Masterpiece Theatre | The Way We Live Now

Who's Who

Augustus Melmotte
David Suchet

Assets: a house in London's Grosvenor Square, a dangerous manipulative charm, an heiress daughter, Marie, and enough nerve to host a state banquet for the Emperor of China.

Prospects: the fulfillment of a dream of world commerce and to be accepted as an English gentleman with a country "seat"... and another in Parliament.

David Suchet could not escape the idea that Anthony Trollope's 19th-century rogue Augustus Melmotte had much in common with the 20th-century's Sir Robert Maxwell.

The multi-award-winning actor managed to get hold of radio recordings and interviews of Maxwell from the BBC. He also read five biographies, including A Mind of my Own by Maxwell's widow, Elizabeth.

"It's extraordinary," says Suchet, "how the lives of these two men are similar, but I do not try to portray Maxwell. I play Melmotte with a greater understanding because of my gained knowledge about Maxwell."

He is quick to point out that the similarity between Melmotte and Maxwell was not just his idea. "In many literary journals Maxwell and Melmotte are often tied together," he says. "But what audiences will see, if they know Maxwell's background, is that he mirrors the life of Melmotte and it is ironic that we use the word 'mirror' here."

Suchet agrees Melmotte is a monster. "He's vile to his family, including his downtrodden wife, he beats his daughter Marie, he's a crook, a charlatan, a pig and he's violent... yet he has a vision of free trade and free movement of money which in his mind could lead to a new and better world.

"There is something about playing the character that I totally adored. He scowls and looms over the whole story and he is one of the great literary monsters, yet there is something about this man that is totally compelling, just as there was a sort of compelling charm about Maxwell. They are larger than life, these men, and there are very few of them around at any one time."

Screenwriter Andrew Davies adds: "Melmotte is a monster of a character, well up there with Francis Urquhart from House of Cards. You're appalled by him, yet fascinated in a strange way."

Melmotte, a newcomer to Britain, is also an outsider who wants to be accepted as an Englishman. And that's the sort of role Suchet has always loved playing. "Melmotte is the ultimate outsider and I'm given to playing outsiders," says the man whose roles have included some wonderful examples: Poirot, filmmaker Louis B. Mayer, Freud, Salieri (Amadeus) and Shakespeare's Iago and Shylock.

Suchet was last seen on BBC Television as Baron Stockmar in Victoria and Albert and as the teacher in Murder in Mind. He is currently filming a series of NCS (National Crime Squad) for BBC One, following its debut as a one-off special earlier this year.

Suchet had never done a Trollope before, and he says it has been one of the most demanding, yet happiest, jobs of his career. "David Yates is one of the greatest screen directors I've worked with. He gives the actors the courage to dare to fail. That is so rare."

Marie Melmotte
Shirley Henderson

Assets: this wild cat may be a tragic figure with the worst table manners in society London, but she is also the richest heiress in town.

Prospects: marriage to Lady Carbury's dissolute son Sir Felix or Lord Nidderdale.

There was a moment during the making of The Way We Live Now when director David Yates left the cameras rolling at the end of a scene involving Shirley Henderson as Marie Melmotte in her father's study.

David likes to give his actors the chance to improvise. "Melmotte has this enormous desk in a room where Marie is never allowed to go," says Henderson, seen most recently as Jude in Bridget Jones' Diary. "It's a short scene where I have to go in and steal a cheque. But David kept the camera running to see what I would do after taking the cheque.

"I ended up imitating Melmotte, with my feet up on his desk and smoking his cigars, all the things a young child might do in a room she's not supposed to enter."

That piece of improvisation made it into the film and reveals the child in Marie's character, a girl dragged around the capitals of Europe without knowing what Melmotte had done to, or with, her mother.

"Poor Marie, she's out of her depth," says Henderson. "Her father wants her to enter society, but that's not her background. She thinks Sir Felix truly loves her, and if she wants something, she just goes for it. And that's not done in English society. In the end, she's in danger of ending up exactly like her father."

Henderson really enjoyed the production. "Working with this cast and someone like David Yates was wonderful. Being allowed to improvise is a wonderful thing for an actor, too.

"David Suchet improvises all the time and that's what I like doing. So we would argue, push each other about and keep our characters going all day, off camera or on. It's great fun to do and that's how we worked."

Henderson was at work with Goran Visnjic (Luca Kovac in ER) on a new BBC film, Doctor Sleep, during the 17-week shoot on The Way We Live Now. Miranda Otto (Mrs. Hurtle) is also in both productions.

"It is hard to do two roles at once. You've just got to take it one day at a time. There were times at rehearsal when I got my accents mixed up. Marie has a French/English accent, and as the detective in Doctor Sleep, I'm London."

Henderson was born in the Scottish highlands at Forres but was brought up in Dunfermline. She started acting at school and singing in clubs before going on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her film credits include Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland (Debbie) and Mike Leigh's Topsy Turvy (Leonara). Shirley was also in BBC Two's In a Land of Plenty (Anna Marie). Theatre work includes Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (Citizen's Theatre), the title role in Eurydice (Chichester Festival), and Perdita in The Winter's Tale and Miranda in The Tempest (both for the National Theatre).

Lady Matilda Carbury
Cheryl Campbell

Assets: a son, Sir Felix, who could marry Melmotte's heiress daughter Marie, and a daughter, Hetta, whom she hopes will secure the family estate by marrying her cousin Roger.

Prospects: a life of penury unless they do.

For Cheryl Campbell the role of Lady Carbury, the desperate dilettante author of such dreadful books as Criminal Queens, reflects a respectable Victorian woman's nightmare.

"In Victorian times, if you weren't married by a certain age, then you were frowned on," says Campbell, who recently delighted audiences as Nell in Peter Nichol's Passion Play (Donmar/Comedy Theatre).

"If you were married and became a divorcee or a widow, you were also frowned upon. And if you were a spinster you were frowned on. Women had a pretty tricky time of it."

And it was unforgivable, she says, not to be seen to be coping financially. "If a Victorian woman ended up penniless, there was no safety net. That's why Lady Carbury is relying on her daughter Hetta marrying cousin Roger Carbury and Sir Felix running off with heiress Marie Melmotte."

Lady Carbury knows in her heart that her beloved son is a complete disaster: a gambler, womanizer, and con man. But Sir Felix is her only real asset. "If she chucked him out of the house, he'd fall apart, and she needs to keep him in the fold because she can only survive on the money he might bring in. He's her only chance of financial security."

Campbell won BAFTA and Broadcasting and Press Guild Best Actress awards for Malice Aforethought and Testament of Youth and a BAFTA nomination for Pennies from Heaven. Her earliest roles included parts in the hugely popular Z Cars. More recent work includes Monsignor Renard, The Midsomer Murders, A Touch of Frost, and Inspector Morse. Other theatre work includes Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (RSC Barbican/Stratford), a 1985 SWET Actress of the Year award for A Doll's House, and Engaged (Royal National). More recent work includes The Strip (Royal Court), Volpone (National Theatre) and The Seagull (Donmar). Films include The Mill on the Floss, Chariots of Fire, Greystoke and The Shooting Party.

Hetta Carbury
Paloma Baeza

Assets: incorruptible; independent.

Prospects: a marriage of convenience to her cousin Roger Carbury or true happiness with young engineer Paul Montague.

Rebel Heart star Paloma Baeza is getting used to playing characters who fall for actor Cillian Murphy. Paloma first became friends with Cillian when they were making an American film about Irish students working in America, called Sunburn. Their characters became an item.

In The Way We Live Now, Baeza's character Hetta is under great pressure from her mother, Lady Carbury, to marry her cousin Roger. But instead she falls for Cillian's character, Paul Montague, a young engineer caught up in a dream of building a great transcontinental railway.

The two actors have just collaborated on the making of a short film, Watchmen. Baeza, whose real-life partner is writer Alex Garland (author of the novel The Beach), and Cillian wrote the piece, and she made her directing debut with it.

"I won't give up acting, but the skills of acting and directing complement one another brilliantly. On the first night of the filming I felt a complete fraud saying all those on-set things directors say. But after a while, you just focus on getting things done. I've learnt a lot about acting through directing and writing, and I think I'm a better actor now because you see the process as a whole rather than just the part you play in it," she says.

"Living with the Carburys is a nightmare! Being a Carbury is a nightmare! The expectation that she will marry her cousin is forced on her every day. Then all of a sudden Paul walks in and turns her life upside down."

Baeza thoroughly enjoyed the role of Hetta, and especially teaming up with the other members of her "family" -- Cheryl Campbell and Matthew MacFadyen. "We became friends and used to meet up together when we hadn't been filming for a bit to have lunch or a drink, so when filming started again we wouldn't come in cold."

Baeza, whose father is Mexican, started acting at school. Her career took off while she was studying English and Drama at university. She did the BBC's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and No Bananas. Soon afterwards she played Bathsheba in Far From the Madding Crowd. Recent credits include Anna Karenina, Waking the Dead and Feeny in Rebel Heart. Films include A Connecticut Yankee in King's Arthur's Court, All Forgotten and Gillies MacKinnon's The Escapist. Her latest theatre appearance was the critically acclaimed Navy Pier at the Soho Theatre.

Sir Felix Carbury
Matthew MacFadyen

Assets: his mother's purse and several thousand pounds worth of probably worthless gambling IOU's from his club chums the Hon. Dolly Longestaffe, Lord Nidderdale and the Hon. Miles Grendall.

Prospects: an absolute fortune, if he can sober up in time to elope with the richest heiress in London.

Felix is useless, spoilt, lazy, capricious and selfish, but, to the ladies at least, he can be funny, attractive and charming. He is also, after Melmotte, the biggest con artist -- especially when it comes to women. The women he uses -- innocently or otherwise -- include his mother Lady Carbury, his sister Hetta, and his two lovers, Melmotte's daughter Marie and country girl Ruby Ruggles.

Andrew Davies comments: "Felix Carbury is so pathetic, yet very attractive to women. He's utterly contemptible really, and he's my favorite character."

Matthew MacFadyen, who was nominated RTS Best Actor for the BBC/Deep Indigo production of Warriors, admits that his character -- a member of an aristocratic Victorian "brat pack" -- did call for some serious and pleasurable research.

The profligate waster Felix spends the night hours at his club, the Beargarden just off St. James', gambling and drinking. Daylight hours are for bed or hunting.

"There are four characters who spend most of their time in the Beargarden Club," says MacFadyen, seen most recently in three very different roles, the Scouser squaddie Private James in Warriors, the lead role of Daniel in BBC Two's Perfect Strangers, and as the battle-scarred naval officer in Michael Apted's Enigma.

So, MacFadyen and fellow actors Richard Cant (Dolly Longestaffe), Stuart McQuarrie (Lord Nidderdale) and Angus Wright (Miles Grendall) quite often found themselves at their own drinking hole. "I made great friends with Richard, Stuart and Angus. We had a lot of fun over a few glasses of wine, but you kind of felt it was okay because it was research. I'm not sure I could enjoy that sort of Victorian club life for real -- you'd certainly have no liver by the end of it." They were joined one evening by a professional poker player to show them how to deal, shuffle and so on, and a magician to demonstrate the art of slipping cards up their sleeves.

MacFadyen, whose mother trained as a drama teacher and whose father was involved in directing amateur drama, was trained at RADA. His recent theatre credits include Howard Davies' Battle Royal (National/ RSC), Declan Donnellan's School for Scandal (Barbican) and The Duchess of Malfi (West End, New York and international RSC tour). His films include Paul McGuigan's Sacrifice and Ben Elton's Maybe Baby. Other television includes the role of Hareton Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights.

Roger Carbury
Douglas Hodge

Assets: Carbury Hall (the family "pile") and possessor of the family conscience.

Prospects: lost dreams and heart-broken for the love of his life, cousin Hetta

For Douglas Hodge, The Way We Live Now brought unexpected comfort:

"Today, we often think the whole financial and economic infrastructure of Britain is collapsing, not just the trains, floods, foot and mouth, and so on, but also the kind of values and moral sense of the way we live today. I read this drama and looked back to 1875 to find things haven't really changed. So, in a way, I found the whole thing quite reassuring."

Hodge can understand why the book The Way We Live Now did not get the reception it deserved when it was first published. "Trollope had been away from Britain for some time, and returned to find everything had started to slide. He turned his gun on every aspect of society and probably caused some offence. He challenged the way the establishment worked -- how power had moved on, old money had disappeared, and Corinthian values had been dissipated -- the book was bound not to be heralded. In some senses, my character of Roger Carbury is Trollope writing in a great fire of indignation about every aspect of English society," he says.

Roger Carbury is a man still living in the 18th century. He's old money with old-fashioned ideas of marrying his cousin Hetta until she falls headlong in love with his friend, Paul Montague. The prospect of Hetta's brother, Sir Felix, inheriting his home and losing it in a game of cards doesn't cheer up cousin Roger, either.

This is the third Andrew Davies adaptation Hodge has worked on. He also had roles in Middlemarch (Dr. Lydgate) and Anglo Saxon Attitudes. Both were award-winners. Past television credits include Capital City (the yuppie Declan) and A Scold's Bridle. His most recent TV production was The Russian Bride, where he played a character obsessively in love again, and coming next year is Red Cap, a one-off special with Tamzin Outhwaite for BBC One. His first television was Behaving Madly with Judi Dench. Among his many theatre credits are Trevor Nunn's Betrayal (National), No Man's Land and Coriolanus (Almeida/Comedy) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regents Park Theatre). Immediately prior to The Way We Live Now, Douglas was appearing with Rupert Graves and Michael Gambon in Pinter's The Caretaker, for which he was nominated for the Olivier award for the part of Aston. His films include Saigon Baby (BBC), Bliss, and Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance.

Paul Montague
Cillian Murphy

Assets: A financial and emotional investment in Melmotte's railway scheme.

Prospects: the heart of Hetta Carbury or social disgrace if, as he suspects, Melmotte has made him one of a gang of swindlers.

Dublin-based Cillian Murphy makes his debut in a leading television role as Paul Montague, the young engineer who dreams up the idea of a transcontinental railway, and who soon finds himself head-to-head with crooked financier Augustus Melmotte.

"It's a brilliant story, very much a story for today," says Murphy. "Paul can see through a lot of this society stuff. All he wants to do is build the railway. He is frustrated by Melmotte and Melmotte is frustrated by him."

Yet however honorable in business, Paul shows his human fallibility when the beautiful Mrs. Hurtle rides into town from America, claiming he was her lover and is still engaged to her.

"It's been wonderful to work on. At the read-through I was terrified at the prospect because of the formidable presence of David Suchet. But when you start he's very generous. He raises your game; anyone that good raises your game. He's a lovely man and chilled out, too. I've never really done much in television before. I'm thrilled. I'm emotionally with Paul Montague, but I'm on entirely foreign ground playing an English role."

Murphy's first feature film was Stephen Bradley's Barman Pat. He studied law before becoming an actor. A starring role in Disco Pigs (Arts Theatre/ Bush Theatre) was a landmark for the young actor. The production won Best Fringe Show at both the Dublin and Edinburgh festivals.

"My aim, whether in television, film, or theatre, is to find good quality work with good quality people," he says. "I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it."

The Irish actor's ambition remains to play the "Irish Hamlet," Synge's The Playboy of the Western World.

Mrs. Hurtle
Miranda Otto

Assets: a dangerous American lady who once shot a man in Oregon.

Prospects: depends on whether she gets her man.

When Mrs. Hurtle comes riding into Victorian London from America, society gossip soon discovers she is on a manhunt... she and the young railway engineer Paul Montague share a past.

"Mrs. Hurtle is a dangerous and scary woman," says Australian native Miranda Otto, who plays the beautiful outsider in her first UK production. "She lives by different rules and has had a different background to the social set she finds in London. But she can play the game and cut the crap. She's had to look after herself and she's not afraid to go for what she wants... and that's Paul."

Otto's mother was an actress and her father is the distinguished Australian actor Barry Otto, perhaps best-known in the UK for his role as the dance teacher Doug Hastings in the Australian hit movie Strictly Ballroom. Next year, Otto will be seen as Princess Eowyn in the second of Peter Jackson's trilogy of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Trained at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Arts, she starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, and with Sean Penn and Nick Nolte in Terrence Malick's World War II thriller The Thin Red Line. Other films include the western The Jack Bull and Michel Gondry's Human Nature.

Otto is a bit of a global citizen just now, commuting between Australia, the UK, and USA. "I have an apartment in Sydney, but I'm not based anywhere, really. So I'm not tied to any place or person just now. A bit like Mrs. Hurtle, really."

Mr. Alf
Editor of the Evening Pulpit
Rob Brydon

Assets: Influential editor of the Evening Pulpit and running for Parliament.

Prospects: He is the one man with the power to bring about Melmotte's downfall.

Whether or not Rob Brydon, as the editor on the trail of Augustus Melmotte, gets his man will be revealed in The Way We Live Now. But Rob would never fancy the idea of actually being an editor.

As a presenter for several years with BBC Wales, he could never understand why everyone got so excited about the news. His dream was to be a performer and a writer, and in his mind he was a taxi driver called Keith, a character he had first developed while at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.

"Keith" turned into the fictional star of Rob's hit BBC2 series, Marion and Geoff, which went on to win The South Bank Show Best Drama Award. Since then he has co-created another BBC2 series with Julia Davis, Human Remains. He won Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards 2000 and was voted Best Newcomer to the Network at the Royal Television Society Awards. The Port Talbot-born performer has now found himself in a very new situation. "When you have success, people come to you and basically say: 'What do you want to do?'"

Winning a role in The Way We Live Now was a dream come true. "Terrific director, wonderfully creative atmosphere. It was a delight. I have just been learning on a set like this. The stuff I'm known for is what I've written for myself or with Julia. This is very different. I've been very much just watching the old, and even young old, hands who've done far more of this traditional filmmaking than I have.

"When you write and star in something like Human Remains, which Julia and I had a lot of control over, if a line doesn't work, you just change it. On something like this, when Andrew Davies has spent so long creating a wonderful script for us all, you don't want to change his lines because the odds are that he's got it right anyway. It's a different discipline."

Rob, who will soon be seen with Steve Coogan in the feature film 24-Hour Party People (along with Shirley Henderson) adds: "The story of The Way We Live Now is timeless. At the end of the day, it comes down to human nature, human foibles, and human behavior. We can all identify with that, whether actors are wearing a Victorian frock coat or an Armani suit."

The English Board of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway

Objective: to float a company on the London Stock Exchange and raise money to build a transcontinental railway from Salt Lake City to the Gulf of Mexico

Chairman: Augustus Melmotte
Corporate buccaneer and bully, charmer and dreamer

Secretary: Mr. Croll
Melmotte's man

Sir Felix Carbury
Melmotte's daughter Marie falls for this womanizing waster who believes fortunes should be earned without having to get out of bed before three in the afternoon... the hour when his club opens.

Paul Montague
An honest, young engineer with a suspicion that Melmotte has involved him in something very dishonest

Adolphus Longestaffe
Will he ever see a penny from the sale of his country estate to Melmotte?

Dolly Longestaffe
Adolphus' pecuniarily challenged son

Marquis of Auld Reekie
"Old" Scottish money

Lord Nidderdale
The Marquis' son and Melmotte's choice of a husband for his daughter, Marie

Lord Alfred Grendall
Reluctantly jumping through Melmotte's hoops

Miles Grendall
Lord Alfred's card-cheating son

Hamilton K. Fisker
Paul Montague's American partner. Is he in league with Melmotte?