What if you woke up one morning and forgot everything about your past? Can you trust your significant other, friends and family to fill you with the memories you are missing? This is the situation shown in Surface, the new psychological thriller series from Veronica West on Apple TV+. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Sophie, a woman who survives a suicide attempt by jumping off a ferry in San Francisco Bay. A tragic incident causes severe memory loss, so it’s up to her husband James, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and friends to tell her the details of her past life.
Sophie seems to have the perfect life that includes a wonderful job, a loving husband and a beautiful home. However, Sophie begins to wonder why she chose to end her life if it was so picturesque to begin with. Through her interactions with Baden, played by Stephan James, Sophie soon discovers the truth about her past. In an interview with Digital Trends, Mbatha-Raw and Jackson-Cohen discuss the appeal of psychological thrillers like Surface and the dilemma of playing secret characters.
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Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Digital Trends: Gugu, you have again ventured into the world of psychological thrillers. You recently starred in A girl before. Now, you act Surface. What was appealing about stepping into the role of Sophie?
Gugu Mbatha-Raw: Hmm. Well, I was actually on board Surface quite a long time ago A girl before. I had to be as I was an executive producer with Hello Sunshine, who I had previously worked with on Morning show. But Surface is completely its own thing. It is completely unique in its vision. It’s really very intriguing, and the mystery of the series drew me in from the first script. Veronica West’s writing is incredibly compelling, and the story of Sophie not knowing who she is, trying to find her identity, trying to find the truth of her life, was so intriguing to me. All the characters have so many layers it’s juicy stuff.
Oliver, your character, James, is outwardly the perfect husband with the perfect life. But you slowly start to learn that everyone, including him, has secrets. How do you think James presents this theme of a double life?
Oliver Jackson-Cohen: I think it’s interesting. We talked about this earlier, this dilemma if you’re faced with something that Veronica experiences on the show. The whole premise of the show, Veronica said that she saw this documentary called Tell me who I am, which is about these twin brothers, and one of them loses his memory. They had a terrible childhood. And so it’s about what he decides to tell him about their life. So if you ever find yourself in such a predicament, what do you do? Are you rooting out all the bad? Do you give the whole truth even though it hurts? What are you doing?
I think Veronica West has written this incredibly compelling show where we’re constantly playing with how much you reveal. How honest can you be? How much will it affect? How much will it cost? And that’s how we deal with it all the time. I mean, it’s more of a duality with all these characters of what’s revealed, which I think is incredibly fun to play. But hopefully, as an audience, you keep guessing.
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Gugu, how important was it to play an active character who takes the initiative into his own hands as opposed to the typical “damsel in distress” thriller?
Mbatha-Raw: Well, that was all for me, really. When we meet Sophie, she seems to have had this very traumatic event happen to her and at first you could see her almost as a victim. It’s under surveillance. She lives at home with her husband. She is in therapy and is in a fragile state emotionally and that she could see the path she is taking to empowerment. In the beginning, she asks everyone outside of her to tell her who she is. And then he must realize that he must go deeper within himself.
That was kind of a theme for me that I thought was really empowering because, I don’t want to give too much away, but by the end of the show, she not only has information, but she has so much power. Your idea of her is completely turned upside down. So that, I thought, was really complex and interesting to play.
Oliver, what was the dynamic of the scene between you and Gugu, knowing that you’re both playing characters who are hiding things?
Jackson-Cohen: I mean, it was incredibly interesting because, like you said, when two people are so close to each other and don’t share, it creates a kind of bizarre kind of tension that I think speaks incredibly to relationships and marriages. You know, we like to think that marriages are perfect things, but it’s all about the secrets we keep. It’s all about what information we keep so we don’t hurt the other person or whatever.
There’s this scene, and I remember it so clearly because we shot it very early on, where Gugu’s character Sophie comes back from Marino. It’s a tiny scene between our characters. He sort of walks into the room and says, “How was it,” and she says, “Yeah, good.” But it’s such a brilliant, tiny scene because it’s about, “Oh, they’re back with these double lives.”
Mbatha-Raw: There is so much underneath the words in relationships. And as you say, in a show like this where there’s tension, what’s not said really has power, and hopefully the audience will be inclined to say, “Do they really mean it? Can I believe what they say?” [laughing]
Oliver, who is a more suspicious rich man from San Francisco, James or Adrian from The invisible man?
Jackson-Cohen: Oh, Adrian for sure. [laughing] He is an absolute sociopath. I can’t say too much about Surface because I don’t want to spoil it, but Adrian for sure. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a house with that guy.
Surface — Official Trailer | Apple TV+
Gugu, now you are entering the role of producer. Has that changed your perspective on how to approach the role as an actor since you’re also thinking about the project from a producer’s point of view?
Mbatha-Raw: It’s incredibly satisfying. To be able to work with a company like Hello Sunshine, which is all about empowering women, with Reese Witherspoon at the helm as an incredible example of someone who went from acting to producer, business woman, Hollywood mogul, it’s really inspiring. For me, entering a project like this, the role is a dream role in terms of complexity and in terms of the character’s layers.
But also being able to talk to the showrunner and the directors on a level where you can influence the DNA of the series, the tone, the flavor, the music, was very satisfying. I think there is a lot of “me” in this show. There’s a lot of my taste and my soul in this show outside of the performance, just in terms of that executive producer role and being in those conversations.
The first three episodes Surface premieres July 29 on Apple TV+, with the remaining episodes debuting on a weekly basis.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn