Ayla Ruby
Balancing sharp political maneuvering with screwball marital discord, The Diplomat navigates a world where deadly serious stakes meet messy human nature. At the center of oftentimes volatile dynamic is Hal Wyler, brought to life with intrigue, charm, and humanity by Rufus Sewell. Fresh off an Emmy nomination for his performance, Sewell sat down with us over Zoom to talk about how the series found its distinct rhythm, the fine line between comedy and tragedy, and finding the private truth in some of his most devastating silent moments on camera. Read on or listen to the interview below.
Ayla Ruby: It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m a huge fan, so this is delightful.
Rufus Sewell: Thank you. Lovely to meet you too.
Ayla Ruby: Congratulations on the nomination. This show and this season is a treat to watch.
Rufus Sewell: Thanks.
Ayla Ruby: Can you talk about a little bit what the nomination means for you? And can you share anything about how you found out?
Rufus Sewell: I got yanked out the shower. I heard a yelp. I’ve become very philosophical over the years. It’s easier decided than actually done. To care about them if it’s reasonable to care about them, and the rest of the time to just take care of myself. And I’ve developed over the years a system of judging my own work that is reasonably independent, which can be very helpful at times. So I didn’t have any real expectations. I’m more a case of just steeling myself, not to take it personally, et cetera, et cetera. So it was just an incredible surprise, and a lovely feeling and very nice for the show as well. We’ve got more nominations now than ever before, which is the feeling that the general appreciation and understanding of the show has developed along with us. And also I just feel it’s got better in a way. It’s found itself.
Everything that I loved about the show, the DNA of that, which is an expression I overuse amazingly, was all present in the first couple of scenes that I read that made me fall in love with it. The ones between Hal and Kate had that comedy of divorce, screwball dynamic, as well as being very natural, and real, and recognizable as a long-term relationship, that the more people have spent time with it and trusted that the strange shifts seemingly in tone were actually the tone. It’s the tonal shifts that are the fact that it can go from something deadly serious, to stupid, with all of the variety of reality is actually the tone. And I think it’s wonderful to feel like the public is slowly getting to really know and trust the show and to give it some… It feels like it’s getting braver and more dynamic, and it’s stretching out its elbows in weirder directions, which is a lovely feeling.
So being nominated is wonderful. It took me by surprise, but I’m very happy about it.
Ayla Ruby: Well, the shift you mentioned, the shifts in the show and the tone, it’s like this very interesting music composition almost. It’s just so satisfying to watch and wonder what’s going to happen with all of that.
Rufus Sewell: Exactly. I think for me, and also I know for Kerri that there’s a scene in episode three of season one where she comes at me in a bush.
Ayla Ruby: Yes.
Rufus Sewell: And we were really looking forward to that, not just because it’s obviously fun, even more fun for her. She got a worrying gleam in her eye whenever she talked about it coming up. That for me, what that represented was not just the tone of the scene itself, which seemingly outlandish, but at the same time recognizable in some way. Not everyone has attacked their spouse in a bush, but the kind of ridiculous lengths that you can go to, it was the shift from very, very serious and sober, into that and straight back into very serious and sober, for me, encapsulated the tone of the show. And also what I loved was in the mercurial relationship, and these personalities that had that kind of intellect and wit tied in with their intellect.
Ayla Ruby: I love that scene. And it’s like you said, and then she goes right into talking with Rayburn about some serious things.
Rufus Sewell: Exactly. Pulled in to talk to the president with bits of twig in your hair.
Ayla Ruby: It’s amazing. There’s that funniness in the comedy that you mentioned, but there’s also there’s just heartbreak, and tragedy and power.
Rufus Sewell: And I think they’re combined. For me, these are people… And I said these are people. In my experience, most people are like this. The threads of what is funny are tied into the threads of what is sad and tragic, and all of these things are roiling alongside each other and within each other all the time. And anything that reflects that is really my cup of tea. And this in particular, that for me, when I read it, when I fell for it, it was actually as a comedy, but not in a comedy that is served, a comedy that’s just naturally funny. There’s certain types of comedy that I like to see played, played heavy. But this kind of thing is people don’t step out of character. They’re not aware that they’re being cute. And they’re people that don’t need to show that they’ve got a joke, which is a sign of slowness in my experience.
“Ah, that was funny. I get that.” There’s none of that. These people are just moving on.
Ayla Ruby: Yep. Everything in general… Well, I feel like with the show too, everything in the show is just so fast that there’s just things going on very quickly.
Rufus Sewell: Unapologetically fast as well.
Ayla Ruby: Yes. And I love that.
Rufus Sewell: Watch it again if you’re confused.
Ayla Ruby: But even with that, there are these moments of pause, and there’s this one moment, you’ve got all this international jargon, this negotiation back and forth, but there’s this moment, maybe episode two of season three where your character’s about to… I know, your character’s about to get on the plane and she doesn’t follow him. And there’s so much acting, and you’re silent for a while. And just how do you do that? As an actor, what goes into that moment?
Rufus Sewell: There’s a lot of thinking about it, and there’s so many different perspectives in this show, and that’s what’s very interesting. Because I was aware that this show is in very large part about Kate’s perspective. At the same time, Hal’s perspective is his own. And depending on which side you viewed it from, you could see that in different ways. Now it’s my job to understand as an actor what the perspective of the writer may be, and the character of my wife, but also my own. And I think what’s best about this show where it lives is in those vague, conflicting things that exist at the same time. Something can be selfless to hide selfishness and vice versa. And these are very complex people that have multiple games running at the same time, especially Hal. So for me, it took a lot of computing to work out where I was, and then to throw it away.
It was a very confusing moment for him, and I think I have to have my own secret narrative also. So a lot of it is very internal and very private. And it’s interesting that people interpret that scene in very different ways according to their own take on the relationship, and their own experience, et cetera.
Ayla Ruby: What is that like when you have people reacting to your art? When you have people reacting to these things that you put on screen? As in-
Rufus Sewell: It’s fun, I think. And also when you’re playing a character that is, I have a history of playing lots of very dark characters, but also I’ve always really personally lent into comedy, et cetera. But what I love about this character is it actually, it plays us both. And yes, there is a side of him, especially in terms of the story that he is the Deus at Diabolus or whatever. If they’re in a corner in the writer’s room, I know there’s someone they want to make do something. The fabulous thing about Hal is he’s that kind of character. And people have strong opinions about him, which is great. And it’s like I can’t say that anyone is fundamentally wrong or fundamentally right. The truth is somewhere in between. But I really like it when people come up and talk to me about it, as long as they’re not violent.
Ayla Ruby: There’s no shoving anyone into twigs or anything like that. Has there been a moment this season… To bring it back into I guess the specifics of three, that was just really fun for you professionally to do, or really gratifying, besides all of it?
Rufus Sewell: Yeah, I’ve always loved my scenes with Kerri. Because there’s this, I don’t know if you call it trust or whatever, even the opposite of trust. Is it cooperation? Is it the opposite of cooperation? I just know that she’ll be fine. She’ll probably be fine. And I have my take on it. She has her take on it. We meet, we do it, and we listen, and we’re not even trying to surprise each other, we’re just playing. And it always is fun. But I have to say the episode, episode five, which is-
Ayla Ruby: Is it the house?
Rufus Sewell: Yes, it’s the house, the oysters with Allison and Bradley. The scene is with the four of us, it was the first time that they’d really let Bradley run. And the dynamic that seemed to me like something out of a New York comedy from the ’70s in a Woody Allen style it just seemed like the kind of thing that doesn’t get made. Do something that felt like a short play with the best actors in the world, myself not included. I just meant really fabulous and very nice, very generous people. The spirit of play. The spirit of play, that sounds pretentious. We were f*cking around. It was fun.
Ayla Ruby: That’s the best. When you have that relationship, when you have that attitude on set. I love that.
Rufus Sewell: Yeah. And some of my favorite moments weren’t even scripted. There’s a fabulous moment where Allison, as the President, something goes wrong with the planned food. So she opens a big bag of pretzels and empties it out into a bowl. She has that moment when she doesn’t know what to do with the package. So she scrumbles it up and sticks it behind a cushion, which is such a fabulous little moment for this show, because it’s all about the conflict between the presentation of these figures in the way that we’re used to, and the scrabbling little human underneath dealing with these moment-to-moment things.
Rufus Sewell: How to get rid of a packet, how to deal with your flys being broken, having an itch when you’re at a podium.
Ayla Ruby: And I know we’re getting very close on time and I want to be respectful of that, but is there anything… There’s so much I could ask about, and especially about that last, the final episode of season three, and the maybe betrayal, but not really betrayal, depending on whose perspective you’re looking at it.
Rufus Sewell: Exactly. And it’s definitely that is a scene, for example, that’s very much filmed, I think, quite consciously, because she’s looking at me through her perspective and things don’t look very good. Those very vampiric shots of me. But all I would say is with all of the best writing, if you just keep watching, more will be revealed. There’s always a different perspective. There’s always more information coming in, which is what I love about this, that everyone’s given the benefit of Deborah Cahn’s intellect and her full understanding. So no one becomes dumb in order to move the story forward. They might do something dumb, but there’s always-
Ayla Ruby: But there’s a reason.
Rufus Sewell: Yeah, there’s always a reason. And the reason might be you could judge that reason in the light of all of the information that comes in, but people do have their reasons.
Season Four of the Diplomat will return in October, but you can catch up on all of Season Three now on Netflix.
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