Rupert Friend Wants a Berlin Do-Over
Rupert Friend is heading into the Berlinale a little anxious.
The British actor, a veteran of the industry with major roles in Homeland, Pride & Prejudice and, most recently, Drew Hancockâs buzzy thriller Companion, was only a âwhip of a thingâ when ChĂ©ri premiered in competition at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival.
âI was 25 and it was probably my first big lead role,â the now-43-year-old tells The Hollywood Reporter. âFrom the first 20 seconds, you just felt the audience⊠lean back. The movie finished and it was the sound of one, slow clap. I just died.â
After this âbombingâ of Stephen Frearsâ Colette adaptation, Friend was a little wary of the spotlight. It impacted him for a long time after, he confesses, even though he landed the part of a key character in the wildly successful Showtime series Homeland shortly after.
Itâs only right that Friend returns to Berlin with a vengeance: not one, but two of his films are premiering in the German capital this year. In the first, Dreams, Friend stars as Jake in Mexican filmmaker Michel Francoâs latest drama. He is the brother of Jessica Chastainâs Jennifer â the two are wealthy socialites in San Francisco who, under the wing of their powerful father, are generous donors to the arts. When Jennifer begins a passionate love affair with a younger, undocumented Mexican ballet dancer, she is forced to make decisions about his future in order to keep the relationship from damaging her pristine reputation.
âI donât want to put words in Jessicaâs mouth, but she was very keen that the audience not like her character,â Friend teases of the filmâs protagonist. âThe entitlement was the thing that I really lent into⊠This feeling that the world is just there waiting for you.â
In Lucio Castroâs After This Death, screening later in Berlin, Friend does a complete 180: He is Ted, the cuckolded husband of MĂa Maestro who has become obsessed with an underground musician (Lee Pace). âIt was just the opposite of Jake: someone whoâs trying to live a good life and love his wife.â
The actor opened up to THR about reclaiming his Berlin Film Festival experience, finding intimacy in playing Jessica Chastainâs sibling and and why he prefers life away from the ârazzmatazz.â
Have you been to Berlin before?
Yeah, a million years ago, a film I made with Stephen Frears called Chéri (2009) opened the festival. [It was] with Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates. I was a whip of a thing.
How was that?
It was very difficult for me, to be honest, because Iâm not someone who naturally gravitates towards the whole crowds and razzmatazz thing, and it was a big deal with a big movie star [Pfeiffer]. Except I was playing the titular character, and the movie pretty much bombed. I was 25 and it was probably my first big lead role. I was sitting in the front row of the film. But I was in every frame, and from the first 20 seconds, you just felt the audience⊠lean back. The movie finished and it was the sound of one, slow clap. I just died.
Everyone was very sweet about it, and said, âListen, thereâs a million reasons why a film doesnât work, and itâs never one thing, and certainly wasnât your fault.â All the things people would say to a young actor at the beginning of their career. Stephen was incredibly gracious, because Iâm sure it wasnât easy for him, but Iâll never forget, we went for Vienna schnitzel afterward, all of us â which I think was supposed to be a celebratory meal, and it ended up being quite the opposite â and he quoted to me from the Rudyard Kipling poem Ifâ. Itâs something like, âIf you can meet with disaster and triumph and treat these two imposters just the same, then you will be a man.â Stephen was saying to me that if this film had won 20 Oscars, you canât let that change you. And if it tanks, neither can you let that change you. It was a very profound piece of advice. But I think [the experience] was probably quite pivotal for me, because I think it made me want to hide from showing the work and just hide in the characters and the work itself.
Pfeiffer and Friend in Stephen Frearsâ âChĂ©ri.â
Everett
How long do you think that impacted you â both professionally and personally?
Well, my life went through a huge change shortly after that, whether by design or not, I donât know. I took what I didnât know was going to be a huge commitment to a television show called Homeland⊠It really was just an episode, maybe two, and I had to go through quite a lot of personal upheaval â leave Britain and everything I knew to take this character from a very peripheral day player to the second lead over the course of five years. [I had to] move to America, meet my wife. These things were fairly seminal and I think had to happen before I was able to maybe find an ease with returning to potentially standing in front of my work. Iâve always, frankly, rather to just do the work, and I would rather most of the time not even see it. Iâve not seen most of the things Iâve done and I donât know how much of that is to do with that experience at the [Berlin Film] Festival.
Is it fair to say you donât associate Berlin with fond memories?
If you mean the festival, rather than the city⊠Itâs 15 years later. Maybe itâs an opportunity to rewrite the story of that festival because I actually love cinema, I love filmmakers and everyone involved with film, and really these festivals are just a celebration of that. But I wonder whether it was slightly once bitten, twice shy about playing lead roles for a while. I was more interested in supporting [roles] so that it was less spotlight.
[The spotlight] has never been an easy thing.
Letâs talk about Dreams as it will be premiering first. Iâm curious how you got involved. Had you worked with Michel Franco before?
I havenât seen the film yet! But Michel Franco is such an original voice in cinema. Iâd been a fan from the audience side of things â the film he did with Tim Roth, Sundown (2021), it was amazing. I donât know that Iâd even ever allowed myself to think someone like that would pick me. So when the call came that Michel wants you to play this role, and not only that, but youâre going to be Jessica [Chastain]âs brother. I slightly didnât believe it at first.
Itâs something I really admire in auteurs. They have this unwavering conviction about what theyâre doing, and I think it comes from an incredible degree of confidence. They donât need everyone to like it. Thatâs another thing thatâs somehow superhuman â I think most of us humans are quite keen for people to like what we do and to like us. Itâs one of the human conditions, why weâre a tribal species. But I almost think great artists have a superpower, which is that their confidence isnât shaken by someone reading a script of theirs and saying, âI donât like it,â or the film failing, quote, unquote. One of the things about Michelâs films is â theyâre not prescriptive. I feel like people can and should take very different readings from their respective viewings. I donât think theyâre designed to be one size fits all.
How would you describe the plot of Dreams and maybe summarize Jakeâs part to play?
America, as a nation, doesnât deal with class in the same way that certainly antiquated Britain used to. It definitely explores whatâs possible for two people from two completely different backgrounds â one of whom is directly or indirectly benefiting the other. Jessicaâs character and her family are very wealthy, and they are benefactors of the arts. And Jessicaâs character begins a relationship with Isaacâs character who is a ballet dancer. But she tries to sequester it, tries to suppress it, and is ashamed of it. It brings not just ideas of class, but power in the sexual dynamic and that abuse of power. Can you ever actually have an equitable relationship with somebody if you have the power of their employment, their financial stability, their geographic location, their documents and papers?
I remember with Jessica, we were in Mexico City, and we were doing the very end of the movie where Jake, my character, Jessicaâs brother, comes to rescue her and take her away back to the life of privilege and shelter and security that sheâs always known. He puts an end, effectively, to what has become quite a dangerous dalliance. I donât want to put words in Jessicaâs mouth, but she was very keen that the audience not like her character and not think that this was some sort of exoneration â that the whole character of Mexico, which is a character in this film, be seen in some way as bad and the wealthy, blue blood San Franciscan family be seen as righteous.
Was Michel ever vocal about what kind of social or political commentary he was making when it comes to immigrant dreams of life in America? Itâs extremely topical with whatâs happening in the States right now.
Yeah. Obviously we werenât in [the Trump] administration when we made the film, but Michel is a very softly-spoken, thoughtful but instinctual director. Heâs wildly intelligent. But he doesnât direct from a cerebral place. He directs the way all great directors do, which is understanding the truth of why the characters do what they do, rather than a doctrine from an academic or third-party standpoint on what it might mean on a broader scale.
I think he would say that those conversations [about a commentary on the current political scenario between America and Mexico] are what the art is spurring. Theyâre not what the art is answering. The movies that stay with me are the ones where the conversation has begun as the credits roll.
What kind of background-building did you do for Jake? We see glimpses of this powerful, nuclear family set-up they have. But Jake is snobbish towards Fernando â maybe thatâs not the right wordâŠ
Itâs a tricky thing because I found things like the way he spoke to Fernando utterly repellent. So trying to not judge a character that you inherently dislike is one of the challenges of playing them. If all the characters in all the films werenât good guys, we wouldnât have any drama, right? So one of the challenges with a role that you donât empathize with at all is to not judge the character and try and understand it from their point of view. Snobbish is definitely a word, but I think the entitlement was the thing that I really lent into this. This feeling that the world is just there waiting for you, that all doors will be opened whether by familial connections or just backhanded money deals. Weâve seen that time and time again in relatively recent exposĂ©s to do with power dynamics. #MeToo comes to mind. But also just bullies being exposed. Iâve been interested in bullying since I was a little boy, because I was very badly bullied. Itâs normally picking on a physical characteristic, or your name or your culture or whatever. Itâs pretty basic, but itâs very damaging. Kids can be pretty awful about it, but whatâs kind of terrifying is people grow to be adults, and therefore, we hope, slightly more nuanced than playground children.
But the bullying doesnât necessarily go away. It refines itself. It evolves like a very clever organism to manifest in far more subtle ways. We see it with â mentioning no names â politicians who donât pay their workers and duck out from under those obligations or shame people with NDAs into not owning their truth and not being able to move forward with their lives. And I think for someone like Jake, because he likes to be thought of as a great guy, an upstanding member of the community, a big donor â again, money is often the root of a lot of these power plays â it means that everything is on his terms.
How was it working with Jessica and playing out that brother-sister dynamic?
One of the things I really was excited about with this, aside from everything weâve already spoken about, is that fraternal relationship. Normally, you have a guy and a gal, they are probably supposed to fall in love, or have been in love or are breaking up. So, to get to have the intimacy that siblings have â all of the history, you know? Siblings can look at each other and remember all the fights and how annoyed they are with each other and how they canât stand each other, but theyâre always going to be siblings. You donât get to uncouple that. So for better or worse, it is a forever relationship. I have a sister, and itâs a very important and fascinating relationship to me. So to get to play in that world where thereâs intimacy, but thereâs no flirtation, thereâs no wooing, just a life lived in lockstepâŠ
And have you seen After This Death?
No! I know that itâs changed a lot from the script because Lucio told me in a very fascinating way⊠When we wrapped the film, I said, âAre you excited to get into the edit?â and he said, âYes and no. I lived with this film for 15 years. I wrote it in the order it will be edited. I shot it the same way. I think it will come together quite effortlessly.â And I saw him quite recently and he said, âJust ignore everything I said. I had to throw the entire thing into the blender and rediscover the film. It is nothing to do with the script.â
Isaac HernĂĄndez, Rupert Friend and Jessica Chastain in âDreams.â
Wow. So you have no idea what to expect when your film premieres in Berlin this week?
Iâm not a fan of watching myself, but as a lover of cinema and of directors who are trying to push the medium, I am fascinated to [see it]. Lucio lectures in film. Heâs so generous as a mentor. Heâs fascinated by the theory of it, the history of it. He wrote the thing, he shot the thing. And the idea that heâs said itâs unrecognizable from that is fascinating to me, just as a student of film. Some of the stuff he had in the script was so out there â itâs a love triangle between MĂa Maestro whoâs character is married to me, but she becomes obsessed with a musician who is played by Lee Pace.
So I, in a sense, play the cuckolded husband who is completely heartbroken by this whole thing. It was just the opposite of Jake: someone whoâs trying to live a good life and love his wife and also be receptive to her changing hormonal state and depression and try and give her what she wants at the cost of his own happiness â and potentially sanity.
You hadnât worked with Lee or MĂa before this, right?
No, and Dreams was shot primarily in San Francisco, and then we went down to Mexico for a little bit. And After This Death was primarily upstate New York, then we went to Puerto Rico for this fantastical sequence involving a fisherman and a flirtation with MĂaâs character. And that was a very dreamy thing. Have you ever heard of the bioluminescence phenomena?
I donât think I have.
Itâs a sort of plankton which in the water, if the conditions are just right, you move your hand through the sea and it glows phosphorescent. MĂa and I, one night after shooting, found the secret beach, and it was the right conditions. In my head, thatâs in the film, but itâs not. Itâs just one of those memories. I also remember I was by myself, my wife couldnât come, and I went off by myself one time and found the most secret beach I think Iâve ever seen. No footprints, no signs of mankind, no civilization, no tarmac. I remember having a very incredible skinny dip there. Sorry â this is completely nothing to do with the film.
In some ways, it is, though. Itâs your experience while shooting and is no doubt going to influence your grasp of the story and your character. You have to immerse yourself, right?
Thatâs very true. And coming full circle to the beginning of the conversation, ChĂ©ri is based on a book of the same name by Colette, and it is a cold, hard book about some pretty cold people. And I think that all went into the film. None of the people who made the film are like that, but the source material is intrinsically about the fact that you cannot stop time. We are all going to get older and die. That is at the heart of the book. After This Death is in my feeling of it, that bioluminescent water. It has a dreamy quality, an unreal quality where weâre not quite sure if weâre watching whatâs actually happening.
And the nature of the threesome is that it tends to be MĂa and me or MĂa and Lee â not the three of us together that much. So I donât know what those two did for their side of the film. Itâll be fascinating.
Youâre an audience member as much as the rest of us.
Yeah, which could be triggering [after the 2009 Berlin Film Festival] but you gotta get over yourself.
I really hope it isnât triggering for you.
[Laughs.] Thank you. I also think thereâs something that comes with age and having had â I mean, any actor will tell you the rejections number is in the thousands. We all have to get used to it, even if youâre top of the tree. The idea of being passed over or failing or rejection â they are part of of life.
