Bel Powley Talks Love and Stoppard

Bel Powley admits she isn’t great at lying. “I have a bad blush reflex,” says the actor, and her hands move to cover her face. “I go really red.” Despite being in the entertainment world for over half her life, real-life pretending is quite different. “I could tell you I liked your outfit even if I didn’t,” she adds, with a laugh that makes it clear she’s not referring to anyone present. “But a big, big lie?” She shakes her head energetically. “To someone I loved, I’d quickly give myself away.”

Love and deceit are central themes in Powley’s latest project, Tom Stoppard’s 1982 play “The Real Thing.” The structure of the play sees her character, Annie, an actor, navigating her relationship with playwright Henry, played by James McArdle of “Mare of Easttown” fame. “Our chemistry feels really good,” she confirms.

As their affair struggles, and Annie becomes involved with an imprisoned soldier, Stoppard’s story intricately examines the meaning of love. “Usually a love story is about two people who meet and by the end, they’re together,” she explains while sitting in an office at Battersea Arts Centre during rehearsal for their performance at the Old Vic. “What I love is that he’s exploring the corners of a relationship we don’t often see: the end of an affair, the breakdown of a relationship, the start of a new chapter for a couple who don’t know if it’s the real thing but they’re giving it a go anyway. That’s more like real life.”

Powley has always been drawn to love stories, both in what she creates and what she consumes. “Constellations by Nick Payne is my favourite play in the entire world,” she says, visibly emotional. “And I love Drake Doremus’s early stuff.” She grabs her phone to recall the name of one of his films. “Like Crazy!” she exclaims.

Passionate, tender relationships are central in the roles Powley chooses. From her breakout performance in Marielle Heller’s “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” to the recent adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s memoir “Everything I Know About Love,” Powley’s easy chemistry and effusive energy make her characters endearing. “Love and relationships are my way in,” she contemplates. “I don’t know if that’s the center of everyone’s world or just my approach. Relationships and love make the world go round, don’t they?”

“The Diary of a Teenage Girl” was pivotal for Powley, a project that felt truly public for the first time. As one of the first movies to dive into the awkward reality of being a teenage girl, it brought a sense of responsibility. “Everyone was like: ‘Woah, teenage girls exist?’” She mimics shocked reactions. “‘They like sex?’” Post-movie, Powley found herself often cast in roles focusing on love and sex, usually playing characters younger than her actual age. Annie, in “The Real Thing,” is one of the rare roles where she plays someone her age. “We’re both newly married women in our 30s,” Powley notes, relating closely to her character.

Powley herself married fellow actor Douglas Booth last year. They met while filming Haifaa al-Mansour’s thriller “Mary Shelley.” “It was so fun, so exciting,” she recalls with a smile, thinking about their early days of dating on set. Eight years on, their life still has a touch of glamour but Powley shrugs off the seriousness of celebrity. “Oh, it’s silly fun. They’re all just people with school runs and anxieties.”

The one person Powley was most nervous to meet in her career was Jennifer Aniston, her co-star and producer on Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.” “I’ve seen every episode of Friends 10,000 times,” she admits. Working on the show, she felt unusually nervous. “For the first three months, I didn’t speak,” she laughs.

Professionally acting since school, Powley recalls working on the CBBC show “MI High,” where she played a teen spy. “It forces you to grow up,” she says. Independence wasn’t new to her, having dealt with her parents’ divorce in her teens by becoming self-sufficient. Moving to New York at 18 to perform in Stoppard’s “Arcadia” on Broadway was a defining moment. “You could see the Statue of Liberty from my apartment window,” she reminisces.

Powley reflects on roles that deeply impact her, like her recent project “A Small Light,” a miniseries about Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank’s family. “I’m Jewish, so it’s an important story to me,” she says. She appreciates its modern perspective, believing it makes historical lessons more relatable today.

Balancing different genres, she recently worked on “Masters of the Air,” an Apple TV+ series. “It was fun, but filming with hundreds of men made me jealous. I wanted to fly the plane!” she jokes.

Returning to Stoppard with “The Real Thing” has reminded her of the complexities of love. “For me, the message is you never really know if it’s the real thing,” she muses. “Obviously, I’m madly in love with my husband, but Tom’s play suggests that love is something you have to work on. It doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.”

Source: The Guardian, Particlenews