Olivia Williams on Hollywood inequality: ‘Nobody, until now, gave a damn’

The star of stage and screen talks about her latest role in sci-fi espionage series Counterpart, avoiding ‘thankless wife’ roles and her ‘Benny Hill’ experience with Harvey Weinstein.

While your new show Counterpart might include some fantastical elements, there’s an unavoidable link to be made to issues of real world immigration, given its focus on the border separating different realities. Do you think that the show aims to make any comment on this topic, given such relevance at the moment?

I’m sure it does. Since Star Trek on TV and before that on stage, drama has sought to find imagined parallels that comment on, illuminate or bring to wider attention the logical consequences of absurd or dangerous political developments. Lysistrata, Measure for Measure, Animal Farm come to mind.

Do you think that in times of political unrest, art plays a more important role?

Of course. We are lucky enough to enjoy freedom of speech, but when that becomes impossible, metaphor – in the form of art, be it visual or dramatic or literary – becomes the only way. But with freedom there is a danger of complacency. How many of us Remainers ever – be honest – voted for an MEP or gave a toss about European politics before 2016? The change in people’s viewing habits bow means that rather than forcing a nation to watch a documentary by having only three channels, which was the case when I was a child, we have to battle the vast choice and pique interest in the politics with a promise of something less challenging – slip some political greens into the dramatic Bolognese sauce.

This is your second major sci-fi series after Dollhouse and you’ve also starred in sci-fi movies like The Last Days on Mars and The Postman. What is it about the genre that continues to attract you?

Is it? Have I? I don’t really choose jobs that wat. Dollhouse was written by Joss Whedon and the script was of course excellent, and the idea seemed to throw up some challenging thoughts about fantasy versus political correctness. Last Days on Mars – never been a zombie, never been an astronaut, great script, shooting in Jordan – which is a magical country that I hope people will continue to visit despite its being surrounded by conflict. The Postman – the job of a lifetime, and indeed it changed my life. Horses, helicopters, snow, desert, rivers, guns… oh, and scifi.

You’ve mentioned before that you regret passing on The Matrix as you found it to be “incomprehensible hogwash”> Have there been any other projects that you wish you’d said yes to?

Can I just clarify that I don’t think that The Matrix is incomprehensible hogwash. The context of that remark was that there was an extraordinary moment in my film career when I was sent all the best scripts of that year. I hadn’t read very many film scripts and had no idea how to read them or how to work out what was good and what isn’t.

I was filming Rushmore, which was a very literary script, and it was easy for me to see what was great about it and to see very clearly what the film would be. As you’ve gathered from previous answers I am not a particular sci-fi or action movie aficionado, and at the time I had no knowledge or understanding of special effects or camera trickery at all. In the article to which you refer, I was deriding my own ignorance when I sad that I couldn’t comprehend the plot from the script I was sent, and when my agent said they would be using astounding new camera effects that would make it extraordinary, I was none the wiser.

I hope I have become better at taking advice and seeing beyond my own limitations when choosing a script, but to this day I find that if I choose a job tactically it doesn’t work out well, whereas if I follow my own creative, dramatic or geographical urges, something good will come out of it.

The past few weeks have seen many actors speak publicly about their feelings over working with Woody Allen in this new culture that we’re now in. Do you feel that it’s the role of actors to apologise or justify working with directors who have been accused of sexual abuse?

No comment.

Have you ever had any interactions with Harvey Weinsten?

Harvey chased me around a sofa in his dressing gown. That seems to be equivalent to saying: “I was a woman in the movie industry in the 1990s.” U am adding my voice to bear witness to his behaviour so that others will be believed and action will be taken, but at the same time I don’t want my experience to draw attention away from those who suffered much more at his hands and at the hands of others.

As someone who has often been paired with A-list actors, such as Kevin Costner, Bill Murray, Antonia Banderas and Bruce Willis on screen, how have you dealt with the inevitable reality of unequal pay?

It was clear I got all those jobs because I was prepared to work for the price of a cup of tea. Each one required an actress who could square up dramatically to an experienced and established actor who had already swallowed the budget. The big name with big paycheque would bring in the punters so it was deemed fair that they got the money. I’ve had it explained to me 10,000 times. I don’t have any ‘box office’ – the number of people who would buy a ticket to watch me act. I don’t have the power to ‘greenlight’ a movie.

What, then, is my value, to a film company that works only in cash flow? Some of my pay cheques are from General Electric (who own a movie studio or two). I don’t fancy my chances trying to explain my creative input to the accounting department of a company that makes light bulbs. But maybe they will understand legislation that makes gender inequality illegal…

How difficult is it to be outspoken about these sorts of issues in the industry?

I’m very outspoken. I’ve told anyone who will listen about the pay gap and being pursued by Harvey in a badly rehearsed Benny Hill sketch. It’s not difficult at all. But nobody, until now, gave a damn.

How do you deal with difficult co-stars?

I have been very lucky and had to deal with very few. If asking ‘what do you need?’ doesn’t get a cooperative response I make friends with the DP (director of photography) and act opposite a piece of gaffer tape while the tricky fucker goes back to his or her trailer.

During your time working predominantly in the US, did you find yourself being offered a lot of thankless love interest roles?

I bypassed the love interest age and hit Hollywood at prime ‘your dinner’s in the oven’ age. I made it my mission to avoid “thankless wife”.

How hard is it still to find roles that truly excite you?

“How hard” is a very difficult thing to quantify. I have been lucky enough to play an astounding range of interesting and challenging characters: astronaut, spy, madam, physicsit, biologist, author, detective. I think the question is easier to answer if it is ‘how rare’ rather than ‘how hard’, and the answers is: very rare. Ten out of 10 rare. One hundred percent rare. On the other hand, the quality of writing and roles is rising all the time. The platform of long-form television seems to have noted the talent available among middle-aged actresses, and contrary to the peddlers of the ‘box office’ theory, audiences seem to watch them.

You’ve said before that a lot of actors don’t seem to actually enjoy acting. Why do you think this is and what’s your trick to getting some enjoyment out of your job?

I think it is an either/or – regardless of whether you are good at it. I know some truly great actors who are miserable while they are acting, and others who, edven while they are tearing their soul out, are in some kind of state of joy. So there is no trick. It is, in the nauseating phrase, my happy place.

Counterpart is now showing on Starz on Sundays the US with a UK date yet to be announced.

Original article at The Guardian