Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy on Celebrity Traitors UK Season 2, Savage House [5:49-10:54]

For both of you though, what did you each learn about each other about the way you like to work on set? Because I've spoken to so many actors and everyone has a different process. And I'm just curious if your process is aligned or if each of you have like a certain way of working that is different than the other. Well, we've both done the theatre and we're both English. So, I think that immediately there's a common ground of the way of working and that I think the English acting tradition is not method based as such. So, everything is to do with what is on the page. So, honoring the writer is the most important thing, which every actor who's worked in the theatre does because the playwright is God. Whereas, my experience of working with American actors by comparison is that they're much looser with sticking to the actual script and thinking if you improvise around it or add lib stuff, that is more usual. And I'm not saying one way of working is better than another, but we certainly are not method actors in any shape or form. No. So, I think we all we both want to have a good day. Yeah. We don't want it to be arduous and torturous. You come fully prepared. You know all your lines. You're not going to sort of find them during the day when you're working, which is torturous. You know, because some people have actors that I've worked with that have the delusion that if they sort of know the lines, that, you know, it's going to make it more real or improvise actually when they're working. I mean, my experience that is not the case. It's just your impression. Yeah. So, we're in agreement all now. 100%. So, the film is set during a pox outbreak and an uprising. Yet the savages are entirely consumed by social climbing. What do you think this movie says about the timeless absurdity of human vanity? That it were our own worst enemies. Really aren't we? We can't help ourselves. It's the same as when you go and visit Pompeii. And you think that what you're going to see in Pompeii is some sort of unbelievable truth about who we are as human beings, which happens. But what you also see is two neighbours arguing about where the fence they put was. Your fence was in my part of the garden and your fence is in the other part of the garden. You think, oh my god, we've not, we've not moved on. We've not, everyone's protecting their own little thing. Everybody's trying to, you know, but not better themselves, but trying to elevate themselves or want more, just more, just want more things never satisfied and always wanting. And I think people are star struck in whatever shape form whether it's a politician or a sportsperson or an actor or a writer that this need to invest another human being with traits that are maybe apparently superhuman, but of course they're not. It's something that, you know, drives us. And I've been star struck my entire life. Every single time I work with a new actor that I admire, I'm, you know, I'm star struck by that. I find that very attractive. You have search on C and Lady Savage had access to Instagram. Who would be better at pretending everything was fine? Lady Savage would be really, I'd be really good at putting all the stuff, all the dirty dishes on that side of the room and then going, I'm just going to cook something for the kids. I'm just going to make something like, whereas yours would be, like, probably you'd get cancelled on Instagram. You put actually a true and awful photos on there. Yeah. And you'd be talking to all sorts of people asking them to do all sorts of inappropriate things. And saying something that was politically incorrect or saying, like, my bum, all of it would be, I'd be cancelled. Yeah, but I'd be keeping the ship afloat. Yes. I know both of you read a lot of scripts. What was it about this one? I know there's a little generic, but what was it about this script that said, oh, yes, I absolutely want to do this. Well, firstly, I thought that the fact that it was written by an American Peter, that really surprised me because I thought this is set in 1715 in England, and it's very specific to that time. And I thought, how is it possible that somebody who's come from a country that didn't exist in the same way then is now, is cundering this all up? But maybe that is the perfect person to do it because it's an outsider looking at it with a fresh eye. And seeing the absurdity of how people live about class as well in this country, which is so specific and was also so specific to that time, is the idea of your class defining your ambitions and life. The other experience I had was 2001, the late great director Robert Altman was American, and his take on the British class system in Gosford Park was absolutely extraordinary because he was an outsider, so he could see it and underline and emphasize all its