Hall of fame
WOLF HALL STAR BEN MILES TELLS HUGH MONTGOMERY HOW WORKING WITH HILARY MANTEL HAS INSPIRED HIM TO GET WRITING...
EW actors get to become so intensely connected with a character as Ben Miles has with Tudor schemer Thomas Cromwell. Ben’s association with the historical figure began in 2013, when he first starred in the two-part stage adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s books Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies.
Then, as the plays travelled from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to the West End, and finally Broadway, the experience became ever richer.
‘Reading the books [initially], I was amazed by Hilary’s writing and then [there was] the added thrill of meeting her and collaborating with her which hasn’t really stopped since then… it has really been an amazing journey,’ Ben explains.
That journey is continuing as Ben stars in the adaptation of the final part of Hilary’s Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror And The Light. And where the first two books were adapted by playwright Mike Poulton, this time around Hilary and Ben have joined forces to write the script themselves. Ben had never written anything professionally before this, but while making your playwriting debut alongside a literary legend may sound like a daunting prospect, he says Hilary put him completely at ease.
‘To Hilary’s great credit, she’s very generous with the work – she doesn’t claim to own it. She describes herself as a custodian of these stories: she’s intensely knowledgeable and brilliantly imaginative, but she will be the first to say, “What do you think about this?”’
As for the story, it hopefully isn’t a spoiler to say that The Mirror And The Light captures
Cromwell’s fall from grace as Henry VIII’s chief adviser, which led to his execution. ‘I think this is one of those curious stories where I’d imagine 99 per cent of the people who come to see it know what happens at the end. Given that, how you make the night interesting is to ask the audience, “Can you see at what point he made those bad decisions [that led to his death]?” We’re inviting you to join the dots of mistakes. It’s not so much a whodunnit as a how done it,’ Ben says.
Are there any particular ways in which this historical story is pertinent for now, does he think? ‘We’ll leave it up to the audience to draw parallels [but] I think there may well be. It’s the trap of when you get so far in terms of power, does complacency set in?
‘You could see it as a warning to those that believe themselves to be indestructible, mentioning no names,’ he smiles.
When it comes to playing Cromwell, Ben says what he finds most fascinating about him is his duality. ‘He’s a real mix of absolute diplomatic prowess, and Putney street fighter, and it’s the tension between those two people in him that is of central interest – how he deals with the inner brawler and how he keeps that at bay from the outer operator.’
Meanwhile, one of the real challenges of playing him is that he keeps his cards so close to his chest. ‘How you can appear to be doing one thing but actually allow the audience to see that you are thinking another – it’s a fascinating [task],’ says Ben. As well as being an endlessly
fascinating part in itself, Cromwell has raised Ben’s stock higher than it’s ever been. After growing up in Derbyshire, and going to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, his first big TV break came in the early 2000s as one of the stars of Friends-style sitcom Coupling.
But since winning acclaim for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, he has had an especially strong run of small screen roles in dramas including The Capture, The Trial Of Christine Keeler and The Crown.
Indeed it was after The Crown’s producer/director Stephen Daldry saw Ben as Cromwell on Broadway that he cast him in the first two series of the royal saga as Princess Margaret’s lover, Peter Townsend.
So what does Ben think about the increasing controversy swirling around The Crown’s bending of the truth? ‘You’ve got to remember it’s drama and there are certain requisites that come with drama. You have to make it fizz in a way that actual life doesn’t often, so anyone who is overly offended by [lack of] accuracy in historical drama is expecting the wrong things,’ he says. ‘Hilary’s done the same thing with the [Cromwell trilogy], I think it’s an imaginative account.’ The Mirror And The Light is due to
run in the
West End until early next year and after that, a Broadway run surely beckons, while soon Ben will also be seen in one of the new Star Wars spin-off TV series, though, predictably, he can’t give away anything more about it at this stage.
Off-screen, meanwhile, he is keen to do more writing, because penning The Mirror And The Light ‘has been such a joy’, and, as he notes, ‘I couldn’t have wished for a better [entree] into that whole world than having a double Man Booker Prize Winner as co-pilot and mentor.’
The Mirror And The Light is at the Gielgud Theatre, London, until January
23, 2022 , themirrorandthelight.co.uk