Brit Marling: the Hollywood star on her Channel 4 series Babylon
From Sundance to Hollywood to... the Met Police? Brit Marling talks about her role in Danny Boyle's Babylon, pub culture and why she’s glad she turned down a job in banking
By Lucy Broadben
Brit Marling’s eyebrows knot in fury and, for a second, it looks as though she might even cry, right here in Café Med, a busy Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. She is telling the story of an audition she was sent to when she first arrived in Hollywood seven years ago.
“I found myself in a line of 50 girls all of whom had their hair curled, their lips glossed and were wearing high heels,” she explains in her warm East Coast accent, her anger subsiding. “And I thought, ‘Even I am judging these girls. Yet I know that each one of them is an interesting person, and not one of them wants to be dressed like this to beg for a part in a horror film.’
"I was so angry and frustrated. I got out of the line, took off the heels, and thought, ‘If I want to act, I’ve either got to get a sex change or I have got to write.’”
She chose the latter, which, she says, was the harder option. Two years later, in 2011, she became the first woman to have not one but two films being premiered in the same year at the Sundance Film Festival, both of which she had co-written, produced and starred in. In the psychological thriller Sound of My Voice two documentary makers attempt to expose a cult leader (played by Marling), while in Another Earth, which was the bigger commercial success, she played a woman who causes a tragic accident on the night an identical version of our planet appears in the sky. Both films were unexpected and clever, and overnight Marling became something of a star. Offers began to pour in.
Picking her roles carefully, she’s since appeared in The Company You Keep with Robert Redford, Arbitrage with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, and The East with Alexander Skarsgård, which she co-produced and co-wrote. She also has three more films in the pipeline. That’s a meteoric rise by anyone’s standards.
All of which makes her decision to star in Babylon, a six-part comedy drama for Channel 4, more extraordinary. When you are a 32-year-old Hollywood actress, to say nothing of a sought-after screenwriter, offers aren’t in short supply. But Marling can’t resist the prospect of an unorthodox part. And the chance to work with the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle doesn’t come round often. Babylon marks Boyle’s return to television after a 12-year break.
All of which makes her decision to star in Babylon, a six-part comedy drama for Channel 4, more extraordinary. When you are a 32-year-old Hollywood actress, to say nothing of a sought-after screenwriter, offers aren’t in short supply. But Marling can’t resist the prospect of an unorthodox part. And the chance to work with the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle doesn’t come round often. Babylon marks Boyle’s return to television after a 12-year break.
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| Brit Marling in the Channel 4 comedy drama Babylon |
“I don’t really have the words to describe Danny,” Marling says. “I mean, he’s just brilliant.”
Babylon, which also stars James Nesbitt, is an imagined peek into the world of the Metropolitan Police, and its struggle to keep up with social media.
“The Commissioner of the Met has poached this young American girl to do his PR for him,” Marling explains, talking characteristically quickly and earnestly. “And it’s such a clash of ideas, because the police have their way of doing things, and this girl’s coming in with her Instagram and Twitter and outside-of-the-box ways of thinking. It makes for really interesting comedy.”
It also makes for a strong female character beyond the one-dimensional sidekick or love interest. Marling is passionate on this point.
“I grew up watching a lot of film and TV and I really struggled to find proper reflections of women. There were so few examples of how you could be a woman in the world. I remember watching Alien and thinking, ‘Oh, so a girl can go to space’. Right now I love the Danish series Borgen, where there’s not just one strong woman in it, but every woman is interesting, layered, complicated and has ambitions.”
Dressed in flowery jogging bottoms, men’s brogues and a cardigan that’s seen better days, Marling is anything but Hollywood. There’s a smudge of mascara around her slate-blue eyes, but no jewellery, no designer handbag, no nail polish, no hairdo. She’s confident but not brash, self-effacing but not disingenuously so. From the first handshake, you find yourself drawn by her unassuming nature.
“Sometimes fans do stop me,” she concedes, on the subject of stardom. “And it’s lovely because I do have doubts. Sometimes I think, ‘Should I really be doing this?’ and then someone will come up to me and say, ‘You really moved me,’ and then I think, ‘Well, maybe I’m all right at this.’”
Babylon was filmed near Tower Bridge, giving Marling the chance to live temporarily in London.
“I’d been to England before, but living and working there, buying your groceries? It was just fantastic. I’d go running along the river, and pop into the Tate, and then keep on running. I mean, so awesome. And I very much fell in love with the pub culture, although it took me a while to get a handle on British men, to realise that everyone takes the p— out of each other, and if a guy insults you he’s actually flirting with you. It actually means, ‘I like you,’ which I find really charming.”
Not that there has been much time for romance since her double whammy at Sundance. In the spare moments when not filming she’s been writing.
“I’ve had some amazing pinch-me moments, like finding myself on a set with Danny Boyle, or Robert Redford calling me on the phone. But I haven’t really stopped since and I’ve been thinking about that recently. It’s dangerous to stop living your own life, and only lead a work life. I’m trying to remedy it, but it’s really hard because, if an amazing opportunity comes your way, you want to jump on it. So I have no personal life,” she says, laughing. “It’s really sad. Maybe if I hung out for long enough in my favourite British pubs I might find love.”
Unfashionable though it is for actors to have stable family backgrounds, Marling’s was. Her parents are happily married property developers, and she grew up in several East Coast towns, but primarily in Chicago. Showing promise in many ways, Marling was accepted at Georgetown University in Washington, where she read economics and interned at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
It was while she was at university that a spark was ignited. She saw a short film at a student film festival, co-directed by Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij, and found herself leading a standing ovation.
It was the start of a productive creative collaboration, and an abiding friendship. The three made several films together at university, including a documentary shot in Cuba. When Goldman Sachs offered Marling a job on Wall Street she turned it down – much to her parents’ horror – so that she could move to Los Angeles with Batmanglij and Cahill.
“I don’t know how I came to wanting to act,” she says. “I wanted to be an astronaut, a supreme court judge. I bounced all over the place. But when I was studying economics I was in a very analytical space, and I woke up one morning and thought, ‘I don’t want to look at the world in that way anymore. I want to be an artist.’”
Hollywood wasn’t easy. All three found it overwhelming when they first arrived.
“Everyone’s telling you that you’ve lost your mind, and you should get a real job,” Marling says. “We spent a long time figuring out that we had to generate our own work and make it on our own, because no one was going to help us.”
Sharing a house in a rundown corner of Los Angeles, the three drew strength from each other.
Marling would co-write with either Cahill or Batmanglij in the morning, and then with the other in the afternoon. Thus Another Earth and Sound of My Voices were created simultaneously.
“Those two human beings represent the two most profound friendships I’ve had in my life,” she says. “We were so lucky to meet. There remains an incredible bond between us that will never break, because we saw something in each other before anybody else would validate it.”
Marling still writes with them in turn – she co-wrote The East with Batmanglij and I Origins, due out later this year, with Cahill. “It still continues,” she says happily. “But we’re doing things on our own as well.”
Do they ever feel jealous of one another? There was a brief spell at university, when Marling and Cahill dated.
“Oh, we’ve been friends so long, I almost forget we had that other phase,” she says. “No, Mike is married and we were friends when we made Another Earth. But sometimes a little jealousy can be helpful in the creative process. In a healthy way, envy can spur you on.”
Does she feel vindicated for turning down Goldman Sachs?
“Yes, but let me think about how to answer that really honestly.” She pauses. “I spent so much time toiling, being rejected, parents telling me I’m crazy, moving into smaller and smaller apartments, wearing the same old clothes, I think I’m still justifying it. I think it means I have to be that much more committed now.”
That commitment doesn’t just extend to herself, Marling’s keen to point out. She feels a deep sense of responsibility towards other women too. Gender equality is an issue she repeatedly brings up during our conversation.
“It’s a really hard thing to be a girl in the world just now,” she explains. “If you’re a 14-year-old boy, you’re not trying to reconcile your image with pop stars’ and work out how sexually precocious you should or shouldn’t be. So it’s important to me that young girls can see a reflection in film and TV of how to navigate being a girl in the world in a way that’s positive.
“The boards of most companies are less than 10 per cent women,” she continues. “In politics those numbers are the same. Women are now better educated than most men, and have been for a while, so why haven’t those numbers changed? The world is suffering from a lack of feminine balance. It seems like we’ve lost the thread a bit.”
She pauses again, and wonders if that sounds too raging feminist. She doesn’t mean it to.
“It’s not that dressing up isn’t fun,” she says. “I like to put on a good red lip and a short skirt and have a fun night out at a club, dancing my face off. I love all that stuff. And I love men too. I love their perspective. I’m just curious to see the female point of view catch up. I’m curious to see more women writing and producing films so that we have a more balanced perspective.”
It’s a relief to see the smile. Sometimes her passion is so intense, you find yourself hoping that she won’t lose her sense of fun. You also begin to wonder how she copes with all the grooming necessary for Hollywood red carpets.
“Oh, those nights can be fun, but they’re also not real. Everybody who is on that red carpet has gone through an hour of hair and make-up, they probably don’t own the dress they’re wearing. It’s just a presentation, and it’s important not to take any of that too seriously.”
Los Angeles is her home now, although she says that she’s never there.
“I moved into a sub-let about two years ago, and left some boxes – books, sweaters, paintings – and they’re all still sitting there,” she says with a small sigh. “Technically I live here, but what nobody ever tells you when you become an actor is that you will become a serious, severe nomad.”
Does she ever unwind?
“Yes. When I’m back in town I call my sister, who lives here, and say, ‘I have to see you because I don’t remember who I am anymore.’ And we bake cookies and watch bad TV. When you spend a lot of time in other characters, there are certain people you rely on to remind you of your origin.”
She smiles broadly, precisely clear about who she is now: resolute, principled, and late for her next appointment.
Babylon, which also stars James Nesbitt, is an imagined peek into the world of the Metropolitan Police, and its struggle to keep up with social media.
“The Commissioner of the Met has poached this young American girl to do his PR for him,” Marling explains, talking characteristically quickly and earnestly. “And it’s such a clash of ideas, because the police have their way of doing things, and this girl’s coming in with her Instagram and Twitter and outside-of-the-box ways of thinking. It makes for really interesting comedy.”
It also makes for a strong female character beyond the one-dimensional sidekick or love interest. Marling is passionate on this point.
“I grew up watching a lot of film and TV and I really struggled to find proper reflections of women. There were so few examples of how you could be a woman in the world. I remember watching Alien and thinking, ‘Oh, so a girl can go to space’. Right now I love the Danish series Borgen, where there’s not just one strong woman in it, but every woman is interesting, layered, complicated and has ambitions.”
Dressed in flowery jogging bottoms, men’s brogues and a cardigan that’s seen better days, Marling is anything but Hollywood. There’s a smudge of mascara around her slate-blue eyes, but no jewellery, no designer handbag, no nail polish, no hairdo. She’s confident but not brash, self-effacing but not disingenuously so. From the first handshake, you find yourself drawn by her unassuming nature.
“Sometimes fans do stop me,” she concedes, on the subject of stardom. “And it’s lovely because I do have doubts. Sometimes I think, ‘Should I really be doing this?’ and then someone will come up to me and say, ‘You really moved me,’ and then I think, ‘Well, maybe I’m all right at this.’”
Babylon was filmed near Tower Bridge, giving Marling the chance to live temporarily in London.
“I’d been to England before, but living and working there, buying your groceries? It was just fantastic. I’d go running along the river, and pop into the Tate, and then keep on running. I mean, so awesome. And I very much fell in love with the pub culture, although it took me a while to get a handle on British men, to realise that everyone takes the p— out of each other, and if a guy insults you he’s actually flirting with you. It actually means, ‘I like you,’ which I find really charming.”
Not that there has been much time for romance since her double whammy at Sundance. In the spare moments when not filming she’s been writing.
“I’ve had some amazing pinch-me moments, like finding myself on a set with Danny Boyle, or Robert Redford calling me on the phone. But I haven’t really stopped since and I’ve been thinking about that recently. It’s dangerous to stop living your own life, and only lead a work life. I’m trying to remedy it, but it’s really hard because, if an amazing opportunity comes your way, you want to jump on it. So I have no personal life,” she says, laughing. “It’s really sad. Maybe if I hung out for long enough in my favourite British pubs I might find love.”
Unfashionable though it is for actors to have stable family backgrounds, Marling’s was. Her parents are happily married property developers, and she grew up in several East Coast towns, but primarily in Chicago. Showing promise in many ways, Marling was accepted at Georgetown University in Washington, where she read economics and interned at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
It was while she was at university that a spark was ignited. She saw a short film at a student film festival, co-directed by Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij, and found herself leading a standing ovation.
It was the start of a productive creative collaboration, and an abiding friendship. The three made several films together at university, including a documentary shot in Cuba. When Goldman Sachs offered Marling a job on Wall Street she turned it down – much to her parents’ horror – so that she could move to Los Angeles with Batmanglij and Cahill.
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| Brit Marling with her collaborators, Zal Batmanglij and Mike Cahill |
Hollywood wasn’t easy. All three found it overwhelming when they first arrived.
“Everyone’s telling you that you’ve lost your mind, and you should get a real job,” Marling says. “We spent a long time figuring out that we had to generate our own work and make it on our own, because no one was going to help us.”
Sharing a house in a rundown corner of Los Angeles, the three drew strength from each other.
Marling would co-write with either Cahill or Batmanglij in the morning, and then with the other in the afternoon. Thus Another Earth and Sound of My Voices were created simultaneously.
“Those two human beings represent the two most profound friendships I’ve had in my life,” she says. “We were so lucky to meet. There remains an incredible bond between us that will never break, because we saw something in each other before anybody else would validate it.”
Marling still writes with them in turn – she co-wrote The East with Batmanglij and I Origins, due out later this year, with Cahill. “It still continues,” she says happily. “But we’re doing things on our own as well.”
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| Brit Marling in Sound of My Voice (Rex) |
“Oh, we’ve been friends so long, I almost forget we had that other phase,” she says. “No, Mike is married and we were friends when we made Another Earth. But sometimes a little jealousy can be helpful in the creative process. In a healthy way, envy can spur you on.”
Does she feel vindicated for turning down Goldman Sachs?
“Yes, but let me think about how to answer that really honestly.” She pauses. “I spent so much time toiling, being rejected, parents telling me I’m crazy, moving into smaller and smaller apartments, wearing the same old clothes, I think I’m still justifying it. I think it means I have to be that much more committed now.”
That commitment doesn’t just extend to herself, Marling’s keen to point out. She feels a deep sense of responsibility towards other women too. Gender equality is an issue she repeatedly brings up during our conversation.
“It’s a really hard thing to be a girl in the world just now,” she explains. “If you’re a 14-year-old boy, you’re not trying to reconcile your image with pop stars’ and work out how sexually precocious you should or shouldn’t be. So it’s important to me that young girls can see a reflection in film and TV of how to navigate being a girl in the world in a way that’s positive.
“The boards of most companies are less than 10 per cent women,” she continues. “In politics those numbers are the same. Women are now better educated than most men, and have been for a while, so why haven’t those numbers changed? The world is suffering from a lack of feminine balance. It seems like we’ve lost the thread a bit.”
She pauses again, and wonders if that sounds too raging feminist. She doesn’t mean it to.
“It’s not that dressing up isn’t fun,” she says. “I like to put on a good red lip and a short skirt and have a fun night out at a club, dancing my face off. I love all that stuff. And I love men too. I love their perspective. I’m just curious to see the female point of view catch up. I’m curious to see more women writing and producing films so that we have a more balanced perspective.”
It’s a relief to see the smile. Sometimes her passion is so intense, you find yourself hoping that she won’t lose her sense of fun. You also begin to wonder how she copes with all the grooming necessary for Hollywood red carpets.
“Oh, those nights can be fun, but they’re also not real. Everybody who is on that red carpet has gone through an hour of hair and make-up, they probably don’t own the dress they’re wearing. It’s just a presentation, and it’s important not to take any of that too seriously.”
Los Angeles is her home now, although she says that she’s never there.
“I moved into a sub-let about two years ago, and left some boxes – books, sweaters, paintings – and they’re all still sitting there,” she says with a small sigh. “Technically I live here, but what nobody ever tells you when you become an actor is that you will become a serious, severe nomad.”
Does she ever unwind?
“Yes. When I’m back in town I call my sister, who lives here, and say, ‘I have to see you because I don’t remember who I am anymore.’ And we bake cookies and watch bad TV. When you spend a lot of time in other characters, there are certain people you rely on to remind you of your origin.”
She smiles broadly, precisely clear about who she is now: resolute, principled, and late for her next appointment.
Interview with Brit Marling for Babylon
Brit Marling is an extraordinarily bright, driven, determined individual. When she graduated from the prestigious Georgetown University with a degree in economics, she interned at Goldman Sachs, where she was offered a much coveted job. Instead, she turned her back on the world of finance and headed off to Hollywood. When all she was offered were parts as a blonde corpse-in-waiting in horror movies, she decided to write her own parts instead. So she began to co-write and co-produce her own movies. Which, Brit being Brit, went on to win awards. Now, the world seems to be falling at her feet. Here, she discusses her latest project, Channel 4’s Danny Boyle-directed Babylon, from the pens of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong.
How did you become involved in Babylon?
I read the script and was really moved by the character of Liz – she’s tough but not without vulnerability. Danny and I spoke on the phone and I loved how he saw the story developing, and the questions he wanted to ask about how technology and the transparency it creates is changing all of our lives. How does law enforcement change when a criminal is using Twitter or Instagram? What’s the future of the public’s involvement in law enforcement as a result? And how do you create a career girl that isn’t a typical ball-buster but is multi-faceted? All awesome things to explore. So I got on a plane and 24 hours later we were doing a table reading that was so funny people were choking on their beverages with laughter. Sam and Jesse are such great writers it’s borderline dangerous.
You play Liz Garvey – what’s her story?
She’s this American PR technology guru, and she’s made a name for herself with a TED talk. Her agenda, her platform, is all about transparency, and how the future of any kind of public relations needs to be transparent – you can’t lie, because the public will unearth the truth anyway. Jimmy Nesbitt’s character, the Commissioner of the force, had seen her TED talk and thought “This is the kind of radical thinking we need. I’m going to poach this girl and bring her over here and get her to really shake things up.” So that’s where the story begins. I think she’s a very interesting person, because she’s been successful very young, and she’s used to getting her way and things moving quickly. And I think she suddenly moves into this new job and it’s not quite what she expected, and there’s all sorts of political intrigue, and certain people who don’t want her there, and she realizes that changing things is going to be much more difficult than she thought. I think it’ll be really interesting to see this character adapt to being in a radically new environment and to get to the bottom of what makes someone so ambitious tick.
You mention liking the way she’s a nuanced and layered character – was it a surprise to you that two fortysomething British male comedy writers were able to create a female character like that?
The truth is, I find it surprising when either of the genders writes a female character that feels honest and refreshingly true, because I think it’s really hard to write women. I don’t think we know that much about them, because storytellers haven’t been writing from that perspective for that long. Even I, as a female writer, find it challenging to write a woman that isn’t derivative, or isn’t a woman defined or described by the male point of view. It was awesome that Sam and Jesse were able to create a character that was so complex – intensely ambitious, but so bright and talented you almost forgive her for it. Tough as nails and confident, but also shockingly naïve in moments. I don’t think they went out of their way to make her likeable or digestible. You often feel that female characters are written to be easily liked or loathed, and Liz Garvey isn’t that easy to pin down.
It’s unusual, as well, to find a spin doctor who is given a positive portrayal, rather than being a Machiavellian schemer.
Well, she certainly has that in her – she has very shrewd political instincts - but at the same time, you do get this sense that there’s probably something pure within her. It may be naïve, but she does seem to really believe in the thing that she’s selling. But is that just the mark of a great saleswoman, or is it honest? I don’t think I know the answer to that yet – it may be a bit of both. Liz believes in the brave new world of technology – you cannot lie, because everyone has access to the information and almost immediately. So the new PR game is that you’ve got to tell the truth better than anyone else.
How did you find the experience of working with Danny Boyle?
There are almost no words. And I’m not usually at a loss for words. Danny, you feel, has the kind of curious mind and unstoppable heart that are capable of anything – exploring a distant galaxy and building a new world from scratch there for instance. So it’s lucky for us he chose to be a storyteller in a time where we need them so desperately – to make sense of the world we are living in and how to navigate it. Actors on Danny’s sets come very prepared, and still Danny will have the best insight as to where a character is actually coming from – the complex, layered truths that motivate human beings. I don’t know how he knows those truths. I just know that he does and that anyone who spends time with him comes away from it a richer person for it.
You nearly went down an alternative career path, having spent a summer as an intern at Goldman Sachs, who then offered you a job. Do you ever reflect on how different your life might have been?
All the time. I think that I left that world because I sensed that other people were really passionate about it. They woke up in the morning with a real thrill about the market opening, and what was happening in China, and how that would affect things in London. I didn’t have whatever that bug was for the movement and multiplication of money. It made me feel like I had to find the thing that I felt passionate about, and I think that I’ve finally figured it out with acting. I may be wrong, and maybe ten years from now I’ll end up doing something totally different. Maybe I’ll be running a hedge fund!
Instead of entering the lucrative world of banking, you moved to Hollywood with no money and no contacts. Is it true you then had to survive by eating lentils?
Yes, it is true! I was living with some friends, and occasionally one of us would get a job doing something like camerawork, and we’d be able to eat a bit better. Our friends from college were leading real, responsible, adult lives, buying real estate and getting married and being human beings, and we were still pursuing these crazy, far-flung dreams. And everybody is telling you every day that you’re out of your mind, and they’re right to do that! Eventually things started to work out, I mean, I’m not just eating lentils now.
When did you realise that you were going to be able to leave the lentils behind? What was your break?
That all happened at Sundance [The Sundance Film Festival of 2011, where Marling had two films that she had co-written, co-produced and acted in]. It’s extraordinary to think that Robert Redford started Sundance from nothing, and did it when he was at the height of his acting career. He went off to the snows of Utah and put these log cabins together with friends, trying to make a space where artists could go and make their work and then show it. It’s such an institution now, but at the time it was completely without precedent. And it’s largely responsible for a lot of the careers of actors and writers and filmmakers who are working today. After Sundance, our two films came out, and it became much easier to be considered for other things, because people could see our work. Before that we were basically just showing short videos to our mums.
Now that you’ve worked on Babylon over here, does it feel different from working on a production in the US?
Yeah, there is a real difference, and I really love it. I think I’m turning into something of an addict, I just want to be in London all the time. I’ll just come over here to make anything people will hire me for. I find the culture of acting in London so exciting, because everyone is so well trained. There isn’t the same obsession with empty notoriety. You get the sense that everybody has been to drama school, everybody has put the time in, and they take the craft very seriously. I remember being on set and Paterson [Joseph] and Bertie [Carvel] were giving monologues from Shakespeare and asking me to guess which play it was from. And I thought it was pretty great that I could name which play it was more often than not, but they could name the act and the scene and where in the scene it was. I find that so inspiring, that level of devotion to the craft, and that richness of background, especially in theatre. It was so exciting for me, I’d never been in a room full of actors like that before. It was awesome to get to work with such a wildly talented group of people. To come to work every day and to really feel pushed by Jimmy, by Bertie, by Paterson and Ella. We had a really good time making this, so I’m looking forward to coming back.
Away from the set, is there anything you particularly like or dislike about being in this country?
I have to say that I’m really into the pub culture. We don’t have that here in America. There’s a real sense of community, I love the idea that there’s your neighbourhood pub, and everyone ends up there after work. Faces get familiar and people get to know each other, and it becomes the hub of the community. It feels so civilized and grown up and important, and such a good opportunity to get to know your neighbours or your colleagues. It seems so simple, but we don’t have that over here at all, certainly not in LA. So you’ll be able to find me, in a few months’ time, in a pub with a pint of cider, which is my new favourite drink.
Babylon is on Channel 4 on Sunday 9th February at 9pm.
How did you become involved in Babylon?
I read the script and was really moved by the character of Liz – she’s tough but not without vulnerability. Danny and I spoke on the phone and I loved how he saw the story developing, and the questions he wanted to ask about how technology and the transparency it creates is changing all of our lives. How does law enforcement change when a criminal is using Twitter or Instagram? What’s the future of the public’s involvement in law enforcement as a result? And how do you create a career girl that isn’t a typical ball-buster but is multi-faceted? All awesome things to explore. So I got on a plane and 24 hours later we were doing a table reading that was so funny people were choking on their beverages with laughter. Sam and Jesse are such great writers it’s borderline dangerous.
You play Liz Garvey – what’s her story?
She’s this American PR technology guru, and she’s made a name for herself with a TED talk. Her agenda, her platform, is all about transparency, and how the future of any kind of public relations needs to be transparent – you can’t lie, because the public will unearth the truth anyway. Jimmy Nesbitt’s character, the Commissioner of the force, had seen her TED talk and thought “This is the kind of radical thinking we need. I’m going to poach this girl and bring her over here and get her to really shake things up.” So that’s where the story begins. I think she’s a very interesting person, because she’s been successful very young, and she’s used to getting her way and things moving quickly. And I think she suddenly moves into this new job and it’s not quite what she expected, and there’s all sorts of political intrigue, and certain people who don’t want her there, and she realizes that changing things is going to be much more difficult than she thought. I think it’ll be really interesting to see this character adapt to being in a radically new environment and to get to the bottom of what makes someone so ambitious tick.
You mention liking the way she’s a nuanced and layered character – was it a surprise to you that two fortysomething British male comedy writers were able to create a female character like that?
The truth is, I find it surprising when either of the genders writes a female character that feels honest and refreshingly true, because I think it’s really hard to write women. I don’t think we know that much about them, because storytellers haven’t been writing from that perspective for that long. Even I, as a female writer, find it challenging to write a woman that isn’t derivative, or isn’t a woman defined or described by the male point of view. It was awesome that Sam and Jesse were able to create a character that was so complex – intensely ambitious, but so bright and talented you almost forgive her for it. Tough as nails and confident, but also shockingly naïve in moments. I don’t think they went out of their way to make her likeable or digestible. You often feel that female characters are written to be easily liked or loathed, and Liz Garvey isn’t that easy to pin down.
It’s unusual, as well, to find a spin doctor who is given a positive portrayal, rather than being a Machiavellian schemer.
Well, she certainly has that in her – she has very shrewd political instincts - but at the same time, you do get this sense that there’s probably something pure within her. It may be naïve, but she does seem to really believe in the thing that she’s selling. But is that just the mark of a great saleswoman, or is it honest? I don’t think I know the answer to that yet – it may be a bit of both. Liz believes in the brave new world of technology – you cannot lie, because everyone has access to the information and almost immediately. So the new PR game is that you’ve got to tell the truth better than anyone else.
How did you find the experience of working with Danny Boyle?
There are almost no words. And I’m not usually at a loss for words. Danny, you feel, has the kind of curious mind and unstoppable heart that are capable of anything – exploring a distant galaxy and building a new world from scratch there for instance. So it’s lucky for us he chose to be a storyteller in a time where we need them so desperately – to make sense of the world we are living in and how to navigate it. Actors on Danny’s sets come very prepared, and still Danny will have the best insight as to where a character is actually coming from – the complex, layered truths that motivate human beings. I don’t know how he knows those truths. I just know that he does and that anyone who spends time with him comes away from it a richer person for it.
You nearly went down an alternative career path, having spent a summer as an intern at Goldman Sachs, who then offered you a job. Do you ever reflect on how different your life might have been?
All the time. I think that I left that world because I sensed that other people were really passionate about it. They woke up in the morning with a real thrill about the market opening, and what was happening in China, and how that would affect things in London. I didn’t have whatever that bug was for the movement and multiplication of money. It made me feel like I had to find the thing that I felt passionate about, and I think that I’ve finally figured it out with acting. I may be wrong, and maybe ten years from now I’ll end up doing something totally different. Maybe I’ll be running a hedge fund!
Instead of entering the lucrative world of banking, you moved to Hollywood with no money and no contacts. Is it true you then had to survive by eating lentils?
Yes, it is true! I was living with some friends, and occasionally one of us would get a job doing something like camerawork, and we’d be able to eat a bit better. Our friends from college were leading real, responsible, adult lives, buying real estate and getting married and being human beings, and we were still pursuing these crazy, far-flung dreams. And everybody is telling you every day that you’re out of your mind, and they’re right to do that! Eventually things started to work out, I mean, I’m not just eating lentils now.
When did you realise that you were going to be able to leave the lentils behind? What was your break?
That all happened at Sundance [The Sundance Film Festival of 2011, where Marling had two films that she had co-written, co-produced and acted in]. It’s extraordinary to think that Robert Redford started Sundance from nothing, and did it when he was at the height of his acting career. He went off to the snows of Utah and put these log cabins together with friends, trying to make a space where artists could go and make their work and then show it. It’s such an institution now, but at the time it was completely without precedent. And it’s largely responsible for a lot of the careers of actors and writers and filmmakers who are working today. After Sundance, our two films came out, and it became much easier to be considered for other things, because people could see our work. Before that we were basically just showing short videos to our mums.
Now that you’ve worked on Babylon over here, does it feel different from working on a production in the US?
Yeah, there is a real difference, and I really love it. I think I’m turning into something of an addict, I just want to be in London all the time. I’ll just come over here to make anything people will hire me for. I find the culture of acting in London so exciting, because everyone is so well trained. There isn’t the same obsession with empty notoriety. You get the sense that everybody has been to drama school, everybody has put the time in, and they take the craft very seriously. I remember being on set and Paterson [Joseph] and Bertie [Carvel] were giving monologues from Shakespeare and asking me to guess which play it was from. And I thought it was pretty great that I could name which play it was more often than not, but they could name the act and the scene and where in the scene it was. I find that so inspiring, that level of devotion to the craft, and that richness of background, especially in theatre. It was so exciting for me, I’d never been in a room full of actors like that before. It was awesome to get to work with such a wildly talented group of people. To come to work every day and to really feel pushed by Jimmy, by Bertie, by Paterson and Ella. We had a really good time making this, so I’m looking forward to coming back.
Away from the set, is there anything you particularly like or dislike about being in this country?
I have to say that I’m really into the pub culture. We don’t have that here in America. There’s a real sense of community, I love the idea that there’s your neighbourhood pub, and everyone ends up there after work. Faces get familiar and people get to know each other, and it becomes the hub of the community. It feels so civilized and grown up and important, and such a good opportunity to get to know your neighbours or your colleagues. It seems so simple, but we don’t have that over here at all, certainly not in LA. So you’ll be able to find me, in a few months’ time, in a pub with a pint of cider, which is my new favourite drink.
Babylon is on Channel 4 on Sunday 9th February at 9pm.
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