How you doin' Ray? Hi. Good man.
You know, good thanks.
I think people have grown up quite near each other, you know,
because there's a picture of you in my local chip shop.
in Westbourne Park.
Not at all... so I'm on the other side of London.
I know.
Well, you must have been to into this local chip shop.
But I was going to ask.
Anyway, I'm going to begin by asking.
I mean, I first, I just really enjoyed the show.
I loved the kind of tonality.
I love that kind of modernization of the dialog and the way it's presented.
Were you how aware were you of the kind of how modern it would be like
in terms of the music that they use and stuff?
Was that in the script or has it been a bit of a surprise?
It was. It was kind of
obviously from my
discussions with [writer] cJustin Haythe and when prior to doing the show,
it kind of alluded to it and gave certain examples of what it might be like
and then seen the deck of the deck presents to me at some point.
And I kind of saw them like
I could see it was going for a kind of modern element to it,
which I thought was really smart and interesting.
I think you know, doing a historical piece
and then drawing in a new and
perhaps younger audience
through the way it's done stylistically was very interesting.
But then as you go along different stages of the production, then you realize, Oh,
it's almost more poppy than not to be in some places.
And seeing a trailer not long ago.
And the way they cut that, I think is really smart.
And and I think it's it's going to draw a lot people into it.
So I'm intrigued.
I'm really intrigued to see who's going to respond to this show
as I did
an article in DEADLINE about about your casting and it called
the character Charles: intelligent, politically deaf this athletically gifted
and devastatingly handsome devastates and he has a
you got to love a description like that being someone that
honestly doesn't feel that way or see that in any way, shape or form.
In fact, the complete opposite I received that and I take it
and it's very flattering, but I don't know who writes these things,
but I mean, obviously you are playing sort of sort of based on reality.
So how much research do you do when dealing with someone from so long ago?
Because if you play a real person from,
say, the 1960 s, you can meet them, maybe meet their family.
You can get these kind of firsthand accounts.
But there's definitely not a huge amount of work
of what kind of historical figures does that make it harder or conversely,
does that actually allow you kind of more freedom
to find your own way into the character?
I think it gives you a lot more freedom and I think it takes away any kind
of pressure.
I obviously
what was interesting about this is that immediately
from the off, it wasn't good to it.
We weren't going down a route of like where everything had to be
exactly like it was because of course we're all doing our own accents.
So that's the first, you know, point. But
for me, you know, you just try to garner as much information as you can
and then you have to kind of give yourself that freedom to go,
okay, now what would make this character more interesting? Hi.
You know, I can take bits of history and go, Oh, that.
Okay, now how would I sort of what would I bring to that?
If that kind of if I can relate something similar to my life,
if that happened, if I, for example, Charles Dickens, it was
the cargo ship was forced upon him.
And at the time it might be, wow, like, oh, I'm getting this.
But then as you get older and you get through your teenage years
and you realize, you know, it's just this road of faith.
It's suppressed me in so many ways and I can't do certain things I want to do.
Growing up as a teenager, then I can sort of like
try and find moments in my life where that's relatable and use
that to see, you know, to build on the characters and the subtext
and how he might feel in different scenes and scenarios.
And so but to answer your question
to when there's only a certain amount of information and you can't meet the person,
and I think it's nice to have a bit of artistic freedom
and just to you can build as much as you can, but
inevitably you're never going to get it exactly as it was though.
And obviously because of the tone of the show
and modernization of it,
it kind of made that flexibility a bit easier.
Did you know much about this kind of time period going into
this is never blindspot for now.
Courtney LeBeau,
how did you learn anything about the way that they lived back
then that surprised you during the making of this?
Yeah, I didn't actually.
Of course, I turned into the DG family and Catherine
didn't really know too much.
I didn't really delve into it too much. No reason to.
And then of course this gets presented to me.
And so I took the book
and did the audiobook version of it and
listened to it and
yeah, and of course
the way things are done then it was it's brutal.
Brutal, you know, the religious friction,
the brutality of, of, of kind of
people doing wrong in those times and what would happen to them.
So yeah, it's, it's obviously very interesting delving into all that.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I love watching period drama.
I just want to ask from an actor's point of view because like I went to,
I was on a, I was at Pinewood or one of those kind of big studios recently,
and I was just walking around a bit of a break
I had doing some sort of stuff, and I saw this kind of huge set,
which was obviously building a kind of a time hundreds of years ago.
And it was like you're at a theme park and that kind of taps into that childlike
quality, that part of our imagination, that way that the world becomes
the world of make believe.
But you kind of stand behind doors like James Bond and stuff.
Is it like that? As an actor?
You've been in all sorts of different shows,
but you're on a set like this for something like Beside the Queen.
Does it make you feel like you're a kind of child again?
Absolutely.
This show made me feel like that
when I did a way which a sense based that made me feel like that.
Of course, you know, being an astronaut, of course, it's like a child thing.
And I missed it.
And it so for many different reasons because you do
you do feel transported back in time, especially when we were shooting
in real in the real places, the real castles.
So it was that element.
But also for me like being an actor of color to dress up
in that kind of period costume, which doesn't happen often, is amazing.
It is real.
Like you're going to play.
It's like make believe is just amazing.
It's like, you know, you do feel quite childlike
and yeah, I loved it
and I was not going to say I
still got that part of like being able to dress up in ways never say it.
Sorry, not ever to ask about Charles Dance because obviously
my first introduction to your work when I was younger was Ali G.
But you worked with Charles of all those years ago.
How was it seeing him again on this?
Have you have you seen much of him in the interim and how?
Because I guess it must be quite strange having that kind of something
so early on in your career and something now
kind of a Yeah, I just wondered about that.
I didn't get to I didn't get to see him on Serpent queen.
I probably
haven't seen him in 21 years.
Ali G But I haven't seen him since then.
But I have been lucky enough to see
the first few episodes of the show and he's I think he's fabulous.
And this is fantastic.
I mean, he's just an amazing actor and he's pretending to be everything he does.
But yeah, he's definitely a far cry from what he did.
And I always hope even if you guys
aren't in the same scenes, you might all be on set on the same day.
But I know doesn't know
the cast as well.
But no, it's all very fragmented in different times.
Unfortunately, you've had I mean, he's just one of so many remarkable
collaborators across the years.
I mean, obviously recently there's been Stephen Graham,
but going back to Sacha Baron Cohen, the likes of Danny Boyle,
is there anyone you've worked with in your career
that you think has left the most kind of indelible
mark on your on your career and as you would and as an actor as well?
I think
the experience of working with Stephen recently
was incredibly memorable
because of the style of which
we were working in and
we were doing something that was improvised.
It was done in one continuous take and that I really, truly felt
working with him.
I was watching the master at work like a master of the craft of acting.
He was I mean, I'm sure he had a great performance
that it brings in that is stunning.
And and it was just amazing to see it.
I mean, I've worked with an actor that I mean,
first we have to be completely present because you're doing this
in one take and we are semi improvising it.
So you have no choice but to be completely absorbed and immersed
in that present moment.
But he was so in it like and when you guys go
toe to toe with him as an actor, it's like there was
something was real, something very special there, that it was some kind of
I can't really explain it.
But you were really I felt like I'm in the presence of someone
that is really like a master
of the cross, the backseat.
So that definitely left an impact on me.
I Hilary Swank was another one
who was just so generous
as an actor and
really
full of like nuggets of information.
She understands a set like no one else I've known.
She knows how to do every job on that set,
and it's just incredible.
I felt like working with her.
You're looking at a future director really, actually, because she's
so in-tune with everything that's going on.
But again, like, you just learn different things with different people.
And I've been really fortunate, especially in recent years, to work
with people that
have taught me so much.
So there are two experiences that really stand out, so brilliant,
but some great films come off the back of great performances like that as well.
But thank you so much for your time.