Rory Kinnear for his numerous roles in Men and this wild final scene

If Men Actor Rory Kinnear seems famous because you’ve probably seen him play a wide range of characters throughout his long career on stage and screen – sometimes in the same movie or series. The subversive horror film directed by Alex Garland Men Kinnear has starred in nearly a dozen different roles, and it’s not the first time the award-winning British actor has demonstrated his talent for portraying multiple characters in the same project, with his double role in Taika Waititi Our flag means death offering another recent example.

Men however, it provides a lot of other first news for the veteran actor. Kinnear is the focus of a terrifying, visceral final scene Men this has already provoked much discussion due to its graphic nature and, more importantly, the powerful symbolism behind it.

Kinnear sat down with Digital Trends to discuss his experience Menthis wild last sequence and why he continues to play multiple characters in one story.

The next interview contains a discussion of key points from the plot Men.

Digital Trends: You play so many characters in this movie, sometimes even in the same scene. What was it like for you to follow all of them and their manners and the like during the filming?

Rory Kinnear: It was quite a nice juggling. I had the feeling that I was working for the capacity to keep track of everything, where you are in the story, where these characters are in their stories, and so on. But I usually played only one character a day, except for the pub scene, which was the only time I went in and out. When I woke up in the morning, I knew who I was going to be, and as soon as I arranged my hair and makeup that day, it gave me a starting point for the rest of the day.

Alex Garland keeps the themes and messages of his films deliberately vague, but why do you think you need to play all these characters? What went through your mind about the message or topics you are conveying?

Obviously you can’t get caught up in the themes when you play in it, so my conclusion from the film was informed when I saw it. Now I saw him twice. By the second time, you’re starting to see it as an audience, not the first time you’re mostly interested in how they put the puzzle together. In terms of the acting experience, as you create these characters and make sure you have an excuse for their behavior, you can see what Alex is doing in terms of working out the micro- and macro-aggression that these characters show to Harper (Jesse Buckley). But at the same time, for most of them, Harper was a small feature of their lives, not hers.

But when it comes to how I, as a member of the audience, perceive it thematically, Alex likes to keep these things opaque, and I think I should probably take that into account. As part of the creative process, you have a supposed degree of authority that I do not have here. My conclusion from the film, however, is the impact of the trauma. This is something that irritates me. There is this inevitable, inevitable nature of the trauma that people go through, and it is repackaged through the many different and varied experiences that a person has – in this case all played by the same person.

There is this sense of repetition, this sense of dying multiplicity, and it can resonate throughout your life. Here’s how to try to challenge this and stop it from happening again.

You mentioned before that the big, last scene of the film was arranged after you signed. What was your reaction when you learned what would lead to this?

When it’s such a big swing, it’s always, “How are we going to do this?” And when it’s as bold as something like that, you really know that everyone has to be so engaged and resourceful. The technical know-how that is displayed during this sequence is something you have to make a kind of leap of faith in when you perform, [hoping] that they will not leave you tall and dry after the event. And I’m certainly not tall or dry at any point in this scene.

Definitely not.

right? But what’s great about making films is this collaboration, and for much of that sequence, the collaboration was after the event. While I trusted Alex, I trusted Jesse and I trusted the crew, and I knew we could do something special with him, I also knew there were a lot of people I wouldn’t necessarily meet who would be obligated to make it happen.

Well, I want to ask you about this, because it obviously uses a lot of effects – practical and digital – but there are still so many of you. How do you approach this aspect of shooting scenes and the need to imagine what they will look like in the end?

Well, the last sequence is basically a sequence between me and Jesse. There are few births, but once everyone is born, they have that kind of relationship or relationship with Jesse [for a brief period]. There is an even longer version of this sequence that could have been cut together because there were so many different alternatives that we shot in it.

From the point of view of how things would look, however, for the pub, we had people who looked a little like these characters. Jeffrey’s deputy was in his 60s, while the deputy police officer was in his late 20s and early 30s, and they had learned the lines themselves. So we just kept doing the scene, as you would at any other time. For me, sometimes I had to concentrate so as not to get involved in their lines, because I did it that morning, but overall I managed to play the scene every time as the character I played.

You played a few characters in a recent show that generated a lot of noise: Our flag means death. There were several other projects in which you did this. Are you attracted to these types of performances with many characters?

It’s funny because I went straight to LA [for Our Flag Means Death] on the back of what was being photographed, and I found that I had gone from a make-up room with a 3D printed image of my head, staring at me for six weeks, immediately to another make-up room with a 3D bust of my head. who stares at me. These days, you can simply email the details and have them printed out for you. So now I’ve played several versions of myself in one scene four times. I did it in Penny Terrible. I did it in Internal number 9, a British show, and obviously both. And this is a strange niche.

Maybe just because I’m very cheap they think they can get more, or maybe I’m so expensive that they have to get more out of me. I do not know. We are not talking about these things. But yes, in terms of tone changes, you can’t get something as clearly different as these two.

of Alex Garland Menstarring Jesse Buckley and Rory Kinnear, is already in theaters.

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