Interview: Andrew Scott On The Subtle Charms and Dark Deceptions of Tom ‘Ripley’

How do you play a character so masterfully manipulative you question his every word? That was one of the challenges Andrew Scott faced in taking on the role of Tom Ripley, a duplicitous enigma of man. Scott’s approach involved delving into the character’s more benign qualities and establishing an “emotional biography” to guide his performance, despite not having all the answers about Ripley’s complex nature.

Just what was the Ripley backstory? Scott would not share and the viewers benefit greatly for it. The layers of intrigue that remain are part of what made Scott’s performance so gripping. Each prolonged pause or subtle glance behind Tom’s ostensibly kind yet shifty eyes intensified the suspense, revealing the complex gears turning within the character. It is no wonder the performance earned Scott a much-deserved Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Scott spoke with Awards Radar about the nuances of his work on the limited series in a fascinating conversation where he delves into the intricacies of portraying the enigmatic Tom Ripley. He reflects on his strategy for embodying Ripley, focusing on the importance of uncovering the character’s subtler characteristics to craft a portrayal that is as multifaceted as it is chilling. Each of Andrew’s responses provided more appreciation for the performance while still retaining the mystery of the talented Tom Ripley.

Below you can find a few of the highlights of the interview as well as the video of our conversation in its entirety – it is well worth the watch.

What were your first instincts on how to approach playing Tom Ripley?

“Well, I suppose I think the thing that I wanted to look for was, what are the benign qualities that he has rather than the more malign characteristics that he has – because he’s known as a famous murderer. He’s a literary character and he’s famous. So I suppose that the job, like with any character is to almost to go to the opposite end of what you might expect in the sense that I think when you’re playing. If you’re doing something that’s funny, I think you have to look for the soul of what the comedy is, because it’s all about telling the truth in some way.

There are a huge amount of things within Tom that I found endearing in the sense that he’s somebody who’s very overlooked by society and he’s somebody who’s very, very talented and he’s solitary in some senses. It’s to be able to understand where he might be coming from, because that is the exercise that I think Patricia Highsmith wanted her readers to go through in the sense that she wanted to create what it’s like to be Tom Ripley rather than to be a victim of Tom Ripley, which was kind of very original at the time.

So for that reason, I think we need to go, ‘OK, Well, I sort of like this guy and I can be scared of him, but I can also kind of understand him a little bit as well. But then also I discovered that there’s a huge amount of Tom that is unknowable. It’s just unknowable. And that’s okay, too, because there’s a lot of people who exist in the world who don’t know themselves. There’s a big sort of chasm that they can’t access. And I think those kind of characters should be represented as well.”

On creating a backstory for Tom Ripley;

I did, to a certain extent. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t have said that I formalized it. I feel like that he’s a character that has secrets, and so I feel like I wanted to keep those secrets to myself.

So I did kind of make decisions imaginatively that I felt like I had to sort of keep for him about what his background might be or what his sexuality might be or what his sort of vulnerabilities might be. But I definitely kept those to myself. We didn’t rehearse for – we didn’t have those kind of conversations.

I made those decisions for myself, and he’s a kind of an unreliable narrator in some ways because he talks about his family. But I don’t know if what he says is true because he’s an expert, expert liar.

There are things that I thought of, but I didn’t tend to overthink that because I think that can actually, in some ways, reduce the character if I’m thinking, ‘Okay, well, he was born in this exact thing,’ and then I’m sort of not moving forward. I’m not sure that would have served me too well. But certainly I kind of had a sort of an emotional biography for him if I want a better expression.

On learning Italian for the part:

I learned Italian for about four months before we started. I didn’t want to just like learn the lines. I wanted to have an understanding of the character. So, yeah, I just learned Italian and I had amazing Italian teacher and I was in I used to do that on Zoom when when I was in London and then I went to Italy and that continued. And then the challenge, you know, it was definitely intimidating because he would be good at speaking Italian because he’s talented. So, yeah, that was that was a big that was a big, big part of it.

Why do viewers root for someone as manipulative as Tom Ripley?

Well, it’s a really interesting question that people have asked me, you know, have you ever met a Tom Ripley type character? And my my response sort of always is, well, everybody has a little bit of Tom Ripley in them. I’m not necessarily saying that people are murderous, but that idea of not being invited to the party, I think a lot of people can relate to. He’s very talented at what he does.

`When he’s submerged into a world where these kind of less talented people are writing books and painting pictures and calling themselves artists with such a degree of entitlement that he would never assume to have. There’s a kind of, I suppose, a rage of some description kind of emerges in him. In some ways the injustice of the way beauty in the world is doled out, where some people have such access to beauty and art and education and some people don’t is a cause for rage.

I can understand why people feel like, I’m a human being. I deserve that as much as this person, and particularly if you’ve got something to say and you’re an artist. So I think that’s kind of what she’s talking a little bit about and what why we sort of root for him. And he is a lone figure. You know, he doesn’t have a lot of friends.

And I think just spending that amount of time with the character, of course, you’re going to you’re going to you’re going to sort of seep into their bones a little.

Ripley earned 13 Emmy nominations including Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series and Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie for Andrew Scott’s co-star, Dakota Fanning. The limited series can be found streaming exclusively on Netflix.