Taylor Russell in conversation with Lucy Prebble

Do you know what you would be doing if you weren’t an actor? Is there another version of you in your head?

There’s, like, 50 versions of me in my head, of what I could be doing. I wanna know what you would be doing, too.

Yeah, I sympathise with that, totally. Well, I had this thing when I started out in my twenties when I basically applied to a lot of law schools. I had all my applications under my bed, really properly quite complicated applications, and I gave myself a year for anything to happen as a writer. I was 23 or something. ​“If I get anything happening professionally in this year, then I’m going to be a writer.” That was a rule I set myself and if I don’t [make it], I’m going to go to law school. That was a structured thing that I decided, and in that year I got a small play on at a 90-seat theatre. I kept the law school application forms under my bed until I was about 35, because I was so unsure [about] whether that would be the right thing to do. There’s this part of me, and maybe it’s similar to what you were talking about [with] acting, that wants to make sure I’m doing the best thing that I can do. I want to be helpful and I want to live meaningfully. Sometimes there can be friction with that.

Yeah.

And so, there’s always a part of me that has a feeling of: would it have been better to do something rather than write about it? I’m also aware that I’m proud of my work and stuff. I’m not disparaging it, but do you know what I mean?

Totally. The two things meet each other all the time, but I think we all believe this exact same thing. As corny as it sounds, we were saying that we believe art can change the world and the work that we’re doing can because storytelling is everything. We tell stories all the time. Our day is a story, our relationships are a story we’re telling ourselves.

Oh yeah, for sure!

Everything is just a story, right? To me, it seems so obvious that what you’re doing is meaningful work, because you are researching and using somebody’s real life and showing it to people in a way that it can be taken in and felt and received. That’s really important.

Thank you, that’s meaningful. I do think that is part of what we do, whether that is the writing or the acting or directing or a combination of all of them. I think, from what I’ve also read about you, you’re an artist in many ways. It feels like you’ve written and directed as well, right? Do you think of yourself primarily as an actor, or as an artist who acts most of the time?

To be quite honest, yeah, I would say the latter. I love acting, I am fascinated by the craft of acting. I love actors and I love talking to actors about why they love acting. I was talking to [Effect co-star] Kobna [Holdbrook-Smith] about why he loves acting, and I loved his response to it. He is so eloquent, there is no way I am ever going to do him justice, but he was talking about how he’s very curious and loves research and loves to be able to flex that muscle within acting and dissect something in that way. I want the stories that I’m a part of to feel like they have a deep purpose. That doesn’t happen all the time – just because that’s life, it’s not always going to be meaningful. That’s fine. I don’t think it’s that practical of me to believe that I can be a part of [stories that are] earth-shattering in my heart and body and brain all the time.

So, when I think about that, I think about what else am I interested in? There are so many different things that I want to do. Right now, with acting, I love it, I want to act. I want to be in stories and I love being in [a] community. That’s what’s incredible about doing this production. This community that we are a part of is so beautiful and held in this special little container. There’s so much love and respect and I love that feeling on set. I just want to go where that is, you know?

I completely understand that and that’s a big driver for me as well, that sense of being held by something or belonging. The creation of a family, a professional family, over and over again, drives me a lot artistically. Can I ask, how trusting are you as a person? Then I guess a separate question that I was thinking about was what makes you feel safe? Would you describe yourself as trusting people easily?

It comes and goes. It’s something that has been a big part of my life this past year. I mean, it’s been a big part of my life since I can remember, because I really want to live an open life and meet somebody and be real and honest and truthful with them. You can’t really live an open life if you aren’t sharing of yourself while you ask another person to share of themselves with you. But I’ve found it increasingly harder to do that, and I’m trying to challenge myself in that way right now. My experience the past couple of years, [with] people I’ve really trusted, things weren’t held in a way that I would’ve appreciated them to be held. And so, that has changed things in me a little bit.

I’m already a homebody. If it’s not for work, I’m not somebody who is going to be at things purely because I have anxieties in the ways that I do, in the ways that we all do, which is not unique. Now I’m living in London, and when I came here I was like, ​“You know what, Taylor, this is a new place. You’re not in America, not in Canada. You have to open up and allow people to know you. You’re going to be in a community of people that are going to be there for you. You have to allow them to know you. If something happens, something happens, that’s life. You are going to be hurt – that’s the tax. The tax on a real relationship is the reality that you will get hurt, you will [have] grief, something will be lost at some point and that’s OK. It’s worth it.” It’s something that I’m having to remind myself a lot.