’s going to the limit of something creative. When I’m working under that pressure, it switches off your ego, because you’re panicking. You’re like, “Will I survive this?” Not physically, but will you survive this pursuit, creatively?’
I ask how that panic translates when he’s working on a project. ‘There’s pockets in a play, or a film, where you’re like: “There’s going to be something big asked of me on day 12 of the shoot.” There’s certain scenes in a film where you always wish that that scene was another week away. You want to have done it, but the fear and anxiety that comes with doing something that’s going to cost you, or doing something that you don’t know you can do yet – you’re just kind of doing all the work and prep psychologically, and you’re hoping that it’ll come to you on the day. It’s a weird job where it’s not like an Olympian weightlifter where you’ve lifted those weights in your preparation for the Olympics. With acting, you’re doing all this intangible prep that you hope is going to work, and then everything goes quiet, and they’re trying to capture it, and it’s whoever you’re acting with and your neurosis. That’s when you find out. Or that’s when you’re found out.’
Whatever choices he made on Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun alongside onscreen daughter Frankie Corio were exactly the right ones – and he felt that when watching it with an audience for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. ‘It wasn’t so much that you watch that film and go, “That’s going to take you to an Oscar nomination”,’ he recalls. ‘It was just the fact that I was so creatively fulfilled by the fact that what Charlotte, myself and Frankie set out to make, moved people in a room. I remember, I got the car back and I asked the driver to pull over. I just walked over to the promenade. I remember thinking, “This film is going to pop off”…’
With acting, you’re doing all this intangible prep that you hope is going to work, and then everything goes quiet… it’s whoever you’re acting with and your neurosis. That’s when you find out. Or that’s when you’re found out
The feeling, he says, in that moment, is one of creative contentment. ‘I think this job conditions you to be somewhat tense and conscious. You’re committed totally to something, and I don’t think that’s conducive to being content. I’ve kind of an anxious disposition so those pockets of calm and contentment – they normally follow that kind of exhale that you have when you finish a job. And that’s like heaven, that feeling. It’s so brief in comparison to what the marathon of a shoot is, or a 12-week run of a play. But that’s the pay-off.’
For someone who describes himself as ‘deeply impatient’ the calmness of contentment is sometimes at odds with his ambition, hunger and need to chase. ‘Those goal posts are always shifting, I think. I’ll do Gladiator, and then that will calm me, or give me a certain level of contentment, but if anything, it’s gone the opposite direction. You get that contentment for a week or two weeks, and then you’re like, “I want to do something else.” If I was to take two years off, I’d go mad for about six months, but then I would have to pick up something that would satiate or resemble that rhythm of being on set. Something that you can obsess over.’
Though he counts photography as one of his current obsessions – he owns and shoots with a vintage Nikon F1 – he is eager to find new characters to play. In a couple of days he’ll start work with Chloé Zhao on Hamnet in Wales. An adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling book, it tells the story of the marriage between William Shakespeare (Mescal) and his wife (Jessie Buckley) in the wake of losing their son, the titular Hamnet. The grief the couple share is partly what powers the playwright to pen Hamlet and Mescal will be riding another of The Devil’s Horsemen’s equine stars in the production. ‘Ultimately it’s quite modern in the sense that it’s the damage that losing a child has on their relationship… Like, they say 70% of marriages don’t survive the loss of a child. It’s devastating. I’m nervous to go there myself, even in a fictitious sense.’
It’s another role that will take an emotional toll on the actor, who’s aware that tonally, there’s been an intense through line in his work to date. ‘I could definitely draw a line between Normal People, Aftersun, and All of Us Strangers – in terms of tone. But the characters are very different. I think a lot of the characters that I play are suffering mentally, and they’re battling inner demons.’ That’s something Mescal can relate to. ‘I definitely have my battles with mental health, for sure,’ he nods. ‘And I’ve made no secret of that. They come and go. But, also, I don’t think that the characters that I’ve played represent my version of that, which feels more interesting to me. I think it’s important to normalise conversation around mental health because it’s so common. I’m not describing a unique experience. It’s unique to me, but it’s totally universal. And I think we’re moving towards a society where it’s OK for men to talk about their own fragility or sadness or depression or whatever word you want to call that.’
Those pockets of calm and contentment – they normally follow that kind of exhale that you have when you finish a job. And that’s like heaven, that feeling. It’s so brief in comparison to what the marathon of a shoot is, or a 12-week run of a play. But that’s the payoff
de him feel that his work is useful to viewers. ‘I feel a great sense of pride in getting to represent characters that I understand. I love acting so much, but ultimately you’re providing a service to an audience. You’re hoping that when the lights go dark in a cinema, and you’re portraying a human being, that somebody goes, “oh, that person looks like my friend” or “that person is me” or ‘maybe I do that sometimes’. And it’s a safe environment to consider those things.’
Safety is also something that’s important in work – feeling emotionally met by his co-players and being able to go to dark, emotional and psychological spaces. The 28-year-old forms lasting friendships with many of his colleagues such as his Normal People acting partner Daisy Edgar-Jones, to the delight of fans of the projects. ‘Daisy, Saoirse [Ronan], Emily [Watson],’ he nods of the bonds he’s made. ‘Jessie [Buckley], I can already tell, before we’re filming. Josh O’Connor. I’m so lucky. I’m learning as these years go on, that the great thing about those relationships is that that’s the tip of the iceberg. You know, those red-carpet moments, or taking photos with Andrew [Scott] or Saoirse or Daisy, they are – and I’m so lucky to say this – they are some of my best friends. And I think the longer I go into this career, the more I want to keep those relationships. Because they’re not like flashes in the pan. They’re as important to me as my family is, in the sense that I don’t really want to talk a huge amount about those things, because they’re mine.’
I feel a great sense of pride in getting to represent characters that I understand. I love acting so much, but ultimately you’re providing a service to an audience. You’re hoping that when the lights go dark in a cinema somebody goes, ‘oh, that person is me
Those friendships are, he admits, even more important when the work gets so deep that it affects him. ‘Whenever I feel low, a lot of the time it’s potentially triggered by characters. It’s not to do with necessarily a Method approach. In fact, I try not to do it that way. But the first couple of times you do a scene that’s particularly traumatising for the character, I’m convinced that your brain doesn’t know that it’s fake. I find that if you’re doing that take seven or eight times, my brain starts to protect me, and it starts to tell me subconsciously, “This isn’t real.” But for the first two or three, your body is like, “What the fuck is going on?” The job is asking your brain to go into places where it can be very difficult, and that’s the only way I know how to do it. You put into it what you get out of it. It costs something to make. It’s nothing to do with this tortured idea of an actor having to lock himself in a cabin for four weeks to kind of get to this state, because that’s not how we walk around. It’s to do with those pressure days on set where you’re wondering if you’re going to get there. There’s an amazing relief that comes with having done it. But there’s also the effect of it that I feel a little bit low at the end of the day.’
Mescal wonders if other actors carry the feeling of what the character is going through in the same way, referring to a book he’s read, The Body Keeps the Score. ‘It deals a lot with veterans coming back from Vietnam and post-war stuff. The trauma is held in the body. It has to go somewhere. It goes into the body. Acting and Vietnam are very different things, but it’s all relative to your lived experience. And if my lived experience is genuine, that’s my lived experience. The only way you can sustain a career is if there’s some sort of safety in place. You’re constantly pushing to be as close to the character as you can, but your body sometimes overrides it. Thankfully your body looks after you sometimes, when you need it to. I love the way Andrew Scott talks about how your whole job is to play. It’s play. Even when it’s rough, you’re still playing it. We’re overgrown children.’
As we arrive at my house for lunch and a splash in the pond, Mescal talks about the play he got to experience on Gladiator II within Ridley Scott’s arena. At 86-years-old, the director is still as vibrant and enthusiastic about film as any debut artist. ‘He’s one of the all-time greats and he’s as in love with it now as he was 40 or 50 years ago. That’s the dream.’ It also put him toe-to-toe with Denzel Washington, at his waspish best as a charming but ruthless gladiator master who buys Lucius as a weapon and a prize. ‘I mean, you couldn’t dream that up,’ he says of acting opposite Washington. ‘To be not only in a scene with him, but to have Ridley watching it on the monitors. It’s like, “This is peak – people at the top of their game,” and you’re in the middle of it. Denzel is such an incredible actor to watch, not only on screen, but imaging being 5ft away from his face, watching him do it. It’s just a really, really exciting experience.’
You’re constantly pushing to be as close to the character as you can, but your body sometimes overrides it. Thankfully your body looks after you sometimes, when you need it to
And though Scott told his lead to throw his nerves out of the window, Mescal is aware that comparisons between him and Russell Crowe are inevitable. ‘The comparison is redundant because it’s two different actors with two very different characters,’ he laughs. ‘The only similarity is that the actors are both playing gladiators in and around the period of Ancient Rome. His spirit lives on in the film in a really strong sense. But I was just like: “I’m not servicing either the first or this film by focusing on that.” It’s naïve to think the comparisons won’t come, but that’s not my chair to lift.’
The film leaves space for more adventure so if audiences respond to Gladiator II, Mescal may be called back to the Colosseum (‘If Rid’s in, I’m in’) and may need to return some of the costume he took home as souvenirs. ‘I may have a couple of the pieces kept, yeah,’ he admits with a truant’s smile before he leaps off the jetty into the water with a gleeful splash. ‘Just to hang up. And then if I ever have kids or grandchildren and they need reminding that their father or grandfather was once cool, I’ll just wheel that out.’
Gladiator II is in cinemas now. Hamnet will release in 2025 Paul wears Gucci and Cartier Horses courtesy of The Devil’s Horsemen www.thedevilshorsemen.com
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
In her downtime between Blink Twice and Mickey 17, the British actor paints with Greg Williams in London as she contemplates her artistic journey and the beauty of an imperfect canvas.
Naomi Ackie admits she’s a ‘big old perfectionist’ in her work, but when it comes to painting – the messier, the more ‘aimless’, the more imperfect, the better. ‘When you’re acting, there’s this feeling of having to be productive constantly,’ she explains as she sits on the floor of an artist studio off Brick Lane in London, getting her hands dirty with her oil paints. She has arrived in overalls, her hair tied back, ready to get stuck in. ‘Painting feels like a way for me to not be productive but feel creative, even when I’m not actually creating…’ She smears colour across her canvas and stops to admire the way two paints bleed together, discovering the work as she goes. It’s a relatively new hobby for her, born from Covid lockdown after she stole her boyfriend’s painting kit that she’d bought him at Christmas. ‘I don’t really take up a lot of hobbies because I think, ‘If I’m not the best at it, I don’t want to do it,’ she laughs. ‘So then I gave myself a mission, which was to do something that didn’t have to be beautiful. I didn’t have to be perfect. And thus started my ugly painting collection. It felt like therapy. I would have a glass of wine, listen to really good music. And I would just spend hours redoing, scraping… the texture of it makes me feel really good. I love the feeling it gives me.’
It’s possibly a hobby that’s always been waiting for her, given she studied fashion and textiles in college and had been obsessed with Jackson Pollock as a teen. ‘I grew up in Walthamstow [East London] and as a teenager, I would jump on a train and go to the Tate Modern. There was a Jackson Pollock painting called Summertime there. That was my favourite. And then obviously when the acting thing happened I decided that my focus was just going to be on that.’
Inspired by the Harry Potter films at the age of 11, Ackie took up drama out of school and progressed to being a student at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. After graduation, she appeared in Doctor Who and miniseries The Five before she made her name in Lady Macbeth alongside Florence Pugh and Cosmo Jarvis. ‘It has stood the test of time as our career starter,’ she says of the film. ‘We did not know it at the time. We were just bumming around in Newcastle for 20 days. I lived with Florence, Cosmo lived two minutes’ walk away in a different house. We’d just drink and chat every evening, and then go in and do some acting.’ That bumming around won numerous BIFAs, including Most Promising Newcomer for Ackie. But while she saw Pugh’s career detonate, her ascent was more of slow burn thanks to a lack of diverse roles. ‘There were no parts available for me to audition for. The path is a bit harder when you’re a person of colour. It’s getting better. But around that time, there was nothing really coming through.’
Things changed after she’d completed TV series The End of the F***ing World and landed a part in one of the biggest movie franchises possible, playing resistance rebel Jannah in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. ‘It was a big deal,’ she says of the role as well as the importance of representation. ‘I remember going to the office, and J.J. [Abrams, director] was just like, “This is the first time we’re going to see someone, a Black girl… There’s going to be a lot of people looking up to that; a lot of kids looking up to that.” And it was like, “Whoa, that’s really cool.”’
The exposure led to roles in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, in Netflix series Master of None and being offered the opportunity to play an iconic real-life Black figure in Whitney Houston. The experience of making the biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody was a learning one for Ackie – emotionally and professionally. ‘With Whitney, there was a technical side that had to be practised over and over again, which is something I’m decent at – but I didn’t anticipate the emotional stuff that I would feel outside of the set.’ I ask what that feeling was. ‘Judgement, mate. Judgement that was sometimes imagined. I wasn’t on Instagram. I didn’t know what was being said, or what people’s expectations were. I purposefully took myself out of it, so I wouldn’t have to deal with that. But I imagined it. We’re in a time where everyone’s like, “You can dance like nobody’s watching” but that’s just not realistic! People are watching. I know they’re watching. Sometimes I feel a quite contrived feeling in this work and in my body – those two opposing forces of knowing people are watching you, but also trying to be yourself. My head goes into a spin.’
Playing Whitney also taught her negotiation skills. ‘I had to really advocate for myself on that job. It’s the first lead role I’d ever done, and I had to learn very quickly how to say no, and how to respectfully put my foot down. For so long, I was just so grateful to be here. But when it comes to the work and the opportunities I get, I’m not grateful to have a job, because I know I’m good. But if you’re performing at a high level, and you are suffering underneath that – that can cost you money and energy in the long run. After Whitney, I was spent. I couldn’t work for six months. I was on antidepressants. I’d never put my body through that before. And neither will I again, because it’s not necessary. There’s an immersive way that audiences view actors now, which I think is about partially not just about the story that they’re telling, but what they have to go through to get there. It adds to the mythology of that actor, right? Dedicated. It sends an interesting message that I know I received, and that’s why I went through what I went through on Whitney. I ain’t doing that again. I’ve got a whole life that I’m trying to live. I’m now protective of my time and my energy. I’m not a robot. I have a service. You’re paying me for that service. I want to do it to the best of my ability. So how do we figure out a way for you to get what you want, and for me to get what I want?’
As she admires the canvas, she considers that painting might have helped her through that difficult time. ‘This feels instinctive,’ she says of the piece as she leans in to create a swirl across the canvas. ‘A “who gives a shit” and “dance like nobody’s watching” kind of vibe. And it’s joyful. I think sometimes I’ve lost – and do lose – the joy in my job. It becomes really complicated and hurtful sometimes, and businesslike and hard. I guess I’m speaking about work so much because it takes up so much of my life and also my brain space. I’m trying to rebalance what I have given so much of my life’s energy towards. Also trying to take this job, the idea of what an artist is, and take it off the pedestal. I’m so aware that I’m in an extremely lucky position. But also, on a daily basis, when I wake up in the morning, I’m not like, “I made a film the other day.” You wake up, and your belly’s hurting because you ate too much bread the night before and you’re like, “I should get up and go to the gym, but I can’t be arsed.” And you go on bloody Instagram, and look at other people who are saying that they’re living their lives in a way that you deem is better than yours, or their waistline is slimmer, or their skin looks clearer… I feel guilt for feeling so normal in an industry that is so weird. I complain a lot!’
I ask what she complains about. ‘I complain because I’m a perfectionist. Because I fear that I will never be satisfied. Because sometimes I feel like I can see the cogs of the industry that I belong to turning, and I can see that something in it is broken. What are we saying to people? We’re setting impossible expectations when I know, inside of it, that I am not reaching any of those expectations. The guilt I have when I post on Instagram. The guilt I have when I borrow someone else’s clothes that aren’t mine but in the moment it makes it seem like it’s mine… Most days, I’m questioning what the fuck I’m doing, how I’m doing it, who’s judging me, how I’m judging myself, where I’m not meeting my expectations or someone else’s expectations or my age. When am I meant to have fucking kids? Fucking hell, I don’t own a house yet. I need to buy a house…’ She explodes into contagious laughter again and holds up her multi-coloured palms. ‘I just paint and breathe.’
I gave myself a mission, which was to do something that didn’t have to be beautiful. I didn’t have to be perfect. And thus started my ugly painting collection. It felt like therapy. I would have a glass of wine, listen to really good music. And I would just spend hours redoing, scraping… the texture of it makes me feel really good. I love the feeling it gives me
I tell her there’s a Leonard Cohen song with lyrics that seem to speak to all of our obsession with the pursuit of perfection. ‘Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. And that’s where the light gets in.’ She nods. ‘My mum always used to say, “You can lie to everyone else, but never lie to yourself.” And I took that to heart. No feelings are invalid. It’s what you do with them. Be honest with yourself. I feel like that’s actually kinder to yourself.’ Her mum’s advice is even more bittersweet now – she died of cancer 10 years ago and was a fierce champion of Ackie’s career, despite having no background in it. ‘They’re children of immigrants,’ she says of her parents with Grenada parentage, ‘where you get through, you work hard, you make sure that your kids can set themselves up in a really secure way. Coming from that to me saying, “I want to be an artist in this field we have no connection to!” I think it freaked my mum out. But she was such a good, strategic person. She was like, “If you want to get there in 10 years, you have to do this…” And especially as a working-class Black girl.’ A former seamstress who worked for the NHS, she and Ackie’s Transport for London-employee father moved the family to Walthamstow from Camden where the shy little girl grew to be a ‘theatre kid’. ‘I hid behind being an actor, and the pursuit of being an actor,’ Ackie recalls of overcoming her shyness. ‘The acting part was like sheer freedom. It was the voice. It was the process. It was meaty. It’s tangible, and you could dig your hands into it. You make something. All of that is still really cool to me. It’s just got a little more complicated the more I’ve worked.’
Those complications include negotiating the public figure side of bigger, more high-profile jobs. ‘The acting part, I don’t have to think about. I’ve practised enough. I’ve studied enough. That arrives. The public figure shit? I’m like: huh? I thought I was just acting, and now it’s a whole, “What’s your brand? What’s your message? What’s your thing? What do you stand for? Who are your followers?” And then you start to feel a little bit like a product or like a billboard. And it pulls you further and further away from the thing that you did it for. Even artists have to eat. You have to make money. We live in a capitalist society so we have to explore our art in the parameters of those with money. And this is an industry that still exists within a system of Eurocentric beauty standards, of a very clear-cut way of what makes money and what has value, that lies outside of talent sometimes.’
Despite her recognition of a standard-ised ideal of beauty, Ackie admits to feeling intimidated by the template. ‘I go to any event and I’m around what is deemed the most beautiful of beautiful people everywhere. Most of them are lovely and I know they’re feeling exactly the same as me. And yet I go into those spaces, and I leave feeling like, “Oh, I’ve got some work to do. I’ve got to properly gym more. Maybe I should shrink my chin?”’
Her face filled the screen in recent feminist thriller Blink Twice, playing the rageful, vengeful lead in an abusive patriarchal scenario. Embraced by audiences and critics, it set Ackie up for her next water-cooler movie, Bong Joon-ho’s subversive sci-fi Mickey 17. ‘I never thought I would be in a Bong Joon-ho film! It’s a really fun, quite cheeky piece of work. And I don’t think it’s what people anticipate it to be. It’s a thing all on its own. It makes me really hope for cinema. We’re in a space where there’s money that needs to be recouped. There are shareholders now. There are owners of these platforms that are not about creating work. It’s about how many streaming people can we get? So this felt like a real breakout of that. And it’s where my heart is at.’
She recently filmed for three days on Asif Kapadia’s docu-drama 2073, exploring the end of the world as we know it thanks to geo-politics, financial inequality, AI and social media manipulation. ‘I’m always thinking that the world is going to end,’ Ackie admits of her attraction to the project. ‘I’m used to thinking about death. I had a little sister who died when I was two and Mum died. So endings are always present in my head.’ After that comes The Thursday Murder Club, an all-star ensemble based on Richard Osman’s bestseller, Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters and Justin Kurzel’s Morning. And Ackie is not only creating oil paintings for herself – she’s written a TV show and a film and aspires to direct. For now though, on the brick floor of the studio, she is focusing entirely on her canvas, in the moment. It’s imperfectly finished. She considers signing it but decides to be more hands-on, leave a mark more unique to her. ‘I’ll put a fingerprint on it…’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Naomi Ackie stars inMickey 17, which releases in cinemas on 7 March Hair by James Catalano, The Wall Group Make up by Kenneth Soh, The Wall Group
When I first started Hollywood Authentic one of my more cynical friends questioned how Hollywood could possibly be authentic? Especially since it dealt for the most part in fiction. The more I connect with artists who are open, genuine, unapologetically flawed and vulnerable, the more apparent it becomes to me how wrong that friend was.
Paul Mescal by Greg Williams
Take our cover subject, Paul Mescal, who opened up about mental health and self doubt while showing me his horse skills he learned for Gladiator II. Or Naomi Ackie, who creates deliberately ‘ugly paintings’ as a form of therapy against her constant need to strive for perfection. Both remind me of the lyric Ben Mendelsohn once quoted to me from Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem; ‘Forget your perfect offering; There is a crack, a crack in everything – That’s how the light gets in.’ I’m proud that Hollywood Authentic continues to show the cracks – and the light – through honest conversations with artists.
It’s a perfect example of the Arts and Crafts movement nestling in suburban Pasadena – and the onscreen location for the inception of Doc Brown’s flux capacitor. Hollywood Authentic goes back to the past (and the future) with the beautiful Gamble House.
To step inside the hushed, wooden interior of a Greene & Greene LA masterpiece built for the Gamble family in 1908 is like time travel. Beeswax- polished and sun-dappled, the house boasts all its original custom-made furnishings from when it was first lived in. To stand in the mellow sitting room is to feel as though the Gambles might return for dinner at any moment, perhaps from a hike in the unspoilt Arroyo Seco in front of the property, in an era before the 210 freeway thundered through the neighbourhood.
It’s such a time capsule that it was the perfect location for Back to the Future when the production was looking for a house to play the family mansion of Doc Brown. Confined to filming within the LA area because of star Michael J. Fox’s daytime commitments to filming TV show Family Ties on the Paramount lot, location managers combined the Gamble House exteriors with the interiors of the Blacker house also in Pasadena (also designed by Greene & Greene) to create Doc Brown’s onscreen pad (Marty’s family house was located across the city at 9303 Roslyndale Avenue in Arleta).
The ‘mad scientist’ character who dreams up the formula to crack time-hopping – via an adapted DeLorean car – Doc Brown, comes from a wealthy family and by the time he’s showing Fox’s teenager Marty his time machine in 1985 he is reduced to living in a garage/lab next to a Burger King franchise, having spent his inherited cash on invention development. But when Marty is accidentally transported back to 1955 at 88mph, Doc in the past still calls the family pile ‘home’ and the garage on the extensive grounds is where history is made: this is the spot where he perfects the flux capacitor which, as Marty points out when calling on him, ‘is what makes time travel possible’.
It’s such a time capsule that it was the perfect location for Back To The Future when the production was looking for a house to play the family mansion of Doc Brown
In a beloved, time-looping franchise, the garage of the Gamble House is therefore a movie lore catalyst for everything that comes after (and before, if we’re talking about chapter III). In 2024, it’s now a pilgrimage location for Back to the Future fans and a bookshop selling coffee table tomes on design and ‘Outtatime’ DeLorean license plates. The fans may come to reenact Doc and Marty’s banter from the film (they run from the house to the garage shouting lines about Jane Wyman), but they stay for the beauty of a building that is a perfectly preserved piece of American architecture. A gem of Arts and Crafts style, the space has been preserved intact where other properties of the era have been altered or stripped of original features. A family home in single ownership until relatively recently, the Gamble House has remained unchanged and loved through the decades.
Built as a winter retreat for so-called ‘health seekers’, David and Mary Gamble, of Proctor and Gamble fame, who wanted to escape the harsh winters in their native Ohio, the three-story building was conceived to reflect the family’s interest in the outdoors. Other wealthy winter residents had built mansions in Queen Anne and American Foursquare style on so-called ‘Millionaire’s Row’ – the Gambles’ Arts and Crafts creation was rustic by comparison. Built with an emphasis on bringing the outdoors inside (hand-crafted wood, repurposed granite river boulders, designs reflecting nature), the home reminds modern visitors of the wild country that used to surround the house as soon as they step through the triple-fronted, stained- glass entrance. The Gambles travelled extensively and architects Charles and Henry Greene reflected their adventurous nature by tapping into the trend for Japanese influence with their ‘ultimate bungalow’ design. Those three lead-glass front doors boast the image of a Japanese black pine, while the low eaves and wrap-around terrace recall the flow of a traditional ryokan – the glass lamp shades and doors are decorated with flowers and clouds. In the hallway, an elegant metal crane in flight dangles from the wooden staircase. When the sun shines through the glass at the entrance, the amber light illuminates the mahogany and Burma teak inlaid walls of the hall and open-plan sitting room, giving it a visual warmth that translates as a welcome. The maple and sugar pine built-in kitchen, with its forward-thinking island, is a room any modern day Angelino would covert now; and outside, in the backyard, an Far East-inspired pond tinkles and pagoda-style pillar lights lean towards a Japanese aesthetic. The detail is astonishing considering it was constructed in under a year and on a relatively humble budget.
The Gamble House is unique in that it was lived exclusively in by its creators and owners, David and Mary, until both their deaths when Mary’s sister, Julia, took ownership. Julia lived in the house until 1943 (she’s rumoured to haunt the place now as a ‘warm spirit’) and after that the property was donated to the city of Pasadena and USC’s school of architecture for preservation. That lineage means that while decor tastes may have changed throughout the years, all of the original furniture and fittings made by master carpenters Peter and John Hall to the Greene brothers’ design, stayed in the family and were kept in storage. Now, says Alex Rasic, executive director of the property, the house acts as a ‘portal’ to visitors to appreciate the artistry of form-follows-function design. ‘I am so delighted and amazed at how many people visit internationally because of [Back to the Future] and then we have the opportunity to tell them about the house. I see it as a gift for us to have that kind of diversity and the longevity that this film has had.’
The house holds numerous events on the property to ensure it remains a space where families and life still teems – so visitors can book in for Goat Yoga on the rear lawn (yogic stretches while Nigerian baby goats gambol around) or take in an outdoor showing of Black to the Future on the front lawn. A particular thrill to watch Marty wander up the driveway to Doc Brown’s home hoping for help to return to 1985 as the real building looms in the background. A portal indeed.
Photographs and video by MARK READ Words by JANE CROWTHER The Gamble House. 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, CA 91103 www.gamblehouse.org
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Clara Rugaard tells Hollywood Authentic how she no longer wants to ‘fit in’ and about the music that has run through her career from her first role.
The corridors of Ealing Studios are echoing with the sound of ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ being sung as actor Clara Rugaard recalls her first role as a kid in Copenhagen. She can still remember the tongue-twisting lyrics she belted out as a 10-year-old on the national theatre stage, a game changing moment when she realised what her true vocation was. ‘It was the first time that I’d been given a platform to do what I innately felt like I was good at,’ she laughs. ‘At the time, I was already singing loads, and wanted to be, you know, a pop star! My dad saw in the newspaper that they were looking for kids to come and audition for the lead children’s role in Mary Poppins at the New Theatre in Copenhagen. It was one of those things where I queued up with hundreds of children, and it was all very overwhelming, but really exciting. There was loads of waiting around that day. But the moment they invite you onto the stage, and you’re standing there, and you’re singing the song, and you’re playing with all these other kids in a safe space where it’s encouraged, was something I had never experienced. I remember having that sense of belonging and being like, “I need to be doing this. This is for me.” I didn’t really stop to breathe. I felt the need to do it all, and keep going. It felt so good.’
Rugaard has been chasing the feeling ever since, across theatre, TV and film – before moving with her Danish dad and Irish mum to London as a teen, when her father’s work required a relocation. In her native country she had voiced the lead character in Disney’s Moana in the Danish version of the blockbuster. ‘Your imagination and your creativity is so potent when you’re that age,’ she says of being a child actor. ‘We don’t run around with as many defence mechanisms as we do the more we grow up. When you’re a child, you just take it all in. You’re just feeling it all.’ Then, at the age of 16, she found herself in a new city and life, trying to fit in. ‘Because my mum is Irish, I was like, “It’ll be a piece of cake. I’ll just rock up, have a scone, and I’ll feel right at home,” she laughs as she remembers the move. ‘But you’re quite often reminded that you’re other, or that you’re different. I guess I used to see that as being a bad thing. When I first came to London, I remember I had a teacher at drama school who said that I needed to get rid of my accent, otherwise I’d never work. I then started to feel like I needed to change or fit in in order to be successful or have a career. Which is funny because the older I’m getting, the more aware I am of how brilliant it is, bringing something that’s unique and different and having a different perception of life.’
I remember having that sense of belonging and being like, ‘I need to be doing this. This is for me.’ I didn’t really stop to breathe. I felt the need to do it all, and keep going. It felt so good
Rugaard now celebrates her European background. ‘I want to lean into that, I’m super-proud of that now. I definitely feel Denmark is my home, and I do still spend quite a lot of time there. My brothers and grandmother are out there… loads of my family. My parents are in Belgium, but we all congregate and meet in Denmark. However, I’ve been in London for 10 years now, so this city obviously has a very special place in my heart as well. I’ve got my group of friends here and I’ve got a life here.’
The key to making the transition and feeling safe in a new country was surrounding herself with ‘good eggs’. ‘My parents really were my good eggs. They provided a really great safety blanket for me. Even though I was exposed to this big, scary world through my work, they protected me, and kept me grounded, and made sure I never got too excited about myself,’ she nods. She played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet TV reimagining Still Star-Crossed in 2017 and then starred in Max Minghella’s Teen Spirit as a singing teen the following year. Throughout, music was her constant companion – as she played an aspiring pop star on screen she was also composing her own songs. And it’s something she still does now with an EP out soon. ‘It’s all just an outlet for expression. But I have found a lot of comfort in being able to rely on writing and creating my own things from home. Sometimes, as an actor, you feel like you don’t really have the platform unless you’re on set, and you’ve booked a job. And, as we know, actors have quite a bit of downtime. Music is so tangible. It’s within my control, and it’s always there for the taking. So I really love having the musical side of it alongside acting.’
Since moving to the UK, Rugaard has worked in a wide range of genres and countries; playing opposite Hilary Swank in sci-fi I Am Mother in 2019 (‘I can’t really believe that I was in a bunker for that many months with Hilary Swank. She’s incredibly empowering to be around, and to watch, and to learn from’) starring in the Mazey Day episode of Black Mirror, and associate producing as well as acting in period drama Love Gets a Room. That experience has given her a taste for more producing roles: ‘It’s another channel to create – finding things, and then making them, and putting them together. I’d definitely love to explore that more.’
Her upcoming slate is varied; Desperate Journey – a WW2 thriller based on the true story of Freddie Knoller who fled Vienna under Nazi occupation via the world of Parisian burlesque clubs. Rugaard plays a cabaret performer he meets along the way. ‘She’s an empowered woman, very confident. I haven’t played anything like that before. For that reason, it was brilliant and super challenging.’ Then she’ll be essaying Juliet Capulet again and using her pipes in Verona’s Romeo & Juliet, a pop musical with songs by Grammy winner Evan Bogart retelling Shakespeare’s tale. Rupert Everett and Rebel Wilson play her Capulet parents with Jamie Ward as Romeo. ‘She’s more of a modern Juliet, she’s got quite a lot of moxie. I’m very honoured to take on a role like that, and to play something as iconic as Juliet again. We filmed in Verona, Palma and this tiny, little Italian village called Salsomaggiore, where we all lived in a hotel, pretty much the entire crew, in the middle of nowhere. We got some good bonding time in there, that’s for sure!’ She’s also filming murder mystery The Crow Girl for Paramount+ alongside Dougray Scott – and is attached to play Mary Shelley in period drama Mary’s Monster, which looks at the inspiration for and creation of Frankenstein. ‘I’ve been quite lucky to have dipped into different genres and different characters. It feels very explorative for me. I love diving into very different characters’ shoes, and learn from their experience.’
The projects she’s now looking for are those that leave an indelible emotional mark, like the films that moved her as a child. ‘The movies I’ve always loved are the ones that leave you gut-punched. That’s ultimately what I look for when I go and watch a film. I want to be punched in the stomach, and feel something so deeply. I remember watching West Side Story when I was about 10 and it completely shattered me. I think it was the first time that I started to understand this grand concept and idea of love and devastating heartbreak. I couldn’t believe how sad it was. I still talk about it now because I remember that moment so well.’ She smiles as she considers the kid who loved Maria and Tony, who grew to a young actor playing Shakespeare’s doomed lover in Still Star-Crossed and is now headlining that classic role in Verona’s Romeo & Juliet. That 10-year-old standing on the national theatre stage would no doubt approve. ‘It does feel like a full-circle moment to be playing Juliet again, and also with music once again.’
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Clara Rugaard stars in Verona’s Romeo & Juliet and Desperate Journey, both set for release in 2025 Clara wears the Hollywood Authentic × N.Peal cashmere collection
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Slave Play alumnus James Cusati-Moyer tells Hollywood Authentic about the art of ‘holding on tightly, letting go lightly’ and the seminal nature of a Rodgers & Hammerstein score.
When Hollywood Authentic meets one of the leads of hit controversial West End show, Slave Play, in his dressing room at the Noël Coward in the heart of theatreland, he’s near to tears thinking about the imminent end of the production’s run. It’s hardly surprising – the 35-year-old has had a long journey with the show. After playwright Jeremy O. Harris wrote the part of Dustin with him in mind, he originated the role off-Broadway in 2018 then on-Broadway in 2019 before Covid, returned to it after shutdown and was nominated for a Tony before transferring to London in July 2024. A challenging, polarising play that explores the intersection between race and sexuality via couples therapy, James has been wrestling with the emotional and physical demands of essaying the character of gay actor Dustin for six years. After 13 weeks of living a London life, he’s preparing to fly back to his adopted New York and finally let go of Dustin.
‘I think any stage actor will say this – when you finish the completion of a play, it feels like a death in the family. It feels like someone died. There’s an emptying out, internally,’ he says. ‘This one is even more significant because this is probably the last time I’ll do this play. When I close it’s also letting go of something that’s been in my DNA for six years; I think it’ll be a similar death. But there’s something beautiful in that. And the play will live on, and be done around the world by many other beautiful, fantastic actors and directors and theatres and spaces. That relationship with the audience is what I’ll miss the most, because I’ve never felt so connected – as if I was breathing the same oxygen as them – as I have on this play.’
Certainly the play asked audiences into an uncomfortable conversation in terms of subject matter, and to reflect on their own relationship with race during the performance – not least via the mirrored set. The production also provided ‘blackout performances’ during its runs on Broadway and the West End, creating an exclusive space for Black-identifying audiences. During the potent two-hour show James is stripped to his underwear, physically grappled and emotionally flayed – quite the endurance when undertaken for eight shows a week. He smiles wryly when asked how he does it.
I wouldn’t want to do anything in my day that robs the audience of any bit of energy from my performance. It’s really about conserving the energy and the stamina . And that’s by sleeping, eating well, and exercise – and then saving it all for [the stage]
‘Well, to quote Elaine Stritch via Ethel Merman, you have to live like a fucking nun! The rigour and demand of the play is sometimes so intense that there’s not much life outside of it. But it’s a happy sacrifice. I wouldn’t want to do anything in my day that robs the audience of any bit of energy from my performance. It’s really about conserving the energy and the stamina. And that’s by sleeping, eating well, and exercise – and then saving it all for [the stage]. Then right after curtain, it’s straight home. It’s probably the most difficult job I’ve had in my life.’
The Pennsylvania native’s life is something he doesn’t take for granted. Growing up in working class Allentown in a Syrian/Italian blue-collar family, he reckoned with death at an early age; the literal scar of which can be seen on his chest and in his approach to life. ‘I had open-heart surgery when I was 14 years old. They found four holes in my heart. They said if this would have gone on undiscovered or unnoticed, that I wouldn’t have made it past puberty. Being that close to death, that close to not being actually supposed to be alive, that second chance that I got – that’s what stays with me.’
A kid who grew up singing along to the Rodgers & Hammerstein records his grandma loved and played (The King And I was a favourite and he sometimes still plays the music before going on stage), James can’t recall a time when he wanted to do anything other than act. ‘I think it was just one of the first thoughts I had as a child. My grandmother had the VHSs. I would watch. I just knew I had to memorise it all and perform it all in the living room. I knew that this was going to be my profession and my life.’ His mom’s was across the street from a community theatre and the budding thespian started hanging out and performing as a youngster – grasping at opportunity with both hands. ‘When I wasn’t in school, that was where I was. I wasn’t playing in the streets with the kids. I wasn’t doing any sports. I wasn’t getting into trouble. I was in the back of the theatre. I went to an arts high school that was formed right when I was a freshman. That saved my life. I moved to New York. I went to college, then went to Yale School of Drama for grad school.’ If that sounds like an effortless trajectory – the theatre kid who transitioned to Yale, Broadway and on to TV and film – it wasn’t, he says.
‘I had two figures in my life – my mother and my grandmother – who kept saying, “yes”. And I’m really grateful for them. But I’m also grateful for the people in my life who told me “no”, and there were many of those in my family. Many teachers that didn’t encourage me to continue. That contrast flooded into my experience. Whenever those things happen, it just gives you room to spread your wings and fly. It shows you what you don’t want, and it shows you what you do want. I’m just always grateful for both. I got kicked out of school, I got dropped by agents… it’s all informing me. Everything is a lesson and a gift.’
It was while at Yale that he met Slave Play writer Harris and after Cusati-Moyer debuted on Broadway in Six Degrees Of Separation, the duo worked together on bringing Slave Play to stages. At the same time he also juggled TV and film work, in 2022 starring in both Netflix hit Inventing Anna and DC blockbuster Black Adam. Last year he appeared in Maestro and this year, Tyler Perry’s Sistas. ‘Those opportunities were very different from anything I’ve ever done in my career, since I got out of drama school. I never thought that I would be on the set of a superhero film! It’s what you dream of as a kid. You’ve got to remain open to the jobs that come. My acting teacher used to say it specifically about the craft of acting, but I think it applies to the spiritual practice of the industry: “Hold on tightly, let go lightly.” When you have that job, hold on, but also let go. Have some fun. Enjoy it. It’s play.’
Now that he’s finished with Slave Play and is flying back to NY with ‘British biscuits and tea’ in his bag, James has more world-building to create. Firstly, his immediate surroundings. ‘Listen, like any true New Yorker, I’ve got to find an apartment when I’m back,’ he laughs. ‘That’s almost as difficult a job as this one. So that’s actually the first task.’ Then he needs to find the next project to pour himself into. ‘I have so many dreams and things that I want to do. If I could orchestrate my life and the next job that comes in, I’d say, “Oh, I want to do this hit TV. I want to do this hit movie. I want to go to the Venice Film Festival next year. I have a list of filmmakers I want to work with.” But sometimes you’ve just got to flow where it’s warm. I just want to keep on working. That’s the goal of it all.’
Work is, he says, important to him transactionally as well as artistically. ‘I don’t come from money. I grew up very, very poor. So the ability to be able to pay my bills, pay for my food, pay my rent, and do what I love – that’s happiness. The rest of any glitz and glamour that comes along with this profession sometimes? Fantastic. But if I can keep doing this and pay my bills, I’ll be good.’
His grandmother passed away in the last couple of years but must be very proud that the little boy who stomped around the living room to The King And I is still marching to the beat of his own drum. ‘What a gift she gave me,’ he smiles. ‘And now she’s gone. But she’s not gone. She’s here, and she’s on the stage with me.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘This play has shifted my DNA – I’m forever changed because of it. I’m stronger. I’m wiser. I’m more naïve. At the same time, I have more humility… You know that innocence of a child in a playground where the world is a wonder to them and it’s scary? I think that’s the place that any good work or any play or any good acting performance rests in. It’s that fine line between fear of the unknown and yet simultaneous ecstasy of discovering everything all at once. If I can maintain that feeling that I’ve achieved in this play, with any other job, then I’ll be really happy.’
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER James wears the Hollywood Authentic × N.Peal cashmere collection
Back in 2000 Russell Crowe’s Roman general-turned-gladiator dispatched a number of foes and shouted to the baying crowd ‘Are you not entertained?’. They were. We were. A three hour Ridley Scott spectacle that resurrected the ‘swords ‘n’ sandals’ genre and dared to kill off its protagonist, it lived on in eternity in audience imagination; a perfect film in performance, script, production and effects. When Scott announced a revisit to ancient Rome, the bar was set extremely high.
Any fears that Gladiator II might not match its predecessor can be allayed. Like Top Gun: Maverick, this legacy sequel understands how to replicate what made the original so successful, without providing mere fan service or a duplication. Set two decades after Maximus was carried from the Colosseum to be honoured as a soldier of Rome, we pick up in the province of Numidia where Lucius, the son of Connie Neilsen’s Lucilla is now a grown man (Paul Mescal). Husband to a warrior wife, he is disgusted by the colonialisation of Rome – racing to fight at the port as Roman general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pescal) sails in with a flotilla. Acacius is conflicted by his duty but nonetheless, his actions result in Lucius being taken captive and nursing rageful vengeance. Like Maximus, Lucius’s training combined with lust for revenge is a potent combination, marking him out as interesting to Rome’s twin brother emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), slave trader Macrinus (Denzel Washington) and Lucilla herself. As he battles rhinos, monkeys, sharks and politics, Lucius gets closer to his quarry and to celebrity status. And all the while the spectre of Maximus and his sacrifice hangs over proceedings…
Though Maximus and Lucius’ arcs and drivers are similar (and Scott takes care to nod to his first hero with sequences such a Mescal jogging up the steps to the colosseum in swirling dust motes that tug on nostalgia), they are different beasts in the hands of two different actors. While Mescal – beefed up and furious in his fight scenes – matches the ferocity of Maximus, he also brings a lovely quietness to Lucius; quoting Virgil at parties, musing on his background and showing emotional vulnerability in his dealings with his mother. He goes toe-to-toe with all of his opponents, easily stealing focus in a big movie filled with huge set pieces, massive crowds, sumptuous design and a soaring score. Though he was a movie star before, this role convinces of his stature in capital letters.
There are also big performances to compete against; Pascal bringing a noble grace to a conflicted man, Quinn and Hechinger tapping into the delicious petulance and preening of Joaquin Phoenix’s former Big Bad and a chorus of well known faces as politicians and nobility. And then there’s Washington, leaving no crumbs as a spiteful, sneaky self-promoter with a revenge plan of his own. Delivering lines as richly decadent as his swishy robes, Washington gives a masterclass in nailing a best supporting actor nod. The way he says ‘politics’ is sublime, a perfectly calibrated line between camp and deranged that lands exactly as he intends.
Scott can do sweeping spectacle in his sleep at this point in his storied career and Gladiator II boasts all the aspects fans want to see from his blockbusters; huge sets, detailed, tactile costumes, armies of extras and those cinematic moments that make you want to stand in your seat and fist pump. The alchemy of Gladiator has been expertly evoked again to create a movie experience that will please critics, audiences and awards voters alike. And likely a box office take that might facilitate a third outing. Entertained, indeed.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Gladiator II is in cinemas now
