00:00It's a pretty fun way to audition.
00:01If all auditions were smoking and dancing around my hotel room,
00:05I'd be a much happier actor.
00:07Hello GQ, this is The Beginner's Guide To Me,
00:10and I'm Paul Metzgoff.
00:16The first project that I'd like to talk about,
00:19and there's probably a running theme of sadness
00:22that is very much present in my work,
00:24but the first project I'm going to talk about is Normal People.
00:27It came out in 2020 on BBC and Hulu.
00:30We shot it in 2019 after a pretty extensive casting process.
00:35The reason Normal People is part of my list
00:36is because there wouldn't be a list to begin with without that show.
00:40If I'm stopped in the street, more than likely it's going to be
00:42to talk about normal people,
00:44and I feel very lucky that the thing that people tend to stop me about
00:48is something that I'm also incredibly proud of.
00:50The series is essentially about two people
00:53falling in and out of each other's lives,
00:55and I think it's a rare example of television
00:58that's becoming more common where there's not so much a narrative focus.
01:02It's a study of two people's lives.
01:05Connell's a great example of somebody who's both incredibly relatable
01:08and also deeply frustrating to watch.
01:11Myself and Daisy did a charity screening in the Prince Charles cinema.
01:15It was an interesting experience feeling an audience
01:18be frustrated with the person that you adore.
01:21Then there's a scene, for example, when Sarah Green,
01:23who plays Lorraine, my mum, in the show,
01:25where she kind of berates Connell for not stepping up to the mark,
01:28and the audience applauded.
01:30It was an interesting experience watching it with an audience
01:33because television, we never get to see it in the cinema,
01:36and it also came out during COVID,
01:37so there was a particular energy in the room
01:40where it was full of super fans of the show,
01:43who were very much, I think, especially in the early episodes,
01:46team Marianne, which is fair.
01:49It feels almost like a fever dream.
01:51My life kind of changed overnight.
01:54None of us expected that show to be as big as it was,
01:57and then overnight there's people outside your house
02:00waiting to take photographs of you.
02:02It's weird, I actually do kind of see Connell as my friend.
02:05Like, I see a very distinct idea of where he is in the world,
02:08what he's doing.
02:09I would say that he's very loyal, intensely frustrating.
02:13He's got a depth to him that's kind of very hard to fathom, I think.
02:18I haven't done it since,
02:19and I think that job certainly has spoiled that experience for me
02:24in a good way, where I think I'd struggle to go back to television
02:28unless the character was as rich as Connell is.
02:31I really enjoyed it because the material was kind of
02:34always giving you something new to play.
02:36Like, he feels like both a version of myself
02:39and also a version of friends and people that I know
02:41and care deeply about.
02:43After Sun.
02:46After Sun was written and directed by my friend Charlotte Wells.
02:49It was her first feature that she directed.
02:52We shot it in Turkey in 2021.
02:57It's part of my list because I take great pride in independent cinema
03:02and having been involved with that for a couple of years,
03:05and to see a film that was kind of privately financed
03:08break into a bigger market and people respond to it
03:11and it kind of reaffirmed the fact that I think audiences
03:13want to be challenged by filmmakers and scripts
03:15that aren't kind of run-of-the-mill,
03:18and to be associated with that is great.
03:22I got to work with the most amazing director
03:23and the most amazing co-star in Frankie Corio,
03:26who played my daughter in the film.
03:28To put it simply, it's about a father and a daughter
03:31on a kind of budget holiday in Turkey.
03:33And as the film kind of unravels,
03:35you get a sense that all is not well with Callum,
03:39but it's a very subtle meditation on memory, time, love, loss.
03:44I find it to be a very moving film.
03:47One of the main things that I'm proud of with that job
03:49is the amount of restraint that's in the filmmaking
03:51and in the performance because the whole remit
03:54is that you can't show your daughter the pain that you're in,
03:57which made me nervous the whole time because it's like,
04:00what if the audience don't get that he's suffering?
04:02So you take your opportunities of the kind of suffering
04:04that you're going through and you're like,
04:06you take your opportunities of the kind of suffering
04:08where you can get it, but they're few and far between.
04:11Audiences are smart and they can pick up
04:13on the kind of subliminal messaging of it.
04:15There are scenes in it that are kind of just
04:17intensely moving between the two of them
04:19where like karaoke scene, when Frankie turns to Callum
04:23and says,
04:23Stop doing that.
04:25Doing what?
04:26Offering to pay for something
04:27when I know you don't have any money.
04:29And that to him is like the center point
04:31where he feels inadequate.
04:32I always see Callum as this kind of like loose
04:35Willy Loman character from Death of a Salesman
04:37where he's got this innate imagination
04:40and has these dreams for the life that he wants to live
04:43and provide for his daughter,
04:44but it's not kind of marrying up to the reality
04:46that he's living.
04:47And it's a very interesting place
04:48to have a character for a film.
04:52All of Us Strangers.
04:54It's directed by Andrew Haig with Andrew Scott opposite me
04:58and Claire Foy and Jamie Bell.
05:00All of Us Strangers is based on a Japanese novel
05:02just called Strangers,
05:03but it kind of evolved for Andrew Haig
05:05who wrote it and directed it
05:06into this more personal meditation on loneliness
05:11and life in your kind of, in your middle age, I suppose.
05:15So I played Harry.
05:16He lives in the same apartment block
05:19as Andrew Scott's character, Adam,
05:21and they forge this sexy, romantic, painful relationship.
05:27It's probably similar to Callum,
05:29like it's able to hide his feelings
05:30from those around him in an attempt
05:33to protect them, which I think is both
05:35a very noble disposition,
05:38but also one that's kind of self-harming
05:41in another context.
05:43Who on planet Earth isn't a fan of Andrew Scott?
05:45And if they are, I'll have a word with them.
05:47He's an absolute genius.
05:48Like I think it's impossible for that man
05:50to turn in even a mediocre performance.
05:52He's, in my opinion, one of our greats.
05:54It's kind of the perfect example
05:56of his understanding of craft,
05:58but also his like well of emotionality
06:02is when he's explaining what happened
06:05in the car crash, his parents, to me.
06:07He's describing the events,
06:08but I think in the hands of a lesser actor
06:10who become dense and heavy,
06:12and he knows where to play that,
06:14but he also knows where to make it funny,
06:16which is such an incredible instinct.
06:18He's describing this to Harry,
06:20and Harry says the line where he's like,
06:21I know what it's like to stop caring about yourself.
06:24I know how easy it can be to stop caring about yourself.
06:26It's like just a feast for like subtext.
06:29The way he color his performances,
06:31he always takes like an avenue that you don't expect,
06:34but it feels when you watch it,
06:35and it's the only way that anyone could ever play a scene.
06:37My favorite thing about the job
06:39is that you can be as private or as public
06:40with your information as you want.
06:42Like it's not like a musician or an artist
06:44or anything like that where normally
06:46they're writing about life,
06:48whereas with acting, you can kind of pick and choose things
06:51that are intensely personal,
06:53and nobody will ever see it unless you decide to share it.
06:56I'm not going to share that,
06:58because I also think it's not in a sense
07:00to be kind of obscure.
07:01It's actually to do with the fact
07:03that there's value in privacy in the sense
07:06that you can keep little pockets of yourself hidden away,
07:09because the minute you give them away to an audience,
07:12the magic's gone.
07:13It's like the magician's never going to show their tricks.
07:17But my acting teacher in drama school
07:20said something that I love to like stick to,
07:21which is like, you should never pull the character down
07:24to fit you.
07:25Like in terms of the size of what they are,
07:27you should always be reaching for what they are
07:29and what they need to come through.
07:31We live in a world where there's an access
07:33to people who are in the public eye
07:35that is not conducive actually to being creative.
07:39I kind of say that the theme of sadness
07:40is like it's obviously just a total broad stroke.
07:44And I think that there's amazing joy to be found
07:47in all of these things.
07:48Life for people presently in their like 20s and 30s
07:52isn't easy.
07:54Like I look at my parents and they were like settled
07:57and had kids in their late 20s.
07:59That's just not available to people.
08:01Like I know, that's also what you're predisposed to.
08:04Like what films I'm drawn to is kind of what I want to do
08:07in my work.
08:08And I think there is an overwhelming theme of like love
08:11in all of those films.
08:13You see in each of those characters
08:16a desire to be a better version of themselves
08:19and struggling with it.
08:20And I think that's such rich territory to play in
08:22because you're constantly like playing up
08:25to the dream idea of you
08:26and kind of suffering the reality of like
08:28your own limitations as a human being.
08:31But also like I'm excited for like Gladiator to come out
08:35which is a totally different pocket of humanity
08:37that I don't think you could draw any comparisons to
08:40or something like Stanley in Streetcar.
08:43It's all within us all, I think.
08:48Gladiator was like nothing that I've ever experienced
08:51nor do I think I'll ever experience
08:52something like that again.
08:53Directed by the King, Ridley Scott.
08:56I think the scale of it is something to behold
08:58and I think the story is again rooted in a hero's journey
09:01and trying to navigate all of the pitfalls of society
09:04and that society just happens to be
09:07in ancient Roman times.
09:08Ridley's a genius in that the whole vision
09:11is available to you.
09:12He builds these sets 360 where it's like
09:14if you can't act in that, I don't think you can act.
09:16There's nothing left to the imagination.
09:18You're just in a Coliseum.
09:20You're in a cell.
09:21You're in these environments that he just builds.
09:23He's unbelievably fast
09:25but that's because he knows exactly what he wants.
09:26Acting is acting is acting.
09:28It's like your obligation isn't to the scale
09:30of the production, it's to the character.
09:33And sometimes it's really fun
09:34when you just have more toys to play with
09:36and a bigger budget
09:37but ultimately your obligation is to the character.
09:39The society of ancient Rome
09:40but it's also talking about society concurrently
09:42with the one that we're living.
09:43Power corrupts, greed is still present.
09:45There's a cycle in history that we've never managed to crack
09:48nor do I think we will.
09:50Themes that keep popping up for us as human beings
09:52are ones that cause an immense amount
09:54of destruction and pain
09:55but also take away whatever you want.
09:57I hope you enjoy it.
09:59I had a ball making it.
10:00I was thinking a lot more about the Roman Empire last year
10:02but yeah, I hope you enjoyed these projects
10:06if you've seen them and if you haven't
10:08hopefully this is a reference point.
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