Hayley atwell
The Christopher Robin star on podcasts, props and toilet humour…
What’s the first thing you do when you get to set?
I say hello to the second AD, and I get an idea of when I’m needed in hair and make-up, to figure out whether or not I have breakfast before then or in the chair. And then I will look at the sides for the day to make sure there are no changes from the night before, when I got the call sheet. And I’ll have a coffee.
What do you take on set with you?
I’ll always have a notebook. I’ll have a dog-eared script that’s annotated and highlighted. Any kind of books that are relevant to the film: obviously, I had the Winnie-the-Pooh stories on [Christopher Robin]. I’ll download a podcast or some music. Lunchtime is the downtime, really. That’s when I just like to switch off and do something different.
What are your favourite podcasts?
At the moment, I love Dear Joan And Jericha, which is a Vicki Pepperdine and Julia Davis comedy podcast where they pretend to be agony aunts. And it’s so disgusting and crass, and it’s dark. It gets worse as you go on. And it’s genius. Or an Adam Buxton podcast. Or I’ll listen to My Dad Wrote A Porno. I love it.
Do you ever sleep when you’re on set?
Every day. I’ve perfected it. I couldn’t at the beginning. I was too excited or too nervous. But what I do now is, I take off the costume, I put on tracksuit bottoms, headphones, eye mask, and I just sleep. No longer than 40 minutes, because then you go into a deeper sleep, but 20 minutes is great. It’s refreshing.
Best on-set experience?
Pranks and finding ways to make each other laugh – it just gives me so much joy. That delicious feeling of not really being allowed to laugh? That naughty school feeling: it’s just orgasmic. I love it so much. Probably the biggest ongoing gag is a [very unflattering] picture of Dominic Cooper that was taken on set of Agent Carter. He’s a very suave, cool, good-looking guy. And this picture of him is so bad, and he saw it on my phone, and he went, “Delete that immediately.” And the last day of filming, Dominic walked on set, and 150 people were wearing that face on t-shirts. Dominic’s like an emotional goldfish, in that he just doesn’t hold onto emotions for more than five seconds. So he was really angry, but then really loved it. And then forgot about it.
Have you ever stolen anything from a set you’ve worked on?
Yeah, I’m sure I have. I mean, I don’t want to say “steal”. The prop department of Christopher Robin said, “If you want to go in there, everything on the shelf is ours, it’s not hired.” I would be like, “Can I take this honeypot?” I was also given the gramophone from the Christopher Robin set. I have a revolver, a vial of blood from Captain America, and all these little things [from Agent Carter] like a file and a business card and keys.
What’s been your most embarrassing moment working on a production?
Olly Robinson, who’s like my favourite first assistant director, was the first AD on Howards End. But at that wrap party, I asked him to take some photos of us, then he offered to go off and take more pictures. Twenty minutes goes by. He gives me back my phone. I get on the motorway, and half an hour goes by. I go onto my Instagram account, and the most recent post was a picture of the toilet. The caption underneath is, “Just going in here to pop one out.” At which point 112,000 [people] had commented on it. And it was Olly. He’d just gone off, and I was absolutely mortified. I was so angry, but also loved the fact that he had the balls to do that to me. So I basically owe him one… MM
ETA | OUT NOW / CHRISTOPHER ROBIN IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL HD.
‘dominic cooper’s like an emotional goldfish. he only holds emotions for five seconds’