Paul and Andrew did a conversation with Saoirse Ronan for Flaunt magazine wherein they discussed All of Us Strangers, their roles, and more. It’s such a fun conversation! Check out a snippet below, and read it in full here in our press section. Also head over to our gallery for some outtakes and some screencaps from the making-of film!
Saoirse: Andrew, um, Paul was making fun of me because I have a ring light.
Andrew: I was gonna say, you look radiant.
Paul [laughing]: Fucking desperate is what that is.
Saoirse: I have a ring light because my basement is too dark and I wanted to look good for you. I don’t care about Paul, but I wanted to look good for you.
Andrew: What a humble brag. “My lower ground level is just a bit too dark.”[Several minutes of lighthearted ribbing later…]
Saoirse: Anyway. Let’s talk about your gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous film. You’re two unbelievably talented, brilliant, beautiful men that I love very much and I’m very, very proud of. One of which I know incredibly well. One of which—Andrew—I don’t know as well, but you are truly one of the best actors in the world, and that’s not mincing words at all.
Andrew: Not yet, Saoirse. Not yet.
Saoirse: You are! We watched [the film] last night with Paul’s, um… very small collection of friends.
Paul: I did a friends and family screening, Andrew, and I wanted to cancel it because—and this isn’t like a ‘woe is me’—but I don’t have lots of friends. And none of my family showed up to it. So honestly, I had about five actual friends there. There were more people there that I’d never met before.
Andrew: Yeah, but your siblings had seen it already!
Paul: But still… Like fucking show up is what I think that to that.
Andrew: Who was there?
Saoirse: Publicists…
Saoirse: Andrew, how did you access things about your own experience [in the role]? Was it painful? Do you feel changed in any way? Do you feel like you’re being kinder to yourself? Do you feel the same? How do you feel after the whole experience?
Andrew: It’s unlike anything else, isn’t it? When you see something in a script and you think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to get to express something that’s never been expressed before.’ So even if it’s very vulnerable I’ve never really found it painful to be in pain on screen. I think pain expressed is pain released. It’s a really beautiful thing about our job, particularly in something that’s so personal to me in this story.
But weirdly, when we went to see a screening for the first time after the strike, I did feel very exposed. I think, Paul, you thought this too, in relation to Harry, because obviously we’re physically very exposed in the film—but there were scenes that I didn’t realize were so immersive, and being there in front of 350 people who are watching moments in the film where I really don’t feel like I was acting. It feels like it was just me, and for that to not only be seen by an audience, but for it to be understood, and for other people to connect with it feels completely magical. When I was younger, I thought that part of me would never be seen, and if it was, it would be rejected.
Saoirse: And Paul, what about for you?
Paul: I think I differ slightly from Andrew in that approach… When I’m thinking about starting to play Harry, I’ll normally spend like a day and go, “Where are we similarly aligned?” Then that starts to get a bit painful, and I’ll say, “Okay, I’m not going to think about that.” I’m going to focus on an accent or something that’s different, or I start thinking about the aesthetic, how I want him to be kind of shaggy and have a mustache. They’re just kind of loose ideas. I was surprised on set because, and I know we’re amongst friends here… and I know it’s going to be in a magazine, but there was a moment that I was surprised at how unavailable I was to myself.
There was a day on set when we were shooting the scene with Andrew where he’s talking about his mother’s death, and my mom had just gotten sick, and I was so oblivious to the fact that it could have been triggering. We were setting up for the scene, and I remember the cameras getting set up, and I was like, “Oh fuck this! I’m going to have a panic attack.” I wasn’t even aware at the time that, of course, it was associated with the death of a parent. Thankfully my mom is doing quite well now, but at that time it was all in flux. I ended up having a panic attack and ran off-set. So that kind of tunes into the fact—and I don’t know if it’s damaging because I feel like it works for me when I’m acting—I focus on the differences because I feel like the similarities simply exist.
Flaunt
