A version of this story about Rufus Sewell first ran in the Drama Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
Apart from its geopolitical intrigue, “The Diplomat” is a series about a smart, driven pair of overachievers who can be a great team or can end up wrestling in the bushes while she swings tree branches at him. At the heart of the show is the relationship between Keri Russell’s Kate and Rufus Sewell’s Hal, a married couple of diplomats whose marriage may or may not be ending, but is both provocative and amusing with its nonstop mixture of flirting and fighting.
For Sewell, a 55-year-old British actor whose previous work has included “A Knight’s Tale,” “The Father” and “The Man in the High Castle,” the series supplied the kind of blend he’s been looking for through most of his career.
“I’ve always gravitated towards comedy, even if that doesn’t necessarily reflect in the genre or even in the outcome,” he said. “But it’s how I think about things. Even if my character is not being funny, I like to know where the joke is.”
In “The Diplomat,” he added, jokes weren’t just pasted into the script for the sake of adding humor. “I’ve been saying for years, ‘I want to do a comedy,’ but people send me s— ones. And I’m a fussy beggar, you know? But this was funny because the characters genuinely thought that way. It was organic, the dynamic of the relationship was incredibly, recognizably real.”
And that has led to a pet peeve of his.
“People have said, ‘We’ve not seen a couple like this.’ That’s bulls—. Anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship has possibly been a couple like this, or at least parts of it. It’s very familiar, which I think is what people respond to. And what I thought was really extraordinary about it is that there was a drama, but running through the center of it was this kind of almost screwball dynamic that reminded me of things like ‘The Philadelphia Story’ or ‘His Girl Friday.’ But at the same time, it wasn’t, as can be the case, a stylistic Instagram filter. That turns me off.”
The key is to take sharp, well-written dialogue and make it feel as if these are real people talking to each other, not brilliant characters. “That’s exactly my point,” he said. “I have seen things where you can tell they’re high on the idea that they’re doing screwball and it’s nauseating because they speak too fast. The truth has to take precedence. If you get a choice between the laugh or the truth, go for the truth.”
For Kate and Hal, he said, the banter was essential to the relationship. “It’s erotic for them, in a way. You know, not just being funny with each other, but also being sharp with each other and not reveling too much in being clever in a joke.”
A tricky thing about Hal, though, is that if you look at what other people in the show say about him, he’s completely charming and charismatic but also manipulative. And then Sewell has to embody the guy that everybody’s talking about that way, right?
“Do you?” he said with a grin. “That’s the question. The fact is, that stuff can really be intimidating. It is deadly for a character to be described as handsome before they turn up, or beautiful or charismatic or whatever. It’s like, can you take that word out, please? Because I don’t like to be told that when I’m watching something. I’m more inclined to think less of someone if they’ve been talked up too much. But I think you are allowed to make up your own mind about Hal, ’cause for every statement you’ve got its opposite, you know?”
Besides, Sewell is more likely to take a role if it’s not so obviously a plum part. “What I’ve always looked for, or what has been available to me, is generally parts that people don’t know are as good as they are,” he said. “Maybe I can see something, which is why it’s available. Like, I can do this ‘cause other people haven’t cottoned onto what the possibilities are. I’m quite crafty that way. (But) a role that is obviously good, I find a bit scary.”
One of the intriguing things about Hal is that we only know bits and pieces about his background: He was clearly a brilliant diplomat with a history of underhanded dealings, but the details are deliberately murky. And while Sewell is playing the guy, he doesn’t think that he has all the answers. “You can say that you know (the character’s background), but you can have a surprise in Season 2, can’t you?” he said. “I mean, I have to trust that if there’s something I would really benefit from knowing that I’ll be told. I’ve done shows where I’ve had an accent and then they’ve decided which town I came from in Season 3. And it’s like, ‘That wasn’t the accent!’ I don’t think I’m gonna be treated that way in this show.” A shrug. “I keep myself relatively open. I have a very strong idea and I’m prepared to change it.”
For lots of viewers, a highlight of the first season came in a scene set outside near a posh residence, when Hal reveals an uncomfortable fact and Kate goes berserk, eventually swinging a tree branch at him. “It was a riot,” he said. “She was looking forward to it to a worrying degree.” He paused. “So was I, to tell you the truth. But it wasn’t just the actual culmination of it, it was the entire scene leading up to that. It was just such a delicious scene, so much fun to do. It was a lot of words to learn and a lot of things to do — but like with all of it, it was a pleasure and it took you there.”
Stunt people were on hand to help with the knock-down, drag-out fight in the bushes, but for the most part, Sewell and Russell did it on their own. “It was more fun for us to do it,” he said. “And we loved what the scene did. There was a feeling that if we can take them with us when it goes this far, then this is the show. And if they don’t like this, watch something else.
“The tone of it encompasses this very important dramatic turn of events and this level of very realistic and true silliness that anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship – you might not have rolled around in a bush and reached for the nearest tree stump to hit someone, but you’ve had your version of it, you know?”
Throughout the season, Hal is a question mark: He might be a loving husband but he might also be a ruthless schemer who’s using his wife to further a stalled career. In a way, it’s easy for viewers to have doubts about Sewell’s characters, because we’re used to seeing him in villainous roles, going back to his dastardly turn opposite Heath Ledger in the 2001 medieval comic adventure “A Knight’s Tale.”
“That was an experiment to see if I could play a bad guy,” he said. “I was worried about being stuck in comedies and playing romantic leads in BBC dramas. So I remember being sent that script and thinking, ‘Oh God, Chaucer is a good part.’ And they were like, ‘No, not Chaucer. Paul Bettany is Chaucer.’ And then I saw the bad guy. He was this kind of old Basil Rathbone-y kind of villain, and I thought, I suppose I could do that. For me, it was an experiment because I’d always thought myself as a character actor in comedy. But I have the kind of bones that if I can shut up and keep myself still, I can look like a different type of dude.
“So that’s what I did for ‘A Knight’s Tale,’ and it was the beginning of an odyssey of people thinking of me a certain way. I suppose that’s part of me, but when people talk about me having a type, that’s not my actual type. The fun of it is that when I do the stuff I’m comfortable with, people think I’m being clever. But I’ve (actually) been clever the rest of the time.”
He laughed. “When I was playing out of my obvious wheelbase – those were the parts that people think is me. But that’s more or less in the past. I’d love to play another bad guy now.”
Taking the part in “The Diplomat” made Sewell a Brit living in the United States but working in London playing an American. It’s an equation he’s used to. “Nothing’s strange anymore,” he said. “I’ve been more or less living in Los Angeles for about 15 years. I say ‘more or less’ because it wasn’t like I made a specific move. I went with a job, I kind of stayed, and then the staying became concrete. And round about the time I started to stay in Los Angeles, my career in England really picked up.
“And it’s remained that way. Here I am now in the ultimate irony of positions: to be six, seven months a year playing an American in London. But I’m used to this hybrid American/English thing by now. And I’m pretty philosophical. I just know that wherever I plan to be, I can’t anticipate where my life will be.”
Read more from the Drama Series issue here.
