- Hello.
If you are watching this, then it's very possible
you have just watched "Coriolanus",
which we did an NT Live
of at the Donmar Warehouse,
where I was, at that point,
quite a new artistic director.
Very happily, I'm joined for a reunion
by Deborah Findlay and Tom Hiddleston.
If you have just watched the NT Live,
you will have been legitimately worried,
because Tom will have been dangling
upside down by his feet, while Deborah,
I think Deborah stood up stage right,
in a petal drop, as your son perished.
So, sorry if that's been a bit of a dampener
on everybody's lockdown.
- Sorry to disappoint you
by (chuckling) hanging upside down.
I remember the day we went into the theatre,
early, just a small group of us,
to test how long it was possible
for a human being to be suspended upside down,
without passing out.
- Yeah, that sounds like we were hoping
that you would test it out
by having you pass out.
I think I should probably make clear
to the general public at this point
that that was not our intention,
and it was very carefully managed.
But yeah, we did need to run
a proper test of it.
Because, again, it's to do
with the visceral nature of it.
I think what we really wanted to do
was to show that he was eviscerated, gutted,
at the end, and this body, that's everyone's been
obsessing with is in the end, treated
like this piece of meat.
So we were kind of after that image,
and you were very brilliantly up for trying it.
It's a bit of a challenge
in the tiny Donmar Warehouse,
because there's only one exit upstage.
(chuckling) So, we could only really send
you up, and round, and I think
you scampered across the top,
came down, were bloodied up,
possible not scampered, I don't know.
It's not scampering. - One of the most
extraordinary backstage journeys
(chuckling) of my life.
- So describe it, go on, 'cause people
will have seen you go up the ladder
and disappear, what happened?
- The Donmar, as you well know,
is an old banana-ripening warehouse
of the ancient market of Covent Garden.
And I think, I imagine the time it was turned
into a theatre, they tried to create
as much space as possible, for the play itself.
And so up in the roof is space
for a lighting rig.
And a very narrow, small scaffold,
which you have to crawl along,
which the electricians and the crew
have to crawl along to change the lights.
So I had to scamper up this ladder,
crawl along this narrow scaffold,
down two fire escapes, fire escape ladders,
into four unbelievable members
of the Costume Department and Stage Management.
I then sort of stood there, like a mannequin,
while they stripped off all my armour.
And then, standing by, with a bucket
of stage blood, sponges,
(chuckling) and syringes.
And it was extraordinary.
It's a miracle that it was possible, really.
- I remember some of the other actors
saying, "Do you want us to trim down
"this bit while he's off stage,
"'cause I don't necessarily need these lines."
I was like, "No, no, you keep them.
"That's fine, we'll need all the time we can get."
(all chuckling)
- "Keep them and say them as slowly as you can."
- Really.
"Just really feel them out."
We didn't harness you up, Deborah,
which feels unfair now,
that we didn't manage to suspend you.
- No, no, I'm very thankful.
I didn't have
to climb up any ladders or, no,
yes, I really felt for you.
But, 'cause you had all these scars,
as well, didn't you, Tom?
I remember pre-show, we'd have a little chat.
And this was while you were being
scarred, every night.
- Well I would have an hour of,
and a big shout out to Michelle,
who did it every day. - Yeah.
Michelle was brilliant. - But, an hour
of makeup, essentially. - Yeah, really great.
- An hour of prosthetic makeup.
Because as people will have just seen,
the sheer number, the volume of references
the characters make to the scars,
and the wounds, and the cicatrices,
and, the obsession with the blood
he had shed.
As you'll know, Deborah, by Volumnia,
the pride she takes in it.
And so important that these scars were there.
But it was incredibly exciting,
trying to find a way of bringing
these things in the text to life.
- It was great doing it, again, in the Donmar,
in such a small space, because, I mean
it was a tight company, wasn't it, Tom?
- Very.
- There were two dressing rooms.
And, you know. (Tom chuckling)
So we were very close together,
but it really did make us into a company.
- I think I'm right in saying that you held
a disco backstage, Debbie, is that right?
Do you remember Debbie's disco?
(Tom chuckling)
- Yes, I certainly do.
- Was that post-show, just as a bit of a,
to get people? - No no, that was pre-show.
- Sometimes pre-show, yeah.
- And it was actually from,
it was one of the disco tunes
from "The Great Beauty."
Is it Sorrentino? - Yes!
- Which has just been on, last night,
wasn't it, I think.
And we just wanted a bit of Italian disco. (chuckling)
- Brilliant.
- Just get everybody together. (chuckling)
And it seemed to work, yeah.
- It's such a heavy piece.
And, it was just, I remember
when you played that, Deborah,
it just lightened everybody up.
Kind of something to put
a bit of gladness in the soul,
before descending into this extremely angry play.
- I just wanted to talk to you both a little bit
about this extraordinary relationship
between mother and son that exists
in this play, and how you began
to find your way into that.
I was thinking back to some early rehearsals,
I know we spoke to a really good
psychoanalyst at one point,
who came and had a chat with us,
I found that really illuminating.
And we worked in a lot of detail on it.
When did you start to feel
like you'd really clinched it,
or was it something that was there
from the beginning for you both?
- Gosh, what do you think, Deborah?
- Well, (chuckling) I was always aware
that Coriolanus' mother was the driving force
in all different sorts of ways for him.
So I was just very aware that I had to give
you the mother that had created you,
if you see what I mean.
And I think she was a mother like no other.
I mean she did not give motherly love, did she?
I mean it was brutal, how she brought you up.
I mean, country and rite was everything.
So as we said before, she relished your scars,
and your battle, but that love,
and that force, and that expectation of her,
for you, was, I wanted to give you
that driving thing behind you.
And, it was just great to play
with each other, wasn't it? (chuckling)
- It was great. (chuckling)
(Deborah laughing) It was intense.
It was almost every chord on the piano.
The dynamic that they have.
And I'll always remember that scene
between his violent, aggressive diatribe
in the senate, and then going back out
to try and make amends,
to try and calm everything down,
and appease, and somehow, as a palliative.
And there's a line, I think, I remember,
when Martius refuses.
He's being obstinate about being asked
to lie, and to say something he doesn't mean.
And Volumnia says, "Thy valiantness was mine.
"Thou suck'dst it from me."
And that sort of tells you
everything you need to know.
- So we had to--
- It's a question that hangs over the play,
I suppose, is, to what extend does Martius
carve out his identity as a warrior,
for Rome, for himself, for the people,
for his fellow soldiers, or for his mother?
Just for his mother's affection, approval.
- And I always felt that at the end,
she sort of knew what she was doing.
She knew that she was sacrificing her son.
She knew what the outcome of that was,
of persuading him not to raise Rome.
So it was--
- You played that so brilliantly, Deborah,
I thought, as a woman who knew the price,
and the cost, and the fate of doing it.
Like you managed to make all this,
I mean, you know, it's a really obvious
thing to say, but it was so great
to have you both doing those parts.
And it was so wonderful, as a director,
to work with two actors
who were so curious to explore it.
And so generous to each other's process.
And, I think the wonderful thing
about both of you is you're all so playful.
Which allows you to go to a deeply tragic place.
It's an amazing thing, yeah.
- It was a fun dance, wasn't it, Deborah?
- It was.
It was great.
It was great, and it's great when you have
an actor who can play with you,
isn't it, Tom? (chuckling)
- Yeah, 100%.
Yes.
(all laughing)
- Yeah.
I know the play is meant to make
us sort of worry about being proud of things,
but I am so very proud of that production,
and so very proud to have worked with you both
on it, really.
- Well every time, when you're in
a fantastic production like this was,
and every night, it's an event.
And it's an event that encompasses
all the audience,
'cause it's different every night.
And different things happen.
And there's real electricity, and things learnt.
And you just don't get that anywhere else.
I really, really hope, well, it will come back,
I don't know how long it'll take,
but it's very, very important, isn't it?
- The stories we tell on stage,
the stories we tell in a theatre,
we laugh together, we cry together,
we learn together.
We're a community.
And, it's been the source of so many curiosities,
avenues of thought, ideas, experiences
in my life.
It can open your mind
to something you didn't know.
And that's why I wanted to be an actor,
I thought, "What a thing.
"What a thing to be part of."
And that's what I think we all hope
we're doing, every time we put on a play,
is we hope we're contributing
to that tradition of community,
and ideas, and fellow feeling.
- That's really beautiful, Tom.
It's made me think, I live on this little street
in Kentish Town, and how about this
for the power of theatre, over the course
of the past month or so, neighbours who knew
each other a bit, or had got to know
each other a bit better.
I've been coming out to do
the Clap for Carers thing.
And I'd say, over the course of the month,
really quietly, about half a dozen people
have found a moment to come up to me and go,
"Do you think we could do
"some kind of, I don't know,
"like, the lady over there can play the harp,
"and, someone down there can sing a bit,
"and do you think you could just think of something
"where we can do."
And I go like, "What, a play, in the street?"
They're like, "Yeah, is there anything we?"
You really feel a bunch of people
in North London just going,
"Please can we do some kind
"of performance together?"
That's a thing that they really, really want,
at the moment.
There's a real need for that, I think.
And I will definitely try and make something up.
And it lives in our theatres, I think.
- We need it, well we need it, that's the thing.
We need it.
And, it will come back, and I don't know
how long it will take.
And it's gonna take some real support
from outside our industry.
But we just, as long as we love it
and cherish it, we'll find ways to come back.
- Yeah.
We've got to find a way of, 'cause it is,
for the audience, it is
a communal thing, isn't it?
It's not something you can
really really experience if you're just you
in a theatre, without anybody else.
You need the group experience, don't you?
And that's gonna be the hard thing.
As well as the economic thing.
But that's gonna be the hard thing.
How you get everybody in a theatre again.
But, we've got to find that way.
We've gotta find a way of doing that.
- But it's amazing what the National Theatre
have done with the National Theatre
at Home thing.
Because it's a way of keeping
the performing arts going,
in this very strange time.
- And it's good, it's good to have these things.
It's good to have that arena
to think about that sort of thing,
when it's all happening outside as well.
- [Tom And Josie] Yeah.
- We should probably wrap this up,
otherwise they'll never be able to edit it.
I just wanna say it's good
to see your faces. - Lovely to see you.
- Likewise, likewise. - And, so fun.
- And thank you, I just wanna say
thank you so much to everyone
who's tuned in to watch both the play
and this talk.
I know it means a lot to the National,
it means a lot to theatres everywhere.
So, thank you.
- It does.
Alright.
Lots of love, take care.
- Okay. - Lots of love.
- Bye bye. - Bye!
- Bye.