The Diplomat star Rufus Sewell knows you’re mad at Hal — he’s been “told off on street corners,” he tells Gold Derby.
But he insists there’s more to his character than meets the eye. “Sometimes it looks like he’s a bad guy,” he says, “but then you realize he’s risked looking like a bad guy in order to be a good guy.”
In a video interview with Gold Derby (watch above), Sewell defends Hal’s every move since becoming Vice President — and what it all means for the state of his union heading into season 4.
Gold Derby: Let’s go back to the final scene of season 3. What’s going through Hal’s mind at that moment?
Rufus Sewell: What’s going through his mind is his very good reasons for doing what he’s done. And the complex situation regarding where they may or may not have been in their relationship when he made the decision to keep [Kate] out of the process. And also bearing in mind the way that looks, and how little time he has to deal with that at the particular moment, because a decision with historic proportions needed to be made — which you will get more data on in a future season.
I cannot wait. And what are those good reasons? How does he justify it to himself what he does?
How does he justify it to himself? You say that as though that he needs to justify it to himself. I don’t think in the room in the situation with the President there is a moment’s doubt about what they have to do, considering the ramifications of not doing it. I can see what it needs to be for the scene. And I can see, especially when I see the edit, how it is framed to look from her perspective specifically. And that works for the dynamic of the story. It makes for an ending that gets me told off on street corners. But I was very confident at the time that there would be more info and data incoming so that you would be able to, as is always the case with these characters in this story, see it from a slightly different perspective. So it’s not quite so cut and dried.
What ultimately motivates Hal? Is it power? What is his ultimate goal?
Well, that’s quite an interesting question. I’d say definitely power, but to what purpose? I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, particularly as we go into season four, and the real question with both of them is, what do you want to do and why do you want to do it in life? Why are they doing this? And I believe both of them really do want to do good things. They want to do when they started out which is help people in a very real sense. And in order to do that, you discover more and more that you need to have access. You need to be in the room because you can tick all the right boxes, but be in a position where you are unable to affect any outcomes in the slightest. You can make yourself so perfect in every deed and every thought and every cause, but you could get locked out of the room so that your power to affect anything for the good is so much less than if you’d made a few compromises. And the sweet spot is how far to go. That is the question with him very much. But I don’t doubt for a second his reasons for wanting to do it. I think the reason he’s so good at it is because he’s been able to walk that line for a very long time. Sometimes it looks like he’s a bad guy, but then you realize he’s risked looking like a bad guy in order to be a good guy. It’s a tricky one to navigate, but it makes for very good television.
And sometimes it means I have to be a little patient, or I have to be generous when people attribute motivations to my character or inner workings that I feel aren’t quite fair because I understand it’s been made to look the way it has. It’s very interesting. It’s one of the fun things about Hal is that in order to pull off great feats, he is prepared to take risks that can impact other people, which is basically what a president does every day. But he is prepared to take those risks. And the times he has gotten away with it have given him a kind of legendary reputation. But the few times when he has not gotten away with it, and it has not been just him who has paid the price, that has also given him a reputation — and both are deserved.
Would he risk his marriage?
Well, he might unwittingly risk his marriage, but you don’t know what it is that risks your marriage. I mean, sometimes it’s obvious. But what I’m saying is, a lot of the things that you might consider would be a risk to a marriage are actually the meat and potatoes of this relationship. This is where they live and thrive. And they’re used to it. This is sex talk for them a lot of the time. And they often passionately disagree. This is how they get to ideas; they’re not afraid to confront each other. They know each other incredibly well. They know each other’s pitfalls, and they’re each other’s great fans. And you never know — the thing that keeps the marriage alive might have appeared like a risk at the same time. And in order to try to protect the marriage, you can kill it. In order to protect anything, you can kill it.
I think he cares deeply about her and their relationship. He loves her very much. I think they both love each other, and there’s no doubt about that. I think they’re both very attracted to each other, maddened with each other, bored with each other — all of those things. I’m not saying that it could not get to the stage where he would suddenly look at his life and say, oh, I’m not prepared to take that risk. That could happen. And if [showrunner] Deb [Cahn] were to go that way, I would wholeheartedly embrace it, because I think what I love in this show and I think what Keri loves is to destroy the great things, to lose, to miss, not to win, or if to win in order to lose and vice versa. In order to preserve the DNA of the thing that we love not to try to fight to keep it.
Debora does such a great job pushing the tensions in the marriage. Do you enjoy playing into that?
I love it. The beginning of season three to discover that things have gone wrong and that I’d been offered the position of vice president — this is not something that was part of Hal’s plan at all. That really threw everything. But what is wonderful about it for us as actors and just for general fun every day is the friction it causes. It knocks a bucket of s–t everywhere. You have to deal with it. But also it changes the status that you have to work around. There’s more complication, there’s more things to dance around. It’s a lovely new problem. And towards the end of season two, I wouldn’t say I was concerned because of my trust for Deb saying, OK, so we’re in danger of a kind of repeat, rinse and repeat situation here. It was just the right time to up the ante, change the status so you’ve got a new set of problems.
We also got to see more of your and Kate’s relationship — the backstory. What did you learn from that experience? What did that bring to you playing in Hal in the present day?
With most of these things, these are things that were conversations we’d had together and with Deb. We’d talked a lot about what our backstory was, and it very much informed what we were doing. It was really nice to get a chance to embody different iterations of ourselves, in the same way that it was very nice to play the opposite, to play an upgrade in status in that relationship and see what that reveals and shows. All those things just makes it so much fun. And it’s nice to have the audience discover things that we’ve kind of known all along.
Are there other questions you still have about his backstory or other pieces of the puzzle we’re going to get to learn?
I always like to keep myself open to that. As far as I’m concerned, I am very happy to fill a vacuum with my imagination and I’ll take bold swipes just to make a big decision. And if it gets contradicted, no one knows what my decision was. They might see something going on. They don’t know what it is. They don’t know what I’m thinking. I actually quite like discovering something about your past that they didn’t tell you, that they’ve just decided that might change the way you look at yourself. And I have no problem with that because that happens in life. You can discover something about someone or you can discover something about yourself — late-stage developments, so I’m very happy for a monkey wrench to be thrown in. So who knows? I like surprises in this safe environment.
This season you got a new couple to play against, with Bradley Whitford and Allison Janney — a funhouse mirror version of your relationship.
I think it’s fantastic for the show. It’s fantastic for us, in this time when we’re supposed to be playing couples. It’s lovely to be playing at playing Episode five in particular, we’re all in the same house. That was just a delight, because I know Deb enjoyed the opportunity to write a little set piece. It felt like being an old Woody Allen [film]. And also what’s fabulous about it, it had to do with social situations like that when you’re there as people, but you’re also there as your positions, as your job, and the kind of conflict between those things, which is what the show is about for me. That dynamic continued in season four of having a counterpart with complications it’s just fantastic. It gives us so much to play off, and for me to have Allison to play off, as the situation becomes more and more complex is an absolute delight.
What is the relationship between Hal and Grace? Is it a meeting of the minds? Is he manipulating her? What does Hal see in Grace?
I think Hal sees Grace quite clearly. Like any intelligent person, he makes a quick read of the room and he’s open to reassessing it. He has a pretty good sense of the good version, the bad version of her. He admires her, he knows his customer. She’s a formidable intellect, potentially very, very strong. It can go wrong. I think he really thinks he is the best person to be in the room… so the line to walk is you need to stay in the room. You need not to piss her off. She’s smart enough that you’re not going to be able to get away with manipulating her into this position. She may sometimes take a position that you disagree with. You have to back up because you need to stay vice president in order to save what juice you have for when it really, really counts. I don’t think he’s there to manipulate her so much. I don’t think he thinks, oh, this is my plan to be the president. I’ll simply do this.
He’s always been motivated by helping Kate’s career. That’s always been his goal. So what is his goal now?
I don’t think he’s always been motivated by that. I think he’s motivated by helping the team, helping whoever the door is closest to. And I think when they met, he was the guy — she was singing backup, he was the lead singer. Then his belief was that when it was her turn to be the lead, his sense was she would be ideally suited to thrive in this role, that she needed to be led to it because she would buck a little. So you could say that’s manipulation, but I believe it’s manipulation for her own good and her own best life. That was the play, ultimately, for her to be vice president because he thought she would be amazing, but she wouldn’t know that. That didn’t work out, but the door that opened was for him. Is he going to walk through it? F–king right he is, because access, because of what they want to do. If he has an opportunity to be vice president of the United States, especially when there is a president who might benefit, especially from someone like him being the next guy, absolutely he’s going to take that. He sees there’s trouble brewing, this is not the way I planned, but I am going to do this. But if I am going to do it before I say yes, while I still have some power to make a decision, I’m going to get her a position that she is worthy of. I was very glad that it was made clear. He has been for himself and he has been for her at all times.
Can this marriage be saved?
My attitude to that would be the same attitude to myself in a job like this. In stasis, don’t save it, kill it. When that happens, get out. I don’t think we’re there. But if it was, that would be my feeling.
What can you reveal about season four? What can you tease about where the marriage and the job is in season four?
I can say that it remains very complicated for various reasons. Some that you’ll be aware of the seeds of; already others are entirely new. The DNA of that relationship remains, one way or another. My belief is, and I know Keri feels the same way, that if you were to do a season set in a few years’ time when we were married to other people, I would still love to see that relationship because it’s the comedy of divorce. It reminded me when I read it early on of His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story in a wildly different setting. But the kernel of two people who had a spark and you can’t actually kill the spark. It may not always happen in real life. And it’s a genre that I love. I like the fact that there’s a very strong element of that in there. So I would say whatever happens to them, it’s fun.
What’s scarier, the state of the world in the world of The Diplomat or the state of the real world?
I feel nice and toasty going to work every morning. It feels very safe in comparison. But also there’s something about someone else’s dysfunction that is very comforting. But beyond that, I’d rather be in the world of The Diplomat to tell you the truth. Well, at the moment it depends. I mean, who knows where the story will go in both senses of the world?
Given the success of having Brad and Allison from The West Wing, what other cast member would you like to see join The Diplomat?
Oh, God. Personally, any of them. I love the entire series so much. But one thing I also really respect about Deb is she has a very keen eye as to when it becomes top-heavy with “spot a celeb.” It can happen with shows when it takes you out of it. There is a point watching a show when I feel it has been too many exciting calls to people’s agents from famous people. So she’s very, very judicious with these things, but the fact that what she managed to bottle with those two, because you get a sense of that it’s not the same characters, but a sense of their history, and they bring that in a different way. And that only benefits the show.
