Brief Encounter With … Rory Kinnear

How did you feel about winning your awards?
I was quite proud, but it heaps the pressure on, especially if you’re just starting rehearsals (for another play). I guess I thought, hang on, now I have to keep being better each time. But I’ve always tried to think like that anyway so it hasn’t changed anything in particular.

Were you surprised on Olivier night?
I was kind of horrified actually. I hadn’t really thought about it and presumed I wouldn’t win just because I thought other people would. You have to prepare something small just in case it is you, but then when it happens, it’s like the last thing in the world you want, to have to go up and speak in front of 800 people or whatever it was. As soon as they said my name, I was just saying “oh no, oh no, oh no”, and all way up to the stage I was thinking “oh God, no, no, no”. After you come off stage, you get whisked off into the press area and you don’t really have time to enjoy it or think about it. I was gone for about thirty minutes and my girlfriend, who was back at the table and didn’t really know anybody, was just sat twiddling her thumbs. It’s only the next day when you’re able to phone some friend and people text you, that’s the nice bit.

Why is now a good time to revive The Revenger’s Tragedy?
It wasn’t done for 350 years so it’s not very well known. The play asks: how do you engage with life and society and not be corrupted? It’s about a guy, Vindice, who holds on to his notion of justice in the face of everything happening around him and takes a divinely inspired revenge on a world that has let him down. He demonstrates an intolerance and a fundamentalism that might catch the ear for today’s audience. The original is set in Italy, but we’ve excised those references so it’s now an unnamed state and the clothes are a heightened version of real modern dress.

The production carries a warning for under-15s.
There’s a lot of sex and a lot of blood. It’s gorier than most 15 movies. It would probably make an 18 movie, but because it’s in a theatre, they’ll let you in if you’re 15. Without giving too much away, there are over ten deaths. Vindice doesn’t hold back once he’s found his niche murder-wise. He has in his nature an artistry that inspires ever more creative ways of killing people.

How do you get inside the mind of a murderer?
At the start, it’s an easily get-in-able frame of mind because of Vindice’s great feeling of betrayal and love cancelled out, his betrothed having been murdered nine years previously. That’s driving him and, scene by scene, the momentum builds. I think we’re all capable of it. Murders are normally a crime of passion or revenge. When you read about them, you see the centuries-old sense of justice in all of us, that if something is done wrong to you, you feel naturally aggrieved until it’s perceived as being put right. In the end, Vindice recognises he’s become a murderer and wants to face up to his crimes.

Presumably his name is where the word vindictive derives from.
Yes, Vindice is Italian for revenge. My sister is called Castiza, which is Italian for chastity, my mother’s name, Gratiana, means grace, and then you’ve got Lussurioso, the Duke’s son, which is Italian for luxury. The names are representative of a person’s form and function in the play, and as a result, as an actor, you have to work against what could seem a stock character.

What’s special about working at the National, particularly on the Olivier stage?
I’ve wanted to do a play in the Olivier since I was seven or eight, so it was so exciting when I first got my chance, doing The Man of Mode last year. I was taken here by my parents and seen things, like Ian Charleson in Hamlet and Anthony Hopkins in Pravda, that turned me onto acting and what a powerful experience theatre can be. I remember when my dad was here in 1985 doing The Real Inspector Hound. There was an actor who fell down the stairs and broke all the banisters every night. I thought, they rebuild the staircase every night, that’s amazing!

Though you’ve appeared in new plays, such as Festen and Southwark Fair, these are outweighed by your classical stage credits which, in addition to The Man of Mode and The Revenger’s Tragedy include Philistines, Mary Stuart, Cymbeline, The Taming of the Shrew and The Seagull. Do you prefer the classics?

No, I like modern stuff too, but having done an English degree, from tenth-century literature on, I guess I’m not scared off classic texts. I know you can read something and not understand it, but it’s okay because you can read it again and there are books to help, whereas some people might just read it, think “how the hell am I ever going to understand that?”, and never pick it up again. Thinking of the literary continuum of the last millennium, the reward in doing plays from earlier periods is knowing that you’re part of keeping the sense of history and the timelessness of certain key tropes alive. That’s what I enjoy. Whether you’re doing modern plays or ones from the 14th or 15th century, they’re all based on the same aspects of human nature that people want to write about. In some ways it makes you feel less special – just because it’s the 21st century doesn’t mean that what you’re feeling is new – but at the same time it makes you feel more special in terms of recognising the commonality of human nature and the solace to be found in writers throughout history rather than just writers of today.

Are there any roles you’d really like to play in future?

Well, bearing in mind that once you say it, it probably will never happen, the ones I’d say are Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing and I wouldn’t mind having another go at Cyrano de Bergerac, which I played when I was 15. Also Bobby in Company. I’ve always thought about doing a musical. I played the trumpet for about 16 years and I like playing the piano and singing.

NT artistic director Nicholas Hytner has promised he’ll direct your Hamlet.
Yes, it’ll be sometime after next year once everyone else has done Hamlet! I can’t wait. I never fancied it before – it was Nick’s idea – but now I do. I don’t really set myself goal roles because you’re disappointed when you can’t do them. That’s how you get people in their 70s trying to play parts they wanted to do in their 40s. If a production happens and it’s the right director, the right place and you’re right for it at the time, that’s the way it should be, rather than trying to shoehorn yourself into something.

Is Hamlet the “ultimate role” for a young actor?
I think it’s a great role, but I don’t know if it’s the ultimate one. It was kind of a surprise when Nick asked me to do it. Of course, I’d done the play for A-level and studied it at university and had always found it immensely rewarding. I think it’s one of the Shakespeares you can watch again and again in different productions because a) it’s so personal to the person playing the part and b) it’s such an incredible story. And yes, it’s obviously a great part because there’s lots to do and lots to explore in terms of your instincts as an actor.

– Rory Kinnear was speaking to Terri Paddock

The Revenger’s Tragedy, directed by Melly Still, joins the rep in the NT Olivier on 4 June 2008 (previews from 27 May). An abridged version of this interview appears in the June issue of What’s On Stage magazine (formerly Theatregoer), which is out now in participating theatres. Click here to thumb through our online edition. And to guarantee your copy of future print editions – and also get all the benefits of our Theatregoers’ Club – click here to subscribe now!!

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