This unraveling is magnificently portrayed by Rebecca Hall, who fascinates in the role of Claire.

A veteran of stage and screen, it’s a pleasure to see her back on the small screen, alongside Prasanna Puwanarajah (The Crown, Ten Percent) and Gayle Rankin (Perry Mason, The Greatest Showman). “Claire needs depth and intensity in her life,” Hall said when asked what attracted her to the role. “Hearing that hum changes one’s understanding of the world. We all understand that reality is exactly like that and then, when you delve into physics and scratch the surface, all of a sudden the fabric of the universe peels away. And in fact, it’s chaotic. Nothing about it is orderly or normal.

“Oh, weird!” she suddenly exclaims. “There’s steam coming out of the top of your head. What is that? They’re releasing a smell into the atmosphere. It’s intense.”

At first I think she’s riffing on her theme of chaos, but as I turn around I see that we appear to be sitting next to the source of an acrid odor, with fumes billowing from a mouth of a ventilation in the wall which probably passes for an ambient scent. the high-end hotel we are in. “I’m very easily distracted by my surroundings,” Hall apologizes.

Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Jordan Tannahill, The Listeners is beautifully filmed, with a whimsical quality that amplifies the disturbing nature of the story. Claire is happily married but unfulfilled, longing for the connection she finds in the most unlikely places, after discovering that one of her students, Kyle, can also hear the buzzing.

Their search for its source takes them on a journey which, like the hum itself, can be read as a metaphor. “There are several meanings,” Hall acknowledges. “What’s great about long-form television is that there’s the opportunity to take a trip with Claire down the rabbit hole and have a belief system as a viewer that is then subverted and moved over and over again. Or if you’re not really sure you know what your belief system is, and that is, in a sense, what the show is about: how beliefs form in isolation.”

Convention is another theme explored through Claire’s friendship with Kyle, which some view as problematic. “The relationship with Kyle is really complicated, (and in some ways) inappropriate. But Claire is not predatory. She is completely isolated in an experience that destabilizes her own reality. So when she meets someone where there is parity, seems necessary to connect.

“Every aspect of this story makes me think about the way we exist today. There is an absence. We don’t have the community structures that we had in the 20th century, whether it’s unions, social clubs, churches. all these things that would bring us together in a space where we could check in on our experiences with each other in real time. Instead, we live in these entirely algorithmic environments, where our experience is in some way. adapted kind and therefore our experience of reality becomes isolated.

It only takes five minutes with Hall to see that the 42-year-old is incredibly bright. She has the kind expression of someone used to interacting with people on a less profound intellectual level, but she is entirely affable and warm. She’s also an actress who chooses her projects very carefully, which is probably why we haven’t seen her on our TV screens since Parade’s End about 12 years ago (although she did appear briefly in Tales from the Loop on Amazon Prime in 2020). Is it because nothing appealed? “Yeah,” she laughed. “I mean, right? There were a lot of things that appealed to me that I wasn’t offered.”

The appeal of working on The Listeners had a lot to do with its director, Janicza Bravo, whom Hall had already met. “I had developed a crush of total admiration for her. She is so insightful and brilliant, and we hit it off immediately. I was hoping there would be an opportunity to work with her and when my agent told me talked about The Listeners, I definitely campaigned aggressively. I immediately contacted Janicza and asked her to read it (the script).”

She says she didn’t do any research into hearing impairments – “not out of laziness, but because it was important that the character be ordinary and relatable. In that sense, the best work you What you can do as an actor is ask yourself how you would behave if this happened to you. So it wasn’t really rooted in anything else.

At first, the sound department gave her an earpiece to wear during a take to allow her to hear the buzzing sound that no one else can hear, but she didn’t use it during the entire shoot. “I didn’t want to hold on to a sound that was too consistent. Claire goes to a lot of different emotional places, so I wanted the sounds to change. In a sense, it became easier to imagine than to have something real.”

Although she was inadvertently helped by the sound of the camera Bravo used to film The Listeners. “It’s incredibly rare (to use 35mm film) for television. One of its weird features is that when the camera starts rolling, there’s this tick-tock-tick-tock sound of the film that runs inside the camera I really believe in The granular quality and smoothness of the film allows you to focus on different things, whereas the HD experience can sometimes create an alienating effect. film which, I think, is closer to our experience of the world.

She says she shares some characteristics with Claire. “Sound usually drives me a little crazy. I’m very sensitive to it – this chair is driving me crazy right now. I can barely eat if there’s too much noise.” Like Claire, she also sleeps poorly. “I’ve been horrible since I was seven.”

Has she tried any remedies? “Everything. I have a system. I can sense if it’s going to be a bad patch and I know what to do. It’s a combination of magnesium, maybe a little melatonin, CBD oil..” She says she doesn’t know what. started it. “No idea. Actually, probably yes. I had a pretty crazy childhood, so it probably started there. But it quickly became something that was just my reality. That means I always did a lot of things,” she said. brilliantly. “I read a lot.”

Interviewed by the New Yorker in 2017, Hall recounted how her parents, opera singer Maria Ewing and theater impresario Sir Peter Hall (who divorced when she was seven) would take her to dinners when she was a child and allowed him to “stay”. getting up really late just to sit and listen to people.” Can we assume she prefers listening to talking? “Yes. I am naturally a curious person about people. It’s not natural for me,” she smiles, referring to her interview.

I tell him that it’s not natural for me too and that – no offense – I prefer to write during the interview process itself. “I prefer to write too!” she smiles. “I’m writing a few things. I always have two or three things going.”
She acknowledges that it’s not the easiest time for independent filmmakers. “It’s difficult to get things going right now. We live in a very risk-averse climate, although there are obviously still big changes happening.

“No one really knows what the formula for success is. No one ever knew. I wish there were better avenues of funding for people who want to take artistic risks in this country, and also in America, where there are no government subsidies.”

Hall was born in London and studied English literature at Cambridge, but has lived in America for ten years, which surprises her. “I never really thought that I had moved. And then I woke up one day and realized that I had, without ever really making the decision. I always considered myself first and foremost a Londoner.” She lives in upstate New York (“in the country, nowhere – thankfully”) with her husband, actor Morgan Spector, and their five-year-old daughter, Ida.

She confirms that she is following up her first film of 2021, Passing, with Four Days Like Sunday, a mother-daughter drama inspired by her own life, in which she will also star. “I was late in getting full financing this summer, and it’s a weather-dependent film, so I have to regroup and take stock. But hopefully I’ll shoot it next year. I also have a few other things that I’m committed to achieving, I’m in a slightly “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” situation.

Let’s hope this all sticks, because the world needs more Rebecca Hall.

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