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[0:00] Douglas Goldstein: I'm talking to the stars of the new Broadway revival of *Betrayal*, Zawe Ashton, Charlie Cox, and Tom Hiddleston. Ashton is a busy stage and screen actor who U.S. audiences have caught in films like *Belted Fuzzsaw*, starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. Cox is best known on these shores for his three-season stint as a superhero in Marvel's *Daredevil* TV series, and he also appeared on stage in New York in the 2016 off-Broadway play *Incognito*. Like Cox, Hiddleston also has a big gig in the Marvel Universe, playing the Norse god of mischief Loki in the *Thor* and *Avengers* movies, as well as in an upcoming series on Disney+. He's also starred on TV in *The Night Manager* and on stage in the U.K. in plays like *Hamlet* and *Coriolanus*.

All three of them are reprising on Broadway the roles they first played in the U.K. in director Jamie Lloyd's hit revival of *Betrayal*, Harold Pinter's merciless dissection of infidelity, told in scenes arranged in reverse chronological order. With the show now up and running at the Jacobs Theatre, Ashton, Cox, and Hiddleston are here with me to talk Pinter, superheroes, and why Hiddleston believes everyone should play *Hamlet*. Everyone. Hi, Zawe, Charlie, and Tom. Thanks for being here.

[1:27] Zawe Ashton: Hello.

[1:28] Charlie Cox: Thank you.

[1:29] Tom Hiddleston: Thank you.

[1:30] Douglas Goldstein: Well, I want to start with a really important question for Zawe, which is, if and when you yourself join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which superhero will you play?

[1:41] Zawe Ashton: Such a good question. I remember actually in the first—there's one that's recently become vacant, by the way, I think. I don't know if you want it, but...

[1:48] Tom Hiddleston: I know a guy.

[1:50] Zawe Ashton: Yeah. Actually, someone phoned me today. No, I'm joking. Well, weirdly, I think I remember saying in the first week or something, I was like, I'm literally the only one not in a franchise. I'm literally the disenfranchised member of this group. If I were to have the opportunity to become franchised—

[2:12] Charlie Cox: Enfranchised.

[2:17] Zawe Ashton: Enfranchised. Sorry.

[2:18] Charlie Cox: Enfranchised.

[2:19] Zawe Ashton: Enfranchised.

[2:20] Tom Hiddleston: I like it.

[2:21] Zawe Ashton: I would like to go for Black Panther.

[2:25] Charlie Cox: That's a good one.

[2:26] Zawe Ashton: Can I do that?

[2:27] Charlie Cox: Why not?

[2:28] Zawe Ashton: Black Panther 2.

[2:29] Charlie Cox: Only if you can name at least three others.

[2:30] Zawe Ashton: Why is this not on film? The look of horror on Zowie's face. Three others.

[2:41] Zawe Ashton: Three other characters in that film.

[2:50] Zawe Ashton: What's Black Panther's actual name?

[2:53] Charlie Cox: Black Panther.

[2:56] Zawe Ashton: I love it.

[2:58] Charlie Cox: All right. We'll come back to that.

[3:00] Zawe Ashton: I don't know which one I would do. I would like to start my own new comic called Zowie.

[3:07] Charlie Cox: Yeah.

[3:08] Zawe Ashton: It's not a bad superhero name, actually.

[3:11] Douglas Goldstein: Let's talk a little bit about how this production came about. It began, if I understand it correctly, as a scene from a gala that you, Zawe, and Tom did initially.

[3:21] Zawe Ashton: Yes.

[3:22] Douglas Goldstein: Tell us about that. What about that experience made you interested in following up on it?

[3:28] Zawe Ashton: Last October, October the 18th, I think, 2018, as a celebration of Harold Pinter and his work, that date, or around that date, was the 10th anniversary of his passing. Jamie Lloyd, our director, threw a gala night called *Happy Birthday, Harold*, in honor of Antonia Fraser, his widow, who had been so generous and has continued to be so unbelievably generous in allowing actors to perform his work. Lots of actors who had had a relationship with Harold in one way or the other came back to read at this thing. Kristen Scott Thomas, Jeremy Irons, Lee Evans, Felicity Kendall, Sam West. And on that night, it was an extraordinary night, which is also very funny. Simon Russell came back and did a bit of *The Hothouse*. Jamie asked Zowie and myself to read a scene from *Betrayal*, which was the central scene of 9, scene 5.

[4:41] Charlie Cox: That's the one in Venice?

[4:42] Zawe Ashton: In Venice, yeah. And we read it on the book. Had about 15 minutes rehearsal.

[4:50] Charlie Cox: If that.

[4:53] Zawe Ashton: And people afterwards asked us if we were rehearsing *Betrayal* as the closing to the season. And we were like, if rehearsing *Betrayal* means rehearsing for 15 minutes. But it was just clear that there was sort of a hunger for it again. It was Antonia's idea, she said.

[5:12] Charlie Cox: It was my idea.

[5:14] Zawe Ashton: It was either Zowie's idea or it was Antonia's idea.

[5:20] Charlie Cox: Well, I was the one who, you know, I set about that night actually coordinating everyone's dates. I went straight into sort of producer mode. But what was and still to me is incredible is the way it started to come together. Because it had to come. Antonia had to give. Antonia said at one point that was terrific. Would you like to do the whole thing?

[5:48] Zawe Ashton: Oh, God. Yeah. Look, I don't have the final word.

[5:55] Charlie Cox: And then Jamie said, why don't we do it? And then Zowie set about doing her date coordination. And Charlie, when did you get involved?

[6:04] Charlie Cox: Well, that's one of the most magical parts of it all together. Jamie had said to me, would you like to do *Betrayal*? And I said, if you get Tom Hiddleston and Zowie, I would definitely do it. If Zowie and Hiddleston become part of the MCU by then, I'll do it. My story is not nearly as interesting, although it is a little interesting in that Jamie and Tom had both apparently thought that I would be right for Jerry.

[6:30] Zawe Ashton: Had you all worked together before?

[6:32] Charlie Cox: I'd worked with Jamie. And I knew Tom, we'd been friends. And without me knowing, they'd asked about my availability and I was busy. So they went elsewhere. That didn't pan out.

[6:46] Zawe Ashton: Happily.

[6:48] Charlie Cox: And then in the period when it wasn't panning out, my availability, my show that I was in was cancelled. But I'd actually called, knowing that the show that I was on had been cancelled, I called my theatre agent and said, can you please have a look and see what's available? And I hadn't heard back from him. So I called him on the way to the airport. I was in Los Angeles flying back to New York and I called him on the way to the airport to give him a bit of a, you know, what's going on? And he answered the phone and he said, how about *Betrayal* with Zowie Ashton and Tom Hiddleston and Wes Dent? And I was like, that'll do. Very fortunate.

[7:26] Douglas Goldstein: And then, we should say for our listeners who haven't seen the show, it's probably unlike any other production of Pinter that they've seen in that there's basically no furniture on stage.

[7:34] Charlie Cox: There's very little furniture on stage.

[7:36] Douglas Goldstein: And all three of you are on stage at the same time throughout, even in the scenes in which not all three characters appear. Everyone sort of lingers as a presence in the scene, even when they are not there. Tell me about that sort of approach and what that does for you. What was the thinking behind it and what does it do for you as actors for your performance?

[7:58] Tom Hiddleston: It was a great idea of Jamie's principally. *Betrayal*, even the term, never mind the play, carries connotations of guilt. That any betraying party is going to leave someone betrayed. And so having the third object, which would always exist in the mind of an affair, present on stage. And actually the play is about, *Betrayal* as a play is constructed of scenes between couples. It starts with Gerry and Emma, then Robert and Gerry, then Gerry and Emma again, and eventually Robert and Emma. And then there's only one scene with the three of them. And I think the idea that each couple is almost haunted by the presence of the third, it enlivens for the audience that this is a triangle which carries a charge. And that these three relationships, the marriage between Robert and Emma, the friendship between Robert and Gerry, and the affair between Gerry and Emma, are codependent. And that when one of these relationships breaks down, they all break down.

[9:10] Zawe Ashton: Yeah.

[9:13] Tom Hiddleston: I was just agreeing and giving more thought to it. It's, for me, the goosebump moment that I had when Jamie started to talk about his vision for the production. Because I think, weirdly, I've been reading it, wondering what I do in the breaks between scenes. Does that sound really mad? But the scenes are so potent. And even just thinking about going off and being on my own, it just felt so counter to what the play is doing. Which is ramping up this tension and telling this story in reverse chronology. There's a lot to take in. So when I picked up the phone to talk to Jamie about what his plans were, and he said, look, I want this to be a really bare step.

[11:38] Tom Hiddleston: Who is responsible? Who is accountable in this situation?

[12:08] Tom Hiddleston: So he did 109 in London and it's about 150 in New York.

[12:23] Zawe Ashton: Wow. Oh my goodness.

[12:27] Tom Hiddleston: I don't know exactly. Hats off guys. Hats off. You do one thing over 250 times in the space of a year and it becomes a kind of, it's like the iterative practice of doing it cannot help but reveal new things or deeper resonances. And that's how I've come to appreciate the depth and rigor of his writing, is that you constantly are finding new things. And to your point, who's accountable? The reason the play's so clever is that there's not just one betrayal. The most obvious one is that Robert is betrayed by his oldest friend who's having an affair with his wife.

[13:15] Tom Hiddleston: Or me. Or that Robert is betrayed by his wife having an affair with his best friend. Both his wife and his best friend betray him. That's fairly clear. But then there's, as often discussed, the betrayal of Emma and Jerry by Robert, because Robert discovers, he finds out, and he doesn't tell Jerry that he knows for many years. And so Jerry feels betrayed by Robert. But I think there's also a betrayal of Emma by Robert somehow. Otherwise she wouldn't feel that the affair was possible if their relationship was working. Perhaps there would be no vacancy. When Jerry makes his advance, that door would be closed.

[14:08] Tom Hiddleston: And there's also this other betrayal which I've become really taken with recently, which is the betrayal of poetry by prose, which is that Robert and Jerry both work in literary circles. Robert's a publisher, Jerry's a literary agent, and they talk a lot about the authors from whom they make a lot of money and have a very nice life, who they don't respect. But actually their friendship was born out of a passion for poetry, and that somehow the older they have got, their lives have become prosaic. And that there is a betrayal of the younger self by the older self, that these more mature men have betrayed the idealists who they used to be in their youth, these ardent admirers of great poets like W.B. Yeats.

[15:01] Tom Hiddleston: So ultimately each character betrays, they betray themselves. And that's the great betrayal. And so when you ask who's accountable, they're all accountable. They're all accountable for their self-betrayal. And so you could also argue that it's only through the betrayal of oneself that you put yourself in a position to be betrayed or to betray other people.

[15:22] Zawe Ashton: That's very true. Where do you draw the line? Once you open the betrayal box.

[15:28] Tom Hiddleston: Which we have and have not opened yet. I was saying to Zoe right before we started recording that this production, I've seen other productions of Betrayal before, of course, and this one was struck... What's that?

[15:43] Zawe Ashton: No.

[15:44] Tom Hiddleston: However. Yeah, and then I thought, don't ask that. This one struck me as being unusually sort of tender about the sort of feeling among the characters was very tender, that there was a real sense of the sort of loss of the love that...

[15:59] Zawe Ashton: Oh, I'm so pleased.

[16:00] Tom Hiddleston: ...that you three characters shared, whereas other productions I've seen can be very sort of competitive and jostly and alpha-doggy. Was that a thing that you were sort of steered toward? Was that what you discovered sort of in the moment?

[16:16] Zawe Ashton: We're three very tender people. And I actually say that seriously. I had nerves, actually, coming into Betrayal. Very low-level nervousness about being the only woman and hoping that there would be room for tenderness and softness that I was really picking up on and reading when I was prepping for the part.

[16:51] Zawe Ashton: And as soon as I came in, there is part of you, as a woman, when you know you're going to be the only female in the room, that you kind of subconsciously put your boxing gloves on. And this is something I check myself about all the time, because you shouldn't do it, but just past experiences sometimes make you do it. You put your subconscious boxing gloves on, thinking, right, I'm going to take my space, I'm going to make sure my voice is heard, I'm going to make sure I put my point across in the room before I get sort of swarmed by all the dick swinging.

[17:24] Tom Hiddleston: But you know, that's how you feel. And sometimes it is. It is, unfortunately.

[17:30] Zawe Ashton: I needn't have worried for more than one second, because these two men are, and Eddie Arnold, who plays the waiter, and by extension Jamie and everyone involved, but these two men are honestly two of the most open, honest, sweet, tender, caring people and actors that I've ever worked with.

[17:57] Tom Hiddleston: That's so nice.

[17:58] Zawe Ashton: And I honestly don't know if our production would be the same without those qualities that these men actually have, and I have, and the natural elements that we sort of bring. Because I think Harold, as a wonderful, what do you call Bonnie Greer back home?

[18:21] Tom Hiddleston: An intellectual.

[18:22] Zawe Ashton: We have an amazing intellectual at home, a journalist, Bonnie Greer. And she came to see the show, and she was in absolute pieces at the end, and she just said, he gives you so much room to fuck it up. Harold gives you so much space to make Betrayal bad. And I feel so proud that we've all sort of put it through the lens of, as you say, tenderness or understanding, because you could put it through a lens of brittleness and, you know, soreness and hatred.

[19:00] Tom Hiddleston: Thank you for listening.

[19:01] Zawe Ashton: Of course. All three of you are making your Broadway debut with us. What's your experience of Broadway, and how are we Broadway audiences different from your experiences in London and the West End and elsewhere?

[19:14] Tom Hiddleston: It's wonderful. It's been incredibly warm. That's the thing I've noticed, is the community is very generous and very welcoming, and we all got opening night cards from all the other companies on Broadway, all the other theatres. I thought that was really touching.

[19:34] Tom Hiddleston: And there is something special and unique about Broadway. And even the geographical proximity of the buildings is something you feel you're a part of the community, so it's been wonderful, truly.

[19:50] Zawe Ashton: All three of you have done quite a bit of work on screen as well. How do you think about theatre fitting into your overall career and fitting into the work you do on screen?

[19:58] Tom Hiddleston: You know, it's so interesting. As an actor, you can't have a plan, and I've never had a plan. And I'm always impressed by that.

[20:47] Tom Hiddleston: I think everyone should play Hamlet at some point in their life. It's such a rich, complex character and the themes are universal.

[21:17] Tom Hiddleston: The exploration of identity, the struggle with morality, and the question of existence are things that resonate with everyone, regardless of their background.

[21:37] Tom Hiddleston: Plus, the language is beautiful. Shakespeare's words have a musicality that can be incredibly powerful when performed.

[21:59] Tom Hiddleston: I remember my first experience with the text; it felt like I was unlocking a door to something profound.

[22:21] Tom Hiddleston: And then there's the challenge of portraying such a multifaceted character. Hamlet is not just one thing; he’s a thinker, a lover, a fighter, and a tragic hero.

[22:51] Tom Hiddleston: It’s a role that demands everything from an actor, and in that way, it can be transformative.

[23:19] Tom Hiddleston: I think it’s important for actors to engage with these kinds of roles, to stretch themselves and grow.

[23:48] Tom Hiddleston: And then, of course, there’s the camaraderie that comes with working on a classic like this.

[24:16] Tom Hiddleston: You’re not just exploring the character alone; you’re doing it with a group of talented people who are all bringing their own interpretations to the table.

[24:44] Tom Hiddleston: That collaborative energy is what makes theater so special.

[25:14] Tom Hiddleston: It’s a shared experience, both for the actors and the audience, and that connection is what makes live performance so thrilling.

[25:42] Tom Hiddleston: I think that’s why I keep coming back to Shakespeare; there’s always something new to discover.

[26:10] Tom Hiddleston: Even if you’ve played a role before, there’s a chance to find a new angle or a different emotional truth.

[26:38] Tom Hiddleston: It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion; you think you’ve reached the core, but there’s always more to uncover.

[27:06] Tom Hiddleston: And that’s what keeps it exciting, not just for the audience, but for the actors as well.

[27:36] Tom Hiddleston: I think that’s why I feel so strongly about everyone having the opportunity to play Hamlet, or at least to engage with the text in some way.

[28:06] Tom Hiddleston: It’s a rite of passage, and it can be a deeply personal journey.

[28:34] Tom Hiddleston: Whether you’re a seasoned actor or someone just starting out, there’s something in Hamlet that can speak to you.

[29:04] Tom Hiddleston: It’s a chance to explore the depths of human experience, and I think that’s invaluable.

[29:34] Tom Hiddleston: So, yes, I truly believe everyone should have the chance to step into those shoes, even if just for a moment.

[30:04] Tom Hiddleston: It’s a gift that keeps on giving.