‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ Standout Kathryn Hunter Finds the ‘Engine of the Verse’ in Shakespeare

Known for her gruff voice and gender-bending roles, Olivier Award winner Kathryn Hunter has spent most of her 30-year-plus career on the stage. She’s no stranger to Shakespeare, having played King Lear, Richard III, Timon of Athens, and Cleopatra. Now, Hunter’s turn as all three witches in Joel Coen’s BAFTA-nominated “The Tragedy of Macbeth” showcases her mastery of both the language and physicality of acting. 

You studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Is there anything you learned there that you still carry with you today?

RADA’s a very classical drama school. Unlike most of the students at the time who had done lots of acting, I hadn’t done much at all. I came from Bristol University, where I did a bit, but it was all so new to me. We did training in voice, in dance, in sword fighting and tumbling. We did Shakespeare and Chekhov and modern plays and ancient Greek. The ethos was to throw us in the deep end and teach us by trial and error rather than a certain methodology. Afterwards, I started working in rep theater doing some Shakespeare, some comedies, pantomimes even. And then I met with Théâtre de Complicité. Their theater was visually based and very physical, with a sense of telling a story through the body. It was like a whole new training. I feel like my sense of theater began there. With the RADA training and that foundation, I was lucky to have both schools.

What was your first big break?

On one level, it was the very first part I ever played, which was at university—because that’s the moment where you go, “I think I like this.” I did [Bertolt] Brecht’s “In the Jungle of Cities,” and then I did a French play and got my first-ever laugh. Those were key moments. Then, in a more conventional way, the big break came with doing Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s “The Visit” with Théâtre de Complicité, where I played the millionairess. I got an Olivier Award. 

How did you first get your Equity card?

I played Juliet a very long time ago. It was at a small theater called the Watermill Theatre. That was a very important experience, because it was my first feeling for Shakespeare. What I remember most vividly was the engine of the verse. It seemed to have an energy of its own. As you speak the words, they carry you. It was a very powerful feeling at the time, and it never left me. 

What advice would you give your younger self?

I wouldn’t reprimand myself for being passionate, but I would say you can be totally in it and then be able to step out and see that the world around you is also neat. The stage world reality was realer to me at the time than the so-called real world. And, of course, everything that happens in one’s life informs [the work]. People often say, “Isn’t it boring, saying the same lines every night?” Of course it’s not. Because every audience is different; the political situation in the world is different. All that somehow comes into the performance. If you have a text that’s about nature’s imbalances and storms, and you’ve heard on the news that there’s been a tsunami, it informs your psyche, and you speak those lines in a different way. 

What is your worst audition horror story?

It was kind of a horror movie. I was directing a play at the Globe at the time, and they said, “Come do this audition for this witch who transforms.” I went and did it very badly, thinking, There’ll be time to rehearse, and eventually, I’ll show them something interesting. It was the classic, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.” Helena Bonham Carter played the part in the end. Don’t go if you’re not well-prepared—that was the lesson. 

What performance should every actor see and why?

“Nomadland.” What Frances [McDormand] does is so delicate and layered. You think, Is that acting? It’s not a performance. It’s completely connected to the writing, as well. Sometimes you feel actors are struggling with the script. It didn’t have that conventional [structure of]: Here’s the climax. Time seemed to stretch in the way it does when it’s about grief and loss.

This story originally appeared in the Feb. 10 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.