It didn’t take much for Russell Tovey to connect with ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird’ Star Tom Blyth. The actors met for the first time on Zoom before filming writer-director Carmen Emmi’s Gay Indie Drama “Plain Clothes.”
“Immediately I was like, ‘This guy is the real deal,’” Tovey says on this week’s “Just for Variety” podcast. “He’s British and I’m British and we’re both out there doing our thing. I was so charmed and excited to work with him and he is a true actor and he has an absolute passion for independent film. He’s all about honesty and authenticity in telling the story, and that’s what I’m all about. The relationship between the two and their connection and their chemistry is fundamental to this story. ”
Those two in “PlainChes” are Lucas (Blyth), an undercover cop in 1990s Syracuse, New York who is assigned to a sting operation that goes after gay men in a mall bathroom and Andrew (Tovey), the target who Lucas falls in love with of.
“It’s full of stars,” Tovey says of Blyth. “He’s so dedicated and so great in the role and such a team player. I got there and everyone in the crew was in love with Tom. And I was like, ‘Okay, wait a minute.’ So I turned on the charm and I was like, ‘You’re going to love me too.’ [Laughs] We both kind of went from there being our most charming selves. ”
I spoke with Tovey ahead of the Jan. 26 premiere of “PlainChes” at the Sundance Film Festival. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation on the Podcast “Just for Variety”.
Tell me about the script coming to you. How did it come about for you?
Carmen said that when he was writing this script he had been looking at ‘watching’, but he had been to see ‘Angels in America’ on Broadway and then went back and watched the National Theater Live, and saw me my Joe play Pitt. And he said that after that moment, when he was writing to Andrew, he had my face in his head.
Why is this an important story to tell?
I think it’s that period in history. I think what’s really important and beautiful and unique about this film is that you see the responsibility that Andrew feels towards Lucas where he talks about San Francisco and he talks about protection. He understands that this is an intergenerational connection, sexual connection, that he has a responsibility to Lucas. And I think that’s a really nice dynamic for them. It’s Lucas’s Coming of Agn story, he’s encountered someone who yes, there are complications of Andrew, but he’s encountered someone who is generous of spirits, queer spirits, almost like an elder who gives him even though it’s incredibly complicated and he is a very controlled individual. It felt like a very unique story to tell. I think now for myself to reach out to 43 and then younger generations and have conversations with them about the importance of remembering and the importance of storytelling and inherited trauma and as a community, what we stand for, what we stand to lose .
Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey in ‘PlainCloths’.
What do you like about Andrew?
I like his calmness. I wanted to find in Andrew this real confident confidence in the scenarios he built for himself. He is very contained. He’s given himself so many rules and he sticks to them, and this one breaks his rules. This one really challenges them, which is why it’s such a huge emotional upheaval for both of them. It’s like playing Joe Pitt in ‘Angels in America’. He was a very troubled soul who was very processed, very controlled about what he put out, so terrified on the inside. And I think with Andrew I feel like there are definite elements of Joe Pitt in Andrew in the fact that he’s very closed off. I’m attracted to these troubled souls, but I want you as an audience or I want people to feel for them and not think they’re a bad guy or see them as something negative but just a product of society.
Why are you attracted to troubled souls?
Because I’m an actor. Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that what we want, the nuances and emotional challenges in the characters we play? I have my own fears, my own things that I’m working through. And when you get to work through another character through another character, it’s such a privilege. All we can do as actors is cherry pick from our own life experiences and then transfer that into what the character will go through. I find that as I get older, the more challenging the role, the more satisfied I feel going home at night because I feel like I can practice things in me or understand things in myself by playing these characters. The more I act, the older I get, I want to make myself even more vulnerable on screen because I feel like that’s the greatest act of generosity you can do as an actor, is to be vulnerable. I’m learning to do that more and more.
I have to ask you about starring in the “Doctor Who” spin-off, “The War Between the Land and the Sea.” How much fun was it?
It’s one of the most joyful jobs I’ve ever done. Every day was just brilliant. I love the character I play. I love the cast and crew. I think we have a responsibility as actors when we walk on set to be kind and to be honest and to be vulnerable. And I think as I get older and every project I do, I make sure that when I walk on set, I’m friendly and that’s all I can do. I was number one on this show, and from day one I was like, “It’s not a struggle for me to be kind.” I know the ripples that come from being a really good number one and being a really good team player and being friendly on set. We’ve all worked with people who aren’t as generous with their kindness or their good energy, and it makes for a really uncomfortable, unsatisfying, and sometimes upsetting experience. It makes it harder to be vulnerable because it makes you anxious. But this project was just beautiful. Russell T Davies is just the best person because he’ll watch the dailies every day, and he’ll text everyone, all the heads of apartments, all the actors. ‘That was great. Wow, I love that, the way you did this line, ‘each person. And he says he never repeats the same text in case people have been sitting next to each other and they suddenly see that he just copied and pasted the same text. But that will be galvanizing for a cast and crew. Is that your main man? The head honcho is so on top of everything and watching and free.
What should Diehard “Doctor Who” fans know about this show?
Oh, God, what do diehard “Doctor Who” fans need to know? Well, the story of these creatures appeared in “Doctor Who” episodes, it may have been in the 60s, but this was a retread of that. You have members of unity there. Jemma Redgrave is so brilliant. She’s the same character [Kate Lethbridge-Stewart] In this, but it’s so elevated. Gugu Mbatha-raw is in prosthetics and phenomenal. I don’t know how she does it. I think it has everything for the “Doctor Who” world, but it also feels completely fresh. Starring Dylan Holmes Williams, “Who’s” director, it feels like an indie film. I wanted it to feel gritty and indie and dynamic that way. And they were like, “Absolutely.”
Are you also into prosthetics?
No.
Did you want to be?
No, no, no, no, no, no. I played George the Werewolf for many years and every episode, once every two weeks, I would get up at three in the morning covered in latex and run around the woods, which sounds like a fetish but it’s not. It wasn’t. After a while it was like, “Fuck it now, come on.” So I’m not rushing back to prosthetics.
Aren’t you having fun with them? You have no fun running around in the woods.
No, because it is always the middle of winter. I’m always stark bollock naked and then I’m running around and there’d be someone walking their dog and I’d walk past them screaming.
That sounds like a fetish, Russell.
Not my fetish. I’m very vanilla. That’s definitely not something on my radar, and I’ve experienced it and I never want to do it again. So it’s definitely not a fetish.
Is there a genre you’d like to do that you haven’t done yet?
That’s a good question. I mean, I loved doing “little dorm ride” years ago. I love a Dickensian costume drama.
It’s your fetish.
It’s my first Dickensian London Fetish costume, your cosplay, the Dickensian cosplay. Yes, that’s my fetish. I would like to do that as a genre. It would be pretty cool to make an indie film that was Dickensian costume drama. You know what I mean? That would be quite fascinating. That’s not a big budget. That’s really kind of like playing these roles almost like Mike Leigh, “Vera Drake” territory. That kind of thing would be really exciting, but I just want to do more indie films. That’s where these truly unique, brilliant, powerful, important stories are told, and art is created and the greatest stories are explored.
Do you want to direct?
Not sure at this point. I do so many other things. Everyone will say, “Just stay in your lane, Russell.” Let’s say yes at some point. I don’t want to close that.
