You won’t find any better acting on the screen this year than you will watching Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling’s amazing performances in 45 Years — it’s no wonder they won the Best Actor & Best Actress awards at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. In this poignant and emotional film, written and directed by Andrew Haigh (Weekend, HBO’s Looking), Courtenay and Rampling play Geoff and Kate Mercer, a couple without children who are about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. As preparations are underway for their big party, Geoff receives a letter that shakes both of them. The letter, from Switzerland, lets him know that a body of a young woman has been found. It was Geoff’s girlfriend, Katya, who he was with before he met Kate, who died falling into a fissure in a glacier when the couple was on a trip to Switzerland in 1962. As they continue planning for their celebration, Kate becomes increasingly disturbed by Geoff’s preoccupation with Katya. It eventually causes her to question the life that they’ve built together.
An accomplished stage actor, Tom Courtenay rose to movie stardom with his first film, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) and achieved international fame with films such as Billy Liar (1963) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). I sat down with him recently in Los Angeles.
Danny Miller: I can’t stop thinking about this movie and the incredible performances by you and Charlotte. So many subtle little things that convey so much.
Tom Courtenay: It’s really extraordinary the effect this film has had on people. I’m intrigued by all the different things people find in it.
Like with every well-made film, I think we all bring our own stuff to the experience. I have a very specific view of Geoff and Kate’s relationship even though I know other people feel differently.
I think Andrew Haigh likes to leave those spaces for people.
Did you immediately “get” Geoff when you read the script for the first time?
I first read it on my iPhone, if you can believe it. I was away from home with my wife and some friends and saw this email from Andrew. I started reading that very first scene when Kate brings him the letter [Courtenay starts performing the scene] and was immediately mesmerized.
There are so many little moments that have such a truth to them.
I love that moment when he’s thinking about his girlfriend in the ice and says, “She looks just like she did in 1962 and I look like this.” I had this idea to then say, “Fuck me.” Really long, like “Fuuuuck me.” I did a couple of those and finally Andrew said, “Um, Tom, we really don’t need the ‘Fuck mes.’” And he was right, of course.
It’s funny how we have such a strong image of both you and Charlotte Rampling from the time period when Geoff and Kate first got together so it feels like I remember you two acting together, but you haven’t done anything with her before this, have you?
No. I’m about 10 years older than her but we’re certainly contemporaries. I was offered Georgy Girl back in the 60s but I declined it for whatever reason. But when Andrew offered this film to me I knew that Charlotte had already been cast and that was very easy for me to picture. He also sent a few pictures in that email — one was of the very flat landscape in Norfolk where Geoff and Kate live and one was a painting of the Alps covered in snow. I thought that was extraordinary.
I still can’t believe that you first read the script on your iPhone.
This is the only time since I’ve been an actor that something like this has come to me out of nowhere, this script that I knew nothing about came completely out of the blue. One of my friends had just said to me, “Have you got something lined up?” And I said, “Well, no.” And then my phone beeped with this screenplay.
Did you read the original short story that the script was based on?
Yes. It was just a fragment. Did you know that?
No, I didn’t!
Yeah, the main powerful thing that got into Andrew’s imagination was this girl down in the ice. That, and the word “heedless” that was in the story when the character was talking about how he was when they were young — which was the complete opposite of my youth which was extremely “heedful.” The whole thing with the anniversary and all of the other details were Andrew’s invention. That part when Geoff talks about what he heard just before Katya died, that’s just fantastic writing there. I was very excited to be a part of this.
There’s just not an emotion in the film that doesn’t seem authentic. But I wanted to sit Geoff down and tell him what to say to Kate to reassure her!
It’s funny because a lot of people say to me, ““Why does she bother? Why is she so upset about it?” I also love that while they’re obviously not young, this is not a film about being old, it’s just about being — what people withhold from one another. Some people say, “Oh, he should have told her more about it,” but should he have? I don’t think he would. Some people don’t quite get it, but the range of what people pick up from this story is considerable.
I know people also have very different feelings about the ending but I can’t help but think that there’s a great love there.
I would say so. But I’ve had people say, “I don’t think they did love one another,” or that she didn’t love him.
I was lucky enough to see your great Tony Award-winning performance in The Dresser on Broadway and my wife still talks about seeing you in The Norman Conquests in London. Is theater still your first love?
It’s what I longed to get back into after my early start in the movies. I wasn’t ready for that sudden fame that I had, to be honest. I hadn’t found my way of doing things so I felt it very necessary to go back to the stage.
But not so much these days?
Well, you know, I’ve been in lots of plays night after night, and people come around and you can see in their faces immediately whether they liked it or not. (Laughs.) I don’t want to do that anymore, dressing rooms after shows, God, no thank you. But I do love the variety of reactions to this film — people see things the way they see them.