Mary Ellen Matthews for Variety This interview is part of Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors series. Watch the full video interview now at CNN.com/Watch (or on the CNN app) and on Variety’s YouTube channel starting at 11:59 pm ET.
Claire Danes and Richard Gadd both flirted with madness in high-profile acting duets this season. On “The Beast in Me,” veteran actress Danes played writer and grieving mother Agatha Wiggs, whose journalistic instincts get tripped by her new, threatening neighbor (Matthew Rhys). And on “Half Man,” writer-director-star Gadd’s followup to the sensation “Baby Reindeer,” it’s Gadd who plays the threat as Ruben, a musclebound tough guy who haunts the life of his childhood acquaintance Niall (Jamie Bell) into adulthood.
Mary Ellen Matthews for Variety Claire Danes: I’m very happy to be here with you, truly.
Richard Gadd: Yes, likewise. It’s surreal for me. I’ll tell you a little fact. Back at school, to get us to learn Shakespeare, we watched “Romeo + Juliet.” I remember writing an essay on “Romeo + Juliet.” I remember so clearly an amazing bit you do in that where you wake up and Romeo’s dead, and you do this amazing guttural sob. I remember writing paragraphs about that sob and how impactful it was.
Danes: And then you mastered the guttural sob.
Gadd: I learned from the best.
Danes: You saw my guttural sob, and you raised it. I remember that moment very distinctly. I was surprised by it. I remember the shock of the discovery and being startled by my response, which is what we hope for. It doesn’t always happen.
Gadd: Did you have to prepare for that?
Danes: We were pretty deep into filming at that point – but that’s why Baz [Luhrmann] is such an extraordinary director because he served it to me. But this isn’t really fair, because it’s called “Actors on Actors,” and you’re many other things. I am merely an actor, and you’re the guy providing the context and eliciting the performance. I so wish I could do that myself, but I am limited.
Gadd: You’ve never thought of giving [writing] a shot?
Danes: Well, I’m now producing more. It feels like throwing a dinner party. But I’m not writing it. I guess you’ve always written?
Gadd: Even from an early age. One of the earliest memories I have is sitting and writing — it was called “Felix the Furball,” and it was about this little bit of fluff that kept getting blown out of the house, and it had to find its way back into the house. I remember vividly being at the keyboard, typing frantically, being obsessed with it.
Danes: I remember being really, really little and knowing that I needed to do this acting thing. I always knew I wanted to act and couldn’t really explain it. Did this writer self emerge before the actor self, or were they kind of twinned?
Gadd: I played Macbeth in my school play. And I know it seems daft now to reference it, but it was a watershed moment for me. Have you ever done it onstage, Shakespeare?
Danes: No.
Gadd: What was it like doing it on film?
Danes: Well, Baz was very clear that he wanted to make this as accessible as possible, and there were no pretensions at all. It was about clarity of intention and language. I haven’t done anything like that since then. It was totally thrilling — but I’ve done enough work to know that a well-written scene is just a ride that you are on. And you’ve written a lot of very well-written scenes. What is it like to be on the ride that you have architected yourself?
Gadd: It’s interesting because when I write scenes, I can see them so clearly in my head, and even the rhythm of the speech, I sort of know how it should be said. I spend so long writing the scripts and work so constantly that when you get to set, you know the lines almost too well. You have to find new things within them. It’s a blessing and a curse, in a way — I don’t need to learn lines. You need to unlearn them to be in the moment.
Related Stories
