In Mayor of Kingstown, Emma Laird announced herself as an actor with the ability to deeply affect those watching. As Iris, an escort caught up in a world of mob violence, the British actor shone, reflecting that delicate balance between strength and vulnerability inherent in us all, yet so difficult to authentically replicate. This dream debut was followed by a role in Apple TV’s psychological crime series The Crowded Room alongside Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried, and next, her first feature film, A Haunting in Venice, the second instalment of Kenneth Branagh’s spectacularly reimagined Poirot adaptation.
Ella Joyce: Hey Emma, where are you going today?
Emma Laird: I’m currently in a car on my way to work. I live in the Peak District and it’s a three-hour drive to London, so we’ve got plenty of time.
EJ: How long have you lived there?
EL: I got this place around November last year, I was living in LA and every so often it gets too busy. I’ve been there on and off for four years, all my friends are there, it’s great for work and it was the first place that really felt like home, but I’m sick of it at the moment. So, I bought this place in the Peak District which is an old barn literally in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t want to leave. I swim in rivers on weekdays, it’s so wholesome. There is no cell service, which is a bit of a bitch, but it’s lovely, I’m liking being back in England.
EJ: Your first role was in Mayor of Kingstown, which is an incredible debut and a very intense character – are you able to easily leave a role like that after filming?
EL: I didn’t realise it at the time, but when I came back from LA after season one, my friends said to me, “You were a shell of yourself.” Without sounding like a pretentious actor, I think it changed me emotionally. I cried a lot after the show, but I don’t know if that was related to the character or if it was me constantly thinking, “What’s next?” Kingstown was so exciting because I was this fresh actor and I was like, “Anything’s possible!” Then all of a sudden when I got my first job, I felt this immense pressure, “What do I follow it up with? Everyone’s watching me.” No one probably was but I was so in my head that it became a business for me. Now I’m getting better at not feeling the pressure, switching off and learning boundaries.
EJ: The Crowded Room came out earlier this year, how was the filming process?
EL: It was great. There were so many people in the cast I admire, but I was most grateful for the directors. I learned an immense amount on how to be malleable and how to change, which was hard but I came out of it very glad I went through it. I love telling this story from filming because I’m so proud of it: the night before we all had our first day on set, Tom [Holland] invited five or six of us around to his house and we played a Harry Potter quiz. Tom likes to go on about how he’s this Harry Potter f*cking genius and that he knows everything. But let me tell you, he doesn’t. I beat him at the Harry Potter quiz, and I will never let him live it down. [laughs] I think my favourite day on set was my last day because pretty much all my scenes are with Tom and that was lovely, but I got to work with Christopher Abbott, who I am a massive fan of.
EJ: I take it you’re a big Harry Potter fan.
EL: Big Harry Potter fan! I have three favourite franchises: Twilight, Harry Potter and Shrek. I watch Twilight every night, I think it’s my comfort movie to go to sleep. [both laugh]
EJ: The Crowded Room is based on a non-fiction book by Daniel Keyes, how does working with fact and fiction compare?
EL: I was off the hook because my character wasn’t based on a real person but I read the book, I will always read any source available. I would love to play a real-life character. I like to really step outside of myself, to have references for the pitch of their voice, accent and how they move. I would love to do a biopic, I had a really special experience in the screen test for Madonna [a biopic directed by the musician herself] last year, it was a three-month process and probably one of the highlights of my career regardless of not getting the role. I was so content knowing I wasn’t going to get it because I’d sat on a grand piano with Madonna and sang Aretha Franklin. I went to her house at midnight and she did my hair and make-up. She was such a motherly figure and I got to spend so much time with her. I grew to admire her in a way I never had before by consuming so many interviews she’d done. She was such a badass, such a feminist and so forward-thinking for a young girl in the 80s. I never fully appreciated that. I’d also love to play a character that’s not real, like a cartoon or a famous animal. Something wild.
“I was so content knowing I wasn’t going to get it because I’d sat on a grand piano with Madonna and sang Aretha Franklin.”
EJ: You’re making your feature film debut in Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice, what can you tell us about it?
EL: I met Ken’s producing partner, Judy Hofflund, about a year and a half before the movie started. She took a meeting with me and was like, “There’s a script being written, it’s the third Poirot movie. There might be a role for you.” And I was like, “OK, I’m doing it!” [laughs] I worked so hard to get it that I made a conscious effort every single day on set to enjoy it. I told myself I would be grateful, I would take it all in and I would not complain about the stupid sh*t actors complain about. I think going in with that attitude really taught me a lot about what I should do for future jobs. I had the best time ever because I told myself I was going to.
EJ: The Poirot films are always so opulent and visually striking, did you shoot in Venice?
EL: We filmed the exteriors in Venice but everything else was mostly in a studio in London. Ken does a big reveal with his Poirot movies where he gets everyone in for the candlelit table read, the production assistants were all dressed up in the set costumes guiding us around – it was so grand. Someone was playing the piano and we had to do puzzles in every room.
EJ: That’s very on-brand for an Agatha Christie.
EL: It really is. [laughs] Ken would always make sure there was no hierarchy on set, everyone was in it together, which was a really beautiful thing. We didn’t have cast chairs so all the actors would sit in a tent together until we were ready to go on set, which meant we all bonded abnormally quickly. We got a bit f*cking loopy in that tent. Jamie Dornan and I would do Wordle and all the other guys were teaching Jude Hill how to play chess. But once we’d go on set, there was an immediate switch into Christie’s world.
EJ: It sounds like Kenneth was a real pillar of support when filming, what did you learn from him as a director?
EL: You learn so much from different people and having different experiences, but I will openly say that I would be over the moon to work with Kenneth for the rest of my career. It’s not just his style of directing, but the way he nurtures you and makes you feel involved. It’s like you’re not actually shooting a movie, you’re just workshopping a scene together. He would be acting opposite me and say, “Take that line back and say it three more times. Now pretend like this has happened.” It keeps you in a scene without calling cut. It’s so unconventional but so genius.
EJ: Are there any other directors you’d love to work with?
EL: I would love to work with Sofia Coppola, her work is poetry to me. The Beguiled is one of my favourite movies. I love directors that make movies [that make] you question whether you like them, or make you confused or angry. [Like] Yorgos Lanthimos, I was so confused the first time I watched one of his movies, I thought, “Did I hate that? Did I love it?” I think that’s super interesting – I would love to work with him. I also think Taika Waititi is a f*cking genius. Taking chances on first-time directors is also really interesting to me, because it’s really kind of hard to get cast in a Taika Waititi movie. [laughs]
This feature was completed prior to the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Interview originally published in HEROINE 19.
hair ROM SARTIPI using ORIBE;
make-up JIMMY OWEN JONES at JULIAN WATSON AGENCY using DIOR FOREVER FOUNDATION and CAPTURE TOTALE LE SERUM;
photography assistant BRUNO McGUFFIE
