This weekend, Disney reintroduces audiences to one of the most iconic villains on their roster and takes her story in a brand new direction with the release of Craig Gillespie's highly-anticipated Cruella, which stars Academy Award-winner Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider-Man; La La Land) as the titular heroine villainess.
Ahead of its release this weekend, yours truly was able to sit down with the always reliable Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service; Green Lantern) and talk to him about his extremely pivotal role as "John" in the upcoming film.
We then got to talking about his career at large, his love for portraying conflicted villains, playing the straight man in larger-than-life comedies, the lack of sequels on his resume, working with some of his favorite filmmakers, and what he hopes the next decade of his career looks like.
Cruella hits theaters and arrives on Disney+ Premier Access on May 28.
ROHAN: You arguably have the most pivotal role in the film, basically setting off the big plot twist that flips the movie on its head, but you don’t have much screen time early on. How do you approach films like this where you have to firmly establish a character in a handful of scenes versus something where you have a larger leading role?
MARK: "You have to trust the director. I was a big fan of Craig Gillespe from his previous films, Lars and the Real Girl and I Tonya, so when we had a meeting, I hadn’t even read the script, I didn’t what I was doing. He just met me and said listen, I want you to be in it and I want you to play this part.
Then, I read the script and realized, as you say, he doesn’t really do a great deal in the first half of the movie and then there is this kind of a plot twist, but he explained to me that he needed - there were two things going on, he needed someone to have a presence, a character that you would remember, somebody you constantly think, ‘Who is that guy? What’s he thinking? What’s going on?”’
So, that when the twist happens, it has some sort of resonance and I think he was also playing on my fact that I’ve played so many villains and that people might obviously be coming to the film thinking, ‘He’s bound to be the bad guy,’ and actually, it’s much more interesting than that. "
ROHAN: John doesn’t get a lot of backstory. Before shooting, do you try to create your own origin for him or was that a conversation with Craig?
MARK: "He didn’t really, he explained to me that he’s the right hand man of the Baroness. The British butler or valet is a very traditional role, he’s basically loyal and discreet, so essentially that was all I was really required to be. It’s when you have the flashback and realize that something was asked of him years ago that kind of bonds them together.
He’s stayed with her out of loyalty, but obviously, underneath, there’s been something going on with him that then kind of comes to fruition when Cruella or Estella turns up. It’s difficult to talk about though because obviously it’s a pivotal point in the film so I don’t really want to give anything away. "
ROHAN: You’ve become known for playing a lot of villains, but you’ve also played so many great good guys, and bring this incredible warmth to your roles like John and Merlin - which side do you find more interesting to play?
MARK: "If I’m honest, the villains, because the good guy, you can be the good guy in real life. I can be a kind father, I can be a loving husband, I can be a friend, and I can do that in my every day life, but I can’t fire electricity out of my eyes, you know what I mean, or get hung and come back from the dead as I did in Sherlock Holmes. There’s just more fun to be had with villains. "
ROHAN: You play such a great straight man, and get a front row seat to both Emma Stone and Emma Thompson at their most wonderfully wicked and you've also played a similar role in The Brothers Grimsby where you're opposite Sacha Baron Cohen. Is it difficult when you have to be grounded while everyone else is so larger than life?
MARK: "It’s great fun, because they’re really lovely people and I really enjoyed being on set with them and watching them work, so that was a real privilege. I also think you have to make a choice when you come into a part like this, and the same is true of Grimsby, you have to work out where the comedy lies.
There wasn’t really - I quickly realized on Grimsby that I just let Sacha do the gags and actually the straighter I played it, the funnier it would be and the same is kind of true of Cruella, if Emma was, the Baroness is doing this very arched performance, and if Estella is also very arched, the way to go is not to, if you’re all doing it, it becomes uninteresting. I think I made the choice to root him, to ground him in some sort of reality, so that when you see the plot thing that happens halfway through the movie, you believe it."
ROHAN: You’ve been a part of so many great films, but haven’t done many sequels because either your character died (Sherlock Holmes; Kick-Ass) or because the sequel ultimately didn’t move forward (Green Lantern; John Carter). Did that change your approach as an actor at all when accepting roles in big studio films like Shazam! and Cruella?
MARK: ""Oh yeah, you can only take it one film at a time and usually when you go and do the first film, the second film hasn’t even been written yet. So, even though you’re signed up to do sequels, they won’t exist. So, I think a lot of it is based on what happens in the first one.
The irony, of course, is that everything I survive in, doesn’t seem to have sequel and everything I get killed in, does. For Sinestro, they didn’t make a Green Lantern 2, but I survived in John Carter, but unfortunately, they didn’t make a second John Carter. Kick-Ass got a sequel, but obviously, I was blown off a balcony. There’s one other where I survive and it didn’t go to a sequel, I can’t think of it off the top of my head, but there’s a sort of strange irony to that.
And, I don’t do jobs, I don’t take on things because there are sequels at all. Usually, you just take it on because you like that individual script. If there are others, so be it."
ROHAN: You've worked with a pair of my favorite directors, Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman; Kick-Ass; Stardust) and Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes; RocknRolla; Revolver), several times. Do you have anything coming up with either of them? Do you stay in touch with them when you're not working together, just in case something comes up?
MARK: "Yeah, I mean Guy and I text each other occasionally and I’m always... if he finds something for me to do, I’ll be there. The same is true of Matthew, you never know, there is a Kingsman 3 and in that universe, despite the fact that I’ve been blown to pieces, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s out of the running because anything can happen in that universe.
I’ve worked with both of those guys about three times each and the reason you work with people is because you get on with them, so who knows, there may be something further down the line with either of them. I also love working with new people whenever possible as well, and the variety is what I’m interested in, so doing a big studio picture like Cruella and getting the chance to work with Craig Gillespe or something like Shazam working with David, who came from small horror movies. It’s all interesting, it’s all fascinating, and I try to mix it up as much as possible."
ROHAN: As a veteran actor, what kind of roles pique your interest now? Or is it more about the people you’re working with? Is there a certain type of character you’re hoping to play?
MARK: "I love conflicted characters, I mean I suppose almost every actor would say that, I don’t know, but personally, I like characters who have something that they’re fighting or that there’s good and bad in all of them I think.
So, if you can find a character that is written well enough to be able to have both of those things going on, then that’s always way more interesting and having played a lot of villains, I’ve always tried to find something in them that makes them, if not liked, then at least understood. But, dealing with inner demons, conflicted characters is something I really gravitate to. I’m not as comfortable with somebody who’s just easygoing, husband, father, brother, lover, that’s not my cup of tea. "
ROHAN: You started your career by doing television before getting into film and have recently started doing more television with Deep State and Temple. Do you see yourself doing more television moving forward?
MARK: "The truth is, when I started out, I did theatre for ten years and there wasn’t much of a British film industry nor were many people going over the pond to work in the States. There weren’t many films around, it was quite difficult to get into a movie, it was actually quite difficult to get into television back in the day, because there weren’t loads of streaming services nor were there many channels. There wasn’t much getting made, so it was mainly theater and I then started moving into television a bit because that was getting in front of a camera.
It was only after doing television for a while that I really thought I want to make movies and then I got into the movies and I did that for years and years and years before I did another bit of television, but what’s happened now is that it’s come around I think. A lot of the film writers have moved to television, a lot of the film actors have moved to television as well, so television has become a really important medium, especially with all the advent of the streaming services and all these new platforms, so there’s a lot of work around in TV.
I think the trick is finding the good stuff, because there’s a lot of stuff being made that we’ll never see, so it’s a way of working with the best people and finding the best writing, but having said that, I’m very keen on also carrying on making movies and as we are, maybe at a point, where people are going back to the cinema now finally, I want to make sure - because Cruella deserves to be on a big screen, it’s as simple as that, fantastic soundtrack, huge set pieces, costumes, everything, it needs to be on a big screen and people need to go back into the cinema, so I’m hoping to carry on doing the movies as well as, I have my own show on TV and maybe doing another series of that."
Cruella hits theaters and arrives on Disney+ Premier Access on May 28