Alfred Dunhill Cultural Icon: Sir Trevor Nunn
STORY BY BEN WHISHAW
Originally published in the October 2011 edition of British GQ.
I’m always in awe of directors. But what sets Sir Trevor Nunn apart is his stagecraft, his invention and imagination, his willingness to break rules. His work is always emotionally accessible, warm and incredibly human. He wants theatre to speak to as many people as possible, and he believes it shouldn’t be elitist.
Trevor’s had a great run this year as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead receiving critical acclaim; his next, The Tempest, starring Ralph Fiennes, opens this month.
From the first time I met him, I realised he had an incredible gift for unlocking parts of you that you’re perhaps not aware of as an actor. He has such a special, intimate way with you that he can pull those parts out and make them useful.
Eight months after graduating from RADA in 2004, I got called to an audition for Hamlet. I remember going into a rehearsal room next door to the Almeida Theatre in Islington, and Trevor was there. I did my speech - Hamlet’s first soliloquy, “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” - and he said, “Now, I want you to imagine you’re six years old, and do the speech again,” and something happened that seemed to unlock some kind of emotion in me. It became a very different kind of performance.
He has an incredibly clear vision for his plays, which comes from detailed study of the material - it’s always very considered and thought through. But once you’re in the rehearsal room with him, it feels much more an emotional, intuitive experience.
The first things I was taken to see as a child were musicals he’d directed. I think I was taken to see Starlight Express when I was eleven, then Cats, and all of his shows. It’s incredible he’s behind the musicals that, for many, are the primary experience of going to the theatre. They’re brilliant shows, and I think he’s magnificently un-snobbish about that.
That’s a big part of his legacy: marrying populism with more high-minded material. Les Misérables is a good example of that, but he’s always moved beautifully between big musicals and very intimate plays.
Trevor is also someone who is willing to make bold decisions.
Casting me - a 23-year-old who’d barely done a professional play before - as Hamlet could have backfired horribly. For that, and for everything, I am sincerely grateful to Trevor. He’s really changed my life, and I’ll be forever indebted to him.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!!! omg your dream casting cracks me up. I haven’t come across the play - on my watch list...
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