LIVE24SEVEN // Interviews
My Cousin Rachel, based on the classic Daphne Du Maurier novel of the same name and adapted for the screen and directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Le Week-End) was different. Indeed, for Claflin it marks a new chapter in an already illustrious career. It was, he says, ‘a huge challenge’ – and he ‘loved every minute of it’. In this interview he talks of being in awe of Rachel Weisz, being a fulltime dad between filming and touches on growing up in Norwich in what was a very male house hold. Despite a magnificent career so far, Sam tells us he is keen to explore different roles…read on…
Tell us about Philip, your character, in My Cousin Rachel… Philip has grown up under the guardianship of Ambrose, and he kind of hero worships him. Everything that his cousin Ambrose says is gospel.
And Ambrose falls for Rachel, this mysterious woman who is based in Italy, and he then starts going mad – maybe driven by her or maybe for her or perhaps not because of her – but Ambrose is blaming her and Philip believes Ambrose and not this woman whom he has never met. So when he finally meets Rachel he is ready to blow up and confront her and of course, she is a very beautiful and mysterious woman and because Philip has never grown up around women he doesn’t know what that means. And she is so mysterious it’s hard for him to read the signals she is giving him – sometimes she is hot, sometimes she is cold and he thinks he has done something wrong. It’s almost like a teenage love story. Philip is so naïve.
He’s infatuated with her… Yes. There’s a great scene where she says ‘you’re like a puppy looking for its mother.’ and that’s basically what he is. (laughs).
And the audience doesn’t know whether she is the scheming woman who is after his fortune or whether she is genuinely a grieving widow who is being kind to this young man. Yes, and I love the ambiguity of the story. When I was reading the script I relished that aspect of it. I love the guessing game and I hope that the audience will too and then they can make their own mind up.
Did you change your own view of Rachel as you filmed, just like the audience will when they watch it? Did you see her a villain or as a woman who is trying to survive in a harsh world? “With Rachel (Weisz) I think one of the great things about her performance was that I couldn’t work out how she was playing it as we were filming it (laughs). And one thing that Roger, Rachel and myself would never discuss was who thought what. And standing in Philip’s shoes I was continually questioning whether the character Rachel is or isn’t scheming against Philip, which was perfect for the story we were telling. And I still to this day don’t know what Rachel (Weisz) thinks about her character. It was enjoyable going from scene to scene and not knowing exactly how she was going to play it. We did rehearse, before we shot each scene, but at the same time we didn’t over rehearse and we discussed the script in its entirety before we started shooting but we didn’t want to give exact end points, we wanted to play around with it and build up the ambiguity
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and the mystery and the darker nature of it. And watching it for the first time really took me into the story. I’d look at it and think ‘I didn’t see that look she gave to camera with her back to me.’ So it’s all very well played.
You’ve worked very successfully on several literary adaptations from William Boyd’s Any Human Heart to the Hunger Games novels and even more recently with Me Before You, which was also based on a novel. I have. It’s just happened that way. And you know, I’m not a great reader; I didn’t grow up reading many books. My Cousin Rachel feels very different (than the others), almost a more adult story than I’m used to. And I enjoyed the mysterious aspect of it and the thriller element. It was a new thing for me but one that I enjoyed.
I guess if there is a thread with all of those films we’ve mentioned, based on books, it’s that it’s all about great storytelling… Yes, I think you just have to trust your director as well. You don’t shoot in chronological order and sometimes you have to trust that the director knows the journey your character is going on and that a scene he adds on the day is helping. At times I felt unprepared but in the best kind of way. I think what I’m trying to say is that Roger protected me from knowing too much and I think playing that ‘puppy dog’ character that really helped my performance.
What hooked you in to this project? Was it the script or the director?
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