<\/p>\n
Sarandon\u2019s marvellously naturalistic, easy performance as the older Mary has been warmly received. It has come at a good moment for her, because her long held and outspoken support for Palestine led her agency UTA to drop her as a client after she spoke at a pro-Palestine rally in November 2023. \u201cAll my projects were pulled,\u201d she says. \u201cI was fired from everything in the US. So I was very fortunate to come over here and find people who would rep me. I have friends here, I\u2019ve worked here but not on stage. I feel safe here.\u201d<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t intend to settle. \u201cI\u2019ve got way too many spawn and grand spawn back in the States,\u201d she says with another laugh, about her three children and their offspring. For now, however, she is enjoying herself. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it happens in every cast, but everyone here is so supportive of each other and loving and friendly. There have been no big diva scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that the experience of working alongside one another \u2013 watching each other embody the same character \u2013 has been a rich one for all concerned. \u201cSusan is just magnificent,\u201d says McEwen. \u201cShe\u2019s one of the gang. We are all in it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oddly, McEwen has recently finished filming the Amazon prime series Scarpetta<\/em>, where once again she is playing the younger self of an Oscar-winner, this time in the shape of Nicole Kidman. The two experiences have had uncanny echoes of one another. \u201cWith filming, if you are not in a scene together you never see them, but it has been a similar experience,\u201d she says. \u201cNicole and I rehearsed a bit at the beginning and found stuff together, then we\u2019d go off and film and it would grow and become something different. But by the end of shooting, we\u2019d both come to quite similar conclusions without really trying. The character connects you. It\u2019s a lovely thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Riseborough, who is making her return to the stage after a 15-year absence, has also just finished a film, The Queen of Fashion<\/em>, about the fashion stylist Isabella Blow, written and directed by Alex Marx, which she has produced through her own production company. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly a story about mental health but there\u2019s a lot of levity in it. She was hugely funny.\u201d She has been working on bringing the story to screen for about eight years. \u201cProducing is a mountain; it takes a lot of patience.\u201d<\/p>\n She is thrilled to be back on stage, and to be working again with Warchus. He directed Matilda the Musical<\/em> both on stage and screen \u2013\u00a0and there is an inadvertent Matilda reunion going on behind the scenes at Mary Page Marlowe<\/em>. Riseborough played Mrs Wormwood in the film version, which starred Alisha Weir as Matilda. Worthington Cox was Matilda on stage \u2013 her first acting role.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hilarious,\u201d says Worthington Cox, now. \u201cBut obviously also lovely because they knew me as a little girl, and it\u2019s so brilliant getting to know these people again as an adult.\u201d For Weir, a remarkably poised 16-year-old, the pleasure of working with Warchus again \u2013 \u201ceverything he does is extraordinary\u201d \u2013 is amplified by the excitement of making her stage debut.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt weird at the start, making everything bigger for the audience,\u201d she says. \u201cThe more I do it, the more I get used to it.\u201d Riseborough looks at her with affection and says: \u201cYou are gorgeous in your scene. And I think one of the things I\u2019ve loved about theatre from the start, is that everything is reaching for something that is honest. Although you have to rely on technique, it feels creative. We all want each other to feel good and to be wonderful.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the audience feels that, and there\u2019s this huge body of people breathing the play in, and each person has their own experiences with it. Which is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n