We are familiar with the idea of climbing the ladder of fame. To those with enough talent, it seems to be an escalator. Not to deny the amount of hard work that goes into building a career, of course. Rising local star, Xavier Samuel – who is back in Australia to help publicise the Jane Austen comedy drama, Love And Friendship – is making some good choices. A stint in the Twilight series certainly helped, but he was smart enough not to get stuck there. Instead, he has gone for a range of material, from icky retro horror flicks (The Loved Ones) to gritty dramas (Drift, Healing, Anonymous), excellent comedies (A Few Best Men), and war epics (Fury, with Brad Pitt). That seems a good place to start. So, what was it like working on Fury? “It was amazing to be out there in Oxfordshire,” Samuel tells FilmInk. “It’s a really brutal film. That’s what the director set out to do: to demystify war and show what a nightmare it is. Also, it is like a ‘family’ under duress. And also, you don’t forget standing opposite Brad Pitt.”
Samuel is a fan of the accomplished Hollywood star actually, as much for his personal qualities. “I don’t think that you can have that kind of longevity if you are not a really nice person and a great actor,” he asserts. “And he is both those things. He is a seriously talented actor. And, people forget, he has championed a lot of filmmakers and directors. I have a lot of admiration for him actually.”
Samuel says that he tries to keep his theatre work up at the same time (he was at The Belvoir Theatre in Sydney last year, appearing Brendan Cowell and Lally Katz’ The Dog/The Cat), though plays are a very different sort of enterprise. Still, on a military theme, he characterises films thus: “Yes, film and plays are such different beasts. I sometimes think that film is like a kind military operation; you are in the trenches waiting, waiting…and then there is that call to arms, and off you go!”
And, of course, you can make a film and move on quickly, and sometimes even overlap them. Maybe that is how the talented young actor has ended up with about six films in post-production or about to come out. “I know that it is a very lucky time,” says Samuel. “You get work, and it starts piling up, and you think that there is no way that all this can happen. It is hard enough to get a film up, but the way that things have rolled in the last little while has been a dream run.”
In Love And Friendship – directed by Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, The Last Days Of Disco), and based on a novella by Jane Austen – Samuel plays Sir Reginald De Courcy, a naïve but handsome aristocrat. We agree that Stillman’s name sounds suspiciously like an anagram of Walt Whitman, but Samuel is in no doubt that the quirky director was the initial drawcard. “You don’t need much of an encouragement to do a Whit Stillman film,” he says. “You jump at the opportunity. He is certainly an auteur, and he makes films so rarely that I was just lucky to be involved with it. I met him in LA and I read a few scenes for him. It took a while for the film to come together, but when it did, it was really exciting.”
At the visual level, the film is a treat for fans of costume and period pieces. “We shot in Ireland because it still has all these great Georgian houses to use,” Samuel explains. “The locations in this film are characters in themselves. I remember Whit talking about how there were locations that were grander than the ones he ended up using. The ones that we used were just that fraction faded, and that itself helps with the idea of portraying a sense of difficulty for these aristocrats. Both the families and their houses are slightly peeling at the edges. I like the feel of it. It’s an elegant film too, with the Barry Lyndon-esque score that starts it off.”
What needs to be said loud and clear is that the film isn’t just “faithful”, it is also screamingly funny. Did Samuel ever think that he was guilty of packing up laughing during a take? “It is more terrifying when it happens on stage,” he says. “With film, you can just have a giggle and go again. That was one of the challenges of the film: keeping a straight face when someone like [fellow cast member] Tom Bennett is going off. He is hysterical.”
As implied, Samuel clearly loved Stillman’s sparkling script. “It is a dialogue-driven film, and it’s not often that you get that as an actor,” he says. “The dialogue is so rapid fire that you can have a battle of wits. It is fun to tackle the writing in that sort of material. It’s like George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde. You get a kick as an audience member because it doesn’t patronise you, and it asks you to keep up. You feel like you are in on it. So you can understand it and enjoy the humour because it is intelligent.”
In Love And Friendship, Samuel’s character is dallying with the razor sharp Lady Susan, who is played by Kate Beckinsale in a career highlight. Samuel confirms that the English actor was exactly right for the part “She’s an extraordinary actor,” he asserts. “She is so smart, and she has such a wicked sense of humour. And an amazing command of the language. Just working opposite her raises the bar. She studied literature at Oxford University, and she comes from that world in a way. She’s done great stage work too. She’s really good fun off set too.”
In interviews, Beckinsale does come across as both intelligent and down to earth. So she is not a scheming minx then? Xavier Samuel is loyal to the end. “You can’t play a character that diabolic and ruthless and manipulative if you are not in real life a very charming person!”
Love And Friendship is released in cinemas on July 21.
