It doesn’t happen often for an actor that you have two of your films being released simultaneously, but for Paul Rhys, it’s happening now. He appears in Saltburn by writer/director Emerald Fennell as Duncan and Napoleon by director Ridley Scott as Talleyrand, both out in US cinemas. Two different movies and roles that couldn’t be further apart, but they’re both stunning works. Geek Vibes Nation had a virtual sit-down with Rhys and chatted about both films, how he likes to bring his characters to life, and what working with visionaries is like.
There are minor spoilers for Saltburn ahead.
Geek Vibes Nation: Hi, Paul; congratulations on Saltburn and Napoleon.
Actor Paul Rhys: Thank you.
GVN: Let’s start with Saltburn. What were your thoughts when you read the script because there’s so much happening in this film?
PR: Before I’d read the script, I’d seen Promising Young Woman. I saw it on a plane, and I came off the plane thinking, “How could I ever get to meet Emerald Fennell”? The offer for Saltburn came through several days later, and the script arrived. I just really wanted to be in her world because I was so impressed by her first film. I couldn’t believe it was her first film. It was so accomplished and so brilliant. I had a similar response to Saltburn. It’s brilliantly conceived, so I was very keen to do it.
GVN: When looking at the Catton family, the heart of Saltburn, you instantly recognize the stereotypical rich people and how they live and treat the people around them. Did you also feel that when reading the script/watching the movie? You don’t have to say any names.
PR: Yes, definitely. The family members are all true of life. They are deep and well-formed people. My character, Duncan, is fascinating. What is Duncan’s history and life? I did so much work on what it might be. All the characters are like that. You want to find out more. What trapped Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), and what made her go that anorexic? What made her the way she is? You want to know more about these people. Why are they so arrested? Why are they so underdeveloped? What has taken them off course from being fully developed human beings?
GVN: We don’t know a lot about Duncan apart from that he’s the butler. Did you create a background for him when portraying him in this movie?
PR: I wrote a huge amount of history. Emerald said a few things to me, just enough to get the imagination going. I said, “Maybe he was the son of the head butler.” Or they’re not called the butler; they’re called the head of the house. Duncan is the head of the house. He would be appalled if we called him a butler. I told her, “I suppose he was the son of the previous head of the house.” And she said, “Oh no, he was cycling past one day when he was 14 and saw this house and thought, I want a bit of that. I’ve got to get in there.” I wrote a long history and couldn’t stop writing about Duncan. I find him fascinating.
PR: I usually play the aristocrat, but I’m from a servant-type background. Nobody ever realizes that. Everybody assumes I’m from some privileged family, and I am not. I’m from poverty. But you look a certain way, and people assume you’re a certain way. I went to the Royal Academy and was trained a certain way. I can say to people a hundred times, “I’m actually from a very tough working-class background”, but they never take it in. There’s something about Duncan is about belonging and not belonging similarly. He belongs more to this house than the family and has a job. They call him Duncan and try to humanize him to some degree, but he’s there to serve. He takes that duty very seriously. They joked they would do Saltburn 2, where nobody else speaks except Duncan. I like it.
GVN: See how he experienced all of this.
PR: Yeah, exactly. He’s been on the other side of life and grew up in poverty. He spots Oliver as a baddie from the first second he sees him, probably before he’s even seen him, and he’s the only one who knows that there’s something wrong with this boy.
GVN: Do you know what happens to him after the film ends? Because we see what happens to the other characters, but Duncan disappears from the story.
PR: Well, initially, he’s got to be there. He is there in Saltburn. Saltburn would only be complete in Oliver’s eyes if it contained Duncan. One of the first things he says to Elspeth in that coffee shop scene is, “Is Duncan still there?” It’s essential. So Duncan is there, even during the dance scene. We did explore that a bit more, but it didn’t make it to the final film. It’s also a question about what his life’s like now. It’s a very fascinating idea. How does he, knowing what he knows or feels about Oliver, go on being the head of the house under him and with him in charge?
PR: He grew to love this family very much, particularly the children, perhaps. I created a narrative where he’s not maternal or paternal at all. He hates children, but because the parents were off doing what they do during the summers, he was forced to look after the kids in Saltburn and grow to love them. He’s feeling for the entire family in many ways. The family is so trapped and so cut off. And I did say to Emerald, “How much does he know? What do you think he knows? Does he know everything?” And she said, “he can’t know everything because if he knew everything, he’d kill him instantly with his own hands.”. He is Saltburn. He is THE house somehow.
GVN: And how was it then to see the Saltburn house for the first time?
PR: Amazing. It’s a beautiful house. The Saltburn house was never used in films, so it’s different from the ones you’ve seen a hundred times. It’s got these different bits. There’s a Norman bit, an Elizabethan bit, and a Georgian bit; they’re all very different. It has huge rooms and huge grounds. But we were like the family. We spent all our time in a tiny, teeny room, all squashed in together, getting to know each other. It was either a very clever thing on Emerald’s part or a happy accident. I don’t know which. But we all got to know each other exceptionally well. And it was the happiest of things to film.
PR: I was there nearly every day because Duncan was always there. And I lived there too. I begged the producers if I could move out of the hotel and have Duncan’s room in the house. They said yes. So I was very happy. I got to know Saltburn very intimately because I was sleeping there. So I had a very unique view of it.
GVN: Would you have a similar approach if you could make a film with a similar primary setting?
PR: I’d like to. I’ve asked people before, and they’ve generally said no. I don’t want to face the outside, even in a play. I was doing Uncle Vanya a couple of years ago at the Almeida theatre, and I begged them to let me stay and sleep in the theatre. And they wouldn’t. They always quote health and safety and whatever it is. I would have been happier if I could stay there. I can’t speak to people after a play and can’t face the outside world. And so I’ve often asked a theatre, “Could I stay?” I once asked at the National Theatre, and they said, “No, health and safety.”
PR: But the producers of Saltburn let me stay in the house. They said, “We’ll make it work.” I was very pleased. I like to be in character all the time and don’t want to be distracted. If you’re that character through and through, every time the camera’s on you, you know who you are.
PR: In Napoleon, I couldn’t do that because we were in different sets a lot of the time. It was these huge houses. Very unlike Saltburn, they did explore the whole of the house. We weren’t all cooped up in one room. Emerald doesn’t shoot the house in a voyeuristic way, and Ridley does. He wants grandeur from Napoleon. We were in Blenheim Palace, which is huge. We were there for weeks and weeks on end. And then in other places of equal size. It was very different—a Napoleonic sense of extraordinary entitlement and French glamour. But I tried to stay in character all the time for Talleyrand as well.
PR: I’ve got another movie coming out, and I also play a very different character in that one. I play a diabetic man in this sort of comedy, tragic comedy. The further I am into all of those people, the better I feel. I can’t be on cameras myself. It’s just terribly frightening to me. I have to be deeply into the character, and then I can do anything.
GVN: It’s probably impossible because there’s so much going on in the movie, but how would you describe Saltburn in a few words?
PR: Interesting question. As you say, it’s such a big idea because Emerald is one of that tiny group of filmmakers who are actual visionaries. She’s a real visionary. And for me, there’s nothing better than working for a visionary. It’s so fulfilling. I’ve had that experience a few times, with Robert Altman and Ridley, and Emerald definitely, too. I would say the movie is about loyalty, love and entitlement.
GVN: We already spoke about Napoleon. How did you come on board?
PR: I met Ridley in the 90s. I was in an Altman film called Vincent and Theo. It was Tim Roth and me, and people wanted to meet after that. Ridley was one of those people. So I’d known about him for ages. Then suddenly, the offer came through to do Napoleon and I met up with him. That’s how this came about. And I always wanted to work with Ridley. I doubt I’d be an actor if it weren’t for him. I lived in a very isolated place in Wales and the mountains; the only cultural things I got were films. His Blade Runner and Alien were pivotal in my early life. He’s a legend to me. So, working with him was a dream come true. I worshipped him and Joaquin [Phoenix, who plays Napoleon]; every actor worships Joaquin. They were both brilliant people to work with.
PR: The scale of Saltburn and Napoleon is different. Napoleon‘s revealing the house. Saltburn pulls you back from the house. But they’re both vast films. And what’s interesting to me is that the focus is just different. So Emerald takes a huge film, which could have gone extensive, and takes it down to focus more on the personal aspects. It’s about a tiny group of people. It’s not about a thousand horses, but it’s also huge. Emerald focuses on the details of these humans living in this big house. We only see the house a little. It’s just that their focus is different. They’re both at the top of the game in different ways.
PR: Both directors are about detail, and film as a medium allows you that. Television doesn’t allow you that. But Emerald could spend two days on the scene. And she told me, “Paul, if you want to do this a hundred times, that’s fine.” So that was so fantastic.
GVN: And did that make you feel more at ease when filming?
PR: Yes. You’re taking a risk when taking on a role like Duncan because he’s a servant. Traditionally, in film, servants say little and do little. It was my responsibility to fill him up with truth so that when you do see him, something is happening. You can see something’s alive. You can either go too far with those roles and make them grotesque or not enough until they’re invisible. I have to be full of truth. Every time the camera is ready to go, I’m there and present and alive. You need to give the viewer something they can relate to, something human.
GVN: What scene in both Saltburn and Napoleon was the most challenging one?
PR: Duncan was quite challenging because he doesn’t say anything, and I’m used to talking so much in film. My friend said something brilliant. I told her about this role, in which I don’t say much. She said, “That’s better.”. She also said that film got worse after sound was invented, which is so true. And if you look at some of the silent movies, they are amazing. To me, the greatest actor who’s ever lived is Buster Keaton. Sometimes, Joaquin reminds me of Buster Keaton. He does have that tragic, comic essence. I’m a huge fan of that. Doing something without words is a discipline of a very particular sort.
PR: Talleyrand speaks a lot, even a lot more, during the four-hour version of this movie. With his famous wit, Talleyrand said something interesting about talking and speech. He said, “Speech was invented to disguise what we feel.” He was an absolute genius of a man. Difficult and stubborn, but a genius. There would be no Napoleon without him. There’s no way he could survive that long. Talleyrand survived everything. He survived the ancient regime, the revolution, and the post-revolution.
GVN: How was it to see all the battle scenes on the big screen?
PR: God, nobody on earth can do scenes like that, like Ridley. There’s nobody. He’s a genius at it. He’s the last great live-action director. To watch the battle scenes was just incredible. I wasn’t in them. So I was seeing them for the first time along with everybody else. I didn’t see the film until I saw it during the premiere. Ridley uses very little CGI. He’s literally for months on end, organizing these horses into French formations and working out what his shots will be like. He plans everything. He’s ready to shoot with five cameras on the main unit and many more on the second.
PR: And we do a big scene in 40 minutes because everything’s already covered and planned. You’ve got to be at the top of your game and ready to go immediately. There’s no real room for anything else out there. But Joaquin and I were still improvising and trying new things. So Ridley’s flexible about things like that. Quite a surprising mixture of things. He’s incredible. He was 85 when we were shooting the movie and had about twice as much energy as I had.
PR: He’s never shy of answering a question if you have a question about your character. Ridley’s very open and responsive, and at the same time, he also clearly knows what he wants. He’s sure of what the setup is. He has total confidence in the picture he’s creating. The rest of it is up to you. He thinks you’re there because you’re the best person for this particular role. If there were something to say, he’d say it. That’s my type of director.
PR: Emerald’s very much the same. She wouldn’t get over-involved. She’s an actor and knows that process is a mysterious thing. You can’t be invaded too much as an actor. She’ll give you enough guidance and a new thought or way of seeing it. That’s such an exciting thing. Take the fancy dress party, for example.
PR: During the costume fitting, I wore a Swiss guard outfit and looked ridiculous in yellow. And I said, “Shouldn’t he wear something serious like Shakespeare, like all black with a white ruff or something?” And she said, “Oh, no, Paul, they’re cruel. They let him dress like that.” That gave me so much for the rest of the film. Sometimes, just a very perceptive, small comment can fill you up enormously in ways you don’t expect and manifests in other scenes. If you have a deep perception, you can go very, very, very far with that.
GVN: You already mentioned another project that you have coming up. Can you tell us more about that and other projects you’re currently working on?
PR: It’s called Men Up and is for BBC. It’s a big thing. Russell T. Davis produced it, Matthew Barry wrote it, and Ashley Way directed it for the BBC. It’s about a group of five diabetic men in Swansea, Wales, in 1994 who participated in the world’s first medical trials for Viagra. My character is expelled from the trial for personal reasons, and he’s gay. And I’ll leave it at that. It was a great project. I enjoyed that.
GVN: Do you plan to return to the theatre anytime soon?
PR: I’d love to. I haven’t got anything planned particularly. I might do something in the future. For now, I’d like to do more film. I want to go on working with filmmakers of the calibre of Emerald Fennell and Ridley Scott. There aren’t many, but I’d like to get my hands on their projects.
Thank you so much for this interview, and good luck with your upcoming projects!
Both Saltburn (courtesy of MGM) and Napoleon (courtesy of Sony Pictures) are out now in US cinemas.