Even in the context of a zoom interview, it’s hard to fathom why there are so few television and film credits on Kathryn Hunter’s resume. A staple of the British theater world, she won an Olivier Award three decades ago, has has a transfixing presence that is almost impossible to ignore. And likely the primary reason Joel Coen decided to cast her as the Witches in his interpretation of “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”
Hunter’s performance is arguably the best in a cast that features Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand and Brendan Gleeson. She contorts and shapes her body in an unexpected manner, providing genuine tension in Coen’s decidedly abstract setting. That required a major commitment on her part while on set. She doesn’t believe she is a “method actor” but admits, “I think maintaining the character is important.”
Hunter notes, “I mean, there’s a way of kind of being two people at the same time. You know what I mean? I remember working with an actor named Edward Petherbridge, and it was a devised piece, but basically to do with ‘King Lear.‘ So, in one scene, we would come in and the director would say, ‘O.K., we’ll start the scene.’ He said, ‘I’ve just got out of the subway. I can’t just be King Lear. I have to kind of warm up into it.’ So, I think when you create a character, it’s important to just keep them on the boil, and then be able to talk and chat and do practical things about makeup or whatever, or taking direction from Joel, but just keep it bubbling.”
Over the course of our conversation, Hunter recalls the process of working with Coen to fashion her Witches, her lifetime of experience with Shakespeare’s work and how her niece appropriately congratulated her for a “supported” actress win.
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The Playlist: You’ve gotten such acclaim for this performance including an award from the New York Film Critic Circle. How are you feeling about the reaction to your work?
Kathryn Hunter: I’m delighted. When I got the award, I told my niece and she wrote an email saying, “Dear Auntie Kathryn, congratulations on your award for best supported actress.” And I thought, “Oh.” But I thought in retrospect, that was a really good typo, “best supported actress,” because the process was so supported in every way, by Joel and Fran. S,o it feels like something that we created together, and so I’m happy in that respect.
I’ve read about how Francis and Joel went to meet with you and talk to you about the role. Before you even sat down with them, had they given you any idea of what they were sort of looking for?
The first invitation came by email from Joel. I was actually in Athens, playing “Prometheus Bound” at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. So it was like, “Wow.” And I said to myself, “I’m not going to think about anything else,” because [the play] was in Greek, so I was going, “Oh my God.” But I did allow myself to be totally distracted because it’s been a lifetime dream to work with the Coen Brothers and Joel. So ,then it very quickly began a dialogue. I wanted to play all three. How do we do it? Well, don’t know. We’ll figure it out.? So they came to London and they said, “We’ve brought a bit of costume. It’s not the costume, but it’s something we’d like you to try.” And it was basically a piece of black fabric, and I had also brought these black panty hose, and I put it on my arms to kind of suggest wings. I think they thought that we were just going to talk, but I prefer to just kind of have a go. They’d hired this room in the Soho Hotel, I think it was, so it wasn’t like there were people passing by, but I did just offer up my Crow, then and there. And I think Joel was quite excited and Fran too, because they started taking photos, making little films, going, “Yeah, we were thinking you could go this way.”
And then that continued to when I went to LA for rehearsal and costume fittings. The costume fittings were kind of like rehearsals as well. So they’d go, “No, that covers too much of her body. We can’t see the shapes,” to [Costume Designer] Mary Zophres, who is so brilliant, and adjusting it as we went along. Which is wonderful to do that, because usually, even in the theater, you turn up and you’re shown what your costume is, or certainly on film, and there’s not much dialogue about it. So, it felt like creating something together.
You’ve done many Shakespeare productions over the course of your career but had you appeared in a production of “Macbeth” before?
I had played Lady Macbeth a million years ago, in a sort of avant guard production where I had to, in the street walking scene, I think, walk over these pillows. It was a very short rehearsal period. At the time I remember lamenting that there wasn’t enough time to explore the language. So ,it was a thrill that actually this time Joel really did offer up the language. I think what’s genius about Joel’s adaptation and conception is that there’s the gift of the language, for which I think we are richer, and a storytelling that it’s almost like a thriller. And discovering that Joel, he has an amazingly sensitive ear, in terms of hearing nuances in the language. He would often say, “Gosh, God, this is virgin territory for me. I’m out of my comfort zone, going into Shakespeare.” But the more he spoke about the language and the interpretation, the more I realized that actually he’s so suited to doing Shakespeare, because he’s picking up the nuances. And I hope for audiences that aren’t necessarily Shakespeare fans, who would normally go, “That’s not for me,” he’s made it so accessible and immediate and exciting that they’ll be excited by the language, rather than alienated.
Where did your inspiration come from to portay the Witches? Was this an idea you had in the back of your head?
No, it was Joel who said, “They’re crows.” And initially you go, “Sure. O.K. Yeah.” And “I think they’re standing stones.” So, I did lots of improvisations, both by myself or with my husband, who’s a wonderful actor, kind of being a standing stone, and crows. And he said, “Then sometimes they’re women.” So, the big inspiration there was, I’d been researching another project in India about the Dalit community, they’re called now. Used to be called Untouchables. And they live on the outskirts of society. Joel said they meet on the battlefield, I thought, “Yeah. The Dalit community, they would handle the dead, and all the other jobs considered rather unclean.” So, I kind of made a connection there. And then because Joel said, “There are three of them, but you embody the three,” I did look into people with multiple personality disorder. And so it’s kind of a mixture of all these things, and eventually something comes together.
During a press conference with the whole cast, I think Corey Hawkins mentioned, and I might have misunderstood this, that you were constantly in character while you were on set. Is that true?
On set, yeah, I think it’s important to stay in character, even in the trailer, really, not to let it go. Maybe it’s because I’m not very skilled, and some actors can just go, “And action,” and go. But I’m not “Gangs of New York”…gosh, my brain’s gone…
Oh, Daniel Day-Lewis.
Daniel. I don’t think I’m Daniel Day-Lewis, like that. Yeah, I think maintaining the character on set is important.
Is that sort of method technique something that you carry in everything that you work with or was it just this particular project that you felt it was necessary?
I think everything. I mean, there’s a way of kind of being two people at the same time. You know what I mean? I remember working with an actor named Edward Petherbridge, and it was a devised piece, but basically to do with “King Lear.” So, in one scene, we would come in and the director would say, “O.K., we’ll start the scene.” He said, “I’ve just got out of the subway. I can’t just be King Lear. I have to kind of warm up into it.” So, I think when you create a character, it’s important to just keep them on the boil, and then be able to talk and chat and do practical things about makeup or whatever, or taking direction from Joel, but just keep it bubbling.
What did you take away from working with Denzel and Frances on set?
I mean, we’d agree a shape, and then he’d say, on the next take, “Shall we try this? Or do you want to try anything else, Kathryn?” And then, because I’ve done a lot of stage work, Fran would come up to me and go, “Kathryn, your work is really close here. I mean, really close.” In other words, “Don’t do too much. Keep it more still.” And then because we’d done work on the different personas, she said, “Who do you think is speaking here?” So it was that kind of incredible collaboration. And then in the first scene, where Joel wanted me to look like a kind of stone, he had the camera very, very high on a plane, panning down, panning down. So he said, “Okay, become as small as you can and cover yourself with your costume so you look more like a stone.” And I remember him coming on and making sure that my costume was covering my feet, and people around him saying, “Mr. Coen, we’ll do that,” and he said, “No, I want to do it.” So, that was amazing. But as well as being such gifted, insightful artists, they’re just wonderful people. I remember at one point thinking, “Wow, there’s such generosity here. We’re really being looked after,” and then realizing that Fran, as the producer, was doing that with everyone, as well as playing Lady M. And then when we went back in the COVID protocols, I think one of the first productions that did go back, and they spent months working out how to work safely, and again, with this incredible care, so that all the cast were absolutely like a family, very, very bonded and very committed. And hopefully that comes across, the unity.
“The Tragedy of Macbeth” is now available worldwide on Apple TV+