In a big muddy hole with Mulligan and Fiennes.
Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan dug deep to portray real-life treasure hunters uncovering Sutton Hoo in The Dig. They tell Total Film how the right hat, emotional connection and being buried alive made a period drama a personal matter...
Watching a 5th-century Anglo-Saxon ship emerge from the Suffolk earth in Netflix’s new awards contender instills a sense of wonder – and the same is true of the actors recreating the moment in 1939 when self-taught archeologist Basil Brown excavated Sutton Hoo from under a mound that landowner, Edith Pretty, believed held historical secrets. Adapting John Preston’s 2007 factual novel, The Dig’s director, Simon Stone, was keen that effects should be practical and so production designer Maria Djurkovic built a to-scale replica (100ft if you’re asking) of the vessel in a field in Godalming, Surrey for Ralph Fiennes (Brown) and Carey Mulligan (Pretty) to ‘discover’.
Working in reverse, Stone and his cast filmed scenes of the boat completely revealed first and gradually filled it in throughout the shoot. “We took weeks and weeks to design the ship and then in a few days it was gone, but it’ll always be there in the film,” says Djurkovic.
The ship wasn’t the only real situation that aided the cast, as Fiennes and Mulligan told us in a preChristmas zoom chat taking in authentic archeological discoveries, race-against-time rescues, deep research and a mutual admiration of each other’s work that mirrored their characters’ relationship. While Fiennes had been connected to the project from the beginning, Mulligan joined just before shooting – replacing Nicole Kidman when scheduling conflicts forced her to leave. But the connection the two actors forged is what’s at the heart of this tale of two disparate people with a shared vision. It must be quite strange to be thinking about this film when it seems like you made it in another era entirely before COVID happened...
Carey Mulligan For me, it was the last thing I did. I haven’t acted since then. I do feel like there’s elements of this film that really resonate more because of this year, in a way, which we could never, obviously, have foreseen. What was your knowledge of Sutton Hoo before you got this script? Carey Mulligan It’s one of those things you do at school, isn’t it? But that was it. I didn’t know anything about Edith. I knew nothing about Basil. So to get to learn about that world was really lovely.
Ralph Fiennes I knew Sutton Hoo just as being one of the great archaeological finds in the UK. I think I’d seen the famous picture of the reconstructed helmet in lots and lots of history books. But I knew nothing. And then I read the script three or four years ago. I was so moved by it – that essentially across the wretched, awful, ghastly class divide, you have upper middle-class Mrs Pretty, and you have the rural, working-class Basil Brown. Those social divisions become irrelevant because they’re two particular human beings – and they come together. Her belief in him, and his intelligence, and his loyalty to her, and his respect for her – it’s not based on class; it’s based on respect.
Carey Mulligan But I think it’s a really surprising connection for either of them – and it’s not romantic, it’s just two people coming together at a certain point in their life, and quite late in life, finding a friend. It’s about two people getting to that place where they can sit in silence with each other.
Ralph Fiennes And then once the film was going ahead, and I knew
I was playing Basil, I did a lot of research. I went to the British Museum… they have Basil’s notebooks from that time, which you have to handle with great care, but you see his handwriting and little drawings. There are lots and lots and lots of photographs of the dig, of all the people involved. There’s a fantastic archive there. So doing that suddenly made it – it really became high-definition for me. What is each of your processes when you’re preparing to play a real person?
‘Those social divisions become irrelevant because they’re two particular human beings – and they come together. Her belief in him, and his intelligence, and his loyalty to her’ Ralph Fiennes
Carey Mulligan With Edith, there’s not a huge amount. There’s just, really, the book that you can buy at Sutton Hoo. That gives you a real insight into her life, and what her life was like before this, and what then happened. And that was really valuable. The key, I think, and what resonated with me, was this idea of legacy, and leaving something behind. I think she thinks about that a lot, and that was something that was so moving to me. I remember after having my kids – we live in the country, and we planted some oak trees when we moved into the place that we live. We were walking past them one day and I said, “We’re going to have these huge oak trees! It’s going to be so great!” And my husband said, “Well, yeah. We won’t live to see them fully grown, but the kids will.” He said it so flippantly, and I just burst into tears [laughs], because I couldn’t handle the thought process behind it. It was just too much for me. I think there’s a lot of that going on in Edith, of: ‘What world am I leaving my child behind in?’
Ralph Fiennes [Slipping into a faultless Suffolk accent] Well, this accent is very particular. I had to do a lot of work on that with Charlie Haylock, who is a Suffolk dialect coach. So that was important, of course. And I felt I wanted to be as close to what Basil wore, from what I could see from pictures of him at Sutton Hoo – and Alice Babidge, the costume designer, was very happy to replicate as much as we could. He bicycled everywhere. So I did my own little bicycle tour to at least the sort of distances he rode. It’s thought that he cycled between where he lived and the Sutton Hoo at the end of every week. That would probably have taken him the best part of half a day on an old-fashioned bicycle. But I loved learning about his life. He left a local primary school when he was about 12. He taught himself archaeology, he didn’t have any formal academic
archaeological training at all. He’s an extraordinary figure. I feel a bit like how Carey describes being moved by Mrs Pretty. I think I felt a similar feeling about being moved to try to get inside Basil, or a version of Basil that I could attempt to make real.
Carey Mulligan We also went on a little research trip to Sutton Hoo and we lay on the mounds, didn’t we, Ralph?
Ralph Fiennes We did!
There’s a scene where Basil is buried in a landfall, and Mrs Pretty has to dig him out with her bare hands. That looks horrible to film. Was it? Carey Mulligan [laughs] Yeah, it was horrible! You know, Ralph can talk about the experience of actually being underneath it all, but from the perspective of the person who was trying to get him out, it was terrifying! I kept saying to [director] Simon [Stone], ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like the responsibility!’ Because it really was Ralph in every take, and he really was buried under the dirt. And his mouth was covered, and his nose was covered. We were all – me and the rest of the actors were all really concerned about getting him out, which was all part of Simon’s brilliant kind of method, of putting you in a situation that your character is in.
Ralph Fiennes I think there was enough air around my mouth for me to breathe for a few seconds before the earth was covering my face. I had maybe 15 to 30 seconds. It wasn’t that I was being crushed by earth. But I got really cold, because I was surrounded by this damp, cold earth and clay. That’s what I remember, just feeling really cold. I was more anxious they would not know where my face was, and would thrust their arm into the earth, and sort of punch me [laughs].
Carey Mulligan It really felt when we were doing it, life or death! I’ve still got scars on my knuckles from getting bloody knuckles and scratches… we just had to dig and dig. It was remarkably difficult to do it! Simon just rolled for ages until we were so exhausted that it matched exactly how exhausted you would be in real life, so nothing about it felt fake. All the actors were not just thinking, ‘We’ve got to get Basil out!’, they were thinking,‘We’ve got to get Ralph Fiennes out! Cos this could be really bad!’
How else did the director put you in that mental space?
Carey Mulligan It was a lot for the ensemble, who are all playing the archaeologists. Production really would bury things, and have them be discovered. So being a person who’s observing it, I would be reacting in real time to them finding stuff. And they had actually found something because Simon had buried it. There was a freedom to everything, and space and time. Part of that was the way that our brilliant DP, Mike Eley, was shooting – moving with us, so nothing felt very set. Would you agree, Ralph?
Ralph Fiennes I would, absolutely. Simon had a very instinctive, intuitive way of working. Everything felt very immediate. He wanted everything to have a spontaneity, and, anywhere he could, he’d guide us or nurture us to not be, as it were, “prepared”. So our way of playing had a spontaneity. He kept on saying, ‘I don’t want it to ever sound like it’s been written. It’s speech. It’s happening in the moment.’ Which, of course, is a sort of obvious thing to say, but it’s funny how you can forget – it’s very helpful to have that reminder.
Didn’t you actually find a real artefact while filming excavations, Ralph?
Ralph Fiennes [laughs] I found a piece of pottery, and the onsite archaeologist who we had every day identified it as being medieval. It was the last thing I expected.
What was it like to see that recreated ship in real life? Not being CGI must help with performance?
Ralph Fiennes: Whenever you can be away from built sets and in a real place, it always feels better. The only slight frustration was because of logistics we couldn’t shoot in the summer. When you look at the photographs, they’re all in short sleeves. We were shooting into mid-November! But it was incredibly moving to see the ship because Maria absolutely replicated it. Even people from the Sutton Hoo site came down for a set visit, and they were clearly quite moved to see this thing which they can only ever see in photographs. It was extraordinary.
This is a period piece, but how does the subject matter resonate with you in the here and now?
Ralph Fiennes The danger of period is that it can all be beautifully realised, and beautifully done, and somehow doesn’t connect. Or you can look at it like a beautiful picture. I think it’s just about keeping the sort of human, animal essence of people alive. I love the way something historical can make you reflect on something today.
‘It really felt when we were doing it, life or death! I’ve still got scars on my knuckles from getting bloody knuckles and scratches… we just had to dig and dig’ Carey Mulligan
We’ve been turned upside-down by coronavirus and the way we think and the way we behave. In 1939 England was about to declare war as they were finishing finding the last treasures from the Sutton Hoo. So I always got from the film that it’s about what’s under the earth that is part of us. We reflect on what’s gone before. I feel very deeply that our connection to the past is a very present thing. The past is with us all the time. I love the T.S. Eliot line: “Time present and time past. Are both perhaps present in time future?” I love the sense that perhaps when you dig up something like the Sutton Hoo, suddenly time collapses.
Carey Mulligan The best elements of what has been inarguably a pretty shit year is the activity and community, and the way people have bounded together, the support for things that matter, and the recognition of everyday heroes – all of which feels very reminiscent of how people behaved in wartime. And the lack of control that we’ve all had this year is how I imagine it must have felt going into that period of time, just
having no idea of what was coming, but trying to manage it as best as you could. This is the first time you’ve worked together. Have you had near-misses in the past? Carey, have you come close to being in a Harry Potter film?
Carey Mulligan [laughs] No, I never got anywhere near Harry Potter. Have we had near-misses, Ralph?
Ralph Fiennes Not really. I mean, I’ve wanted to work with you for a long time, so I was thrilled when you came to this late in the day, when, at very short notice, you said that you wanted to do it. That was such a fantastic moment when you responded so spontaneously to the script.
Carey Mulligan I just wanted to work with you. They said, ‘Do you want to go and be in a film with Ralph Fiennes?’ I was like, “Well, yeah!” I really loved the script, and I was excited to work with Simon, but when you get to make a film where you get to have multiple scenes with Ralph Fiennes…
Ralph Fiennes I felt the same. So there’s a mutual love-in going on here
[laughs]. It seems we both anticipated a creatively fulfilling time should we work together. And when we did work together, it was creatively and mutually something where I think we both got a lot out of working with, and off of, each other.
Carey Mulligan I just loved getting to see his process. Ralph was so completely immersed in Basil’s world, and the accent, and the research, and the knowledge about him and his life.
Ralph Fiennes No matter how much research one can do, it’s the truth of the moment. What I feel you have, Carey, is a wonderful, wonderful instinct for the truth for a sentence, for a moment. And I loved being on the receiving end of your truth monitor in everything that you do. Any actor is only ever really as good as what they’re given, you know?
Did you take anything from this film as your own little piece of treasure?
Carey Mulligan Edith wears this amazing dressing gown. I always imagined that she picked it up on her travels in her younger days, because she was so well-travelled, and it was kind of exotic. And Alice [Babidge, costume designer] said I could just keep it. So I’ve got that. I don’t think I’d ever wear it, but it’s just an amazing, beautiful thing to have and remember her by.
Ralph Fiennes I was allowed to take the cloth cap. There were two hats I wear in the film. One is an old, battered trilby, which, actually, it got very wet, so it shrunk. So it’s more of a souvenir. It doesn’t really fit my head very well now. But then I’ve got a cloth cap which was made for me, for Basil, and I’ve been wearing it lots. And as a present I was given a spade by Gabrielle Tana, the producer, which had ‘BASIL’ engraved on the wood on the handle. In lockdown, I had time to dig my own mini allotment outside this cottage I rent in Suffolk. So I used the ‘BASIL’ spade.
Carey Mulligan: Awww, that’s so lovely!
THE DIG OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 15 JANUARY AND IS ON NETFLIX FROM 29 JANUARY.