Film

In the Company of Actors

A 75-minute window into the Sydney Theatre Company's rehearsal room as Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and ensemble prepare Ibsen's Hedda Gabler for Broadway. It captures the messy, vulnerable work of building a production—the arguments, breakthroughs, false starts and moments of quiet discovery. For anyone curious about how actors actually work, or what theatre feels like from the inside.

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State of Play2009

David Hare's screenplay about a politician and journalist pulls apart power, complicity and the spaces between public and private. Blanchett brings the same intelligence and moral weight she carries into Ibsen, in a conspiracy thriller that never feels like one.

But It's a British political drama from the early 2000s, which means it moves at its own pace and trusts you to keep up. If you want your tension to pulse, this may feel too still.

State of Play poster

I'm Not There2007

Weaving is extraordinary in Todd Haynes' kaleidoscopic Bob Dylan film, playing a charismatic charlatan—the inverse of the precision and decency he brings to Judge Brack. A dizzy, ambitious meditation on authenticity and reinvention.

But Structured as six overlapping stories with six actors and no linear narrative. It's deliberately disorienting. If you want clarity, it will exhaust you.

I'm Not There poster

Notes on a Scandal2006

Blanchett and Judi Dench in a small, vicious psychological thriller about desire, complicity and the stories we tell. Sharp as broken glass, built entirely on performance and the space between what people say and what they mean.

But It's claustrophobic and morally murky. No one to root for. The pleasure is cold, not warm.

Notes on a Scandal poster

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Persona1966

Both are about the gap between the actor and the performance, and what happens to the self when you push that boundary. In the Company of Actors watches artists rehearsing; Persona is what it looks like when an artist refuses to perform at all.

Bergman's film about an actress who stops speaking and a nurse, forced into proximity and psychic merger. What happens when you remove one person's performance—what's left beneath? A meditation on the self as construction, in the body of a gothic thriller.

But Swedish, 1966, often difficult and sometimes impenetrable. Not a film that explains itself. Demands active interpretation.

Persona poster
More like this (5)

The Conversation1974

Coppola's masterpiece about surveillance, guilt and the impossibility of detachment. Gene Hackman gives a performance of such interiority it feels like you're watching a man's conscience work in real time. Everything hinges on what actors don't say.

But Measured to the point of severe. If you're expecting suspense, you'll find paranoia instead—slower, stranger, more unsettling.

The Conversation poster

Doubt2008

Shanley's play about accusation, doubt and moral certainty, with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams locked in a battle of will and interpretation. Like rehearsal room conflict made into drama—the argument is the whole thing.

But Almost entirely dialogue. People talking intensely in a few rooms. If you need plot, there almost isn't one.

Doubt poster

The Hours2002

Three women, three eras, one day—Cunningham and Daldry's elegant meditation on choice, desire and the cost of living. Blanchett gives a performance of such delicate precision it feels like watching someone think. Utterly interior.

But Glacial. Beautiful but remote. You have to meet it halfway, and some people don't have the patience.

The Hours poster

Red Lights2012

Both follow an ensemble through rehearsal. This one shows what happens when the world outside the rehearsal room is actively collapsing, and the work becomes an act of resistance.

A documentary about Cillian Murphy and a theatre company building a production of Caryl Churchill's play during Troubles-era Belfast. Like In the Company of Actors but set against real political violence—the same devotion to craft in a context where the stakes are not metaphorical.

But Grainy video, intimate and sometimes hard to hear. Shot on what looks like a camcorder. If you want pristine image quality and dramatic arc, this is neither.

Red Lights poster

F for Fake1973

Both are about the space between the person and the persona. Welles is asking whether any act of presentation can be honest; In the Company of Actors watches actors trying to make that honesty possible through work.

Welles' essay-film about authenticity, deception and performance. A magician's argument about what's real. Only 85 minutes, and it contains more ideas about truth and artifice than most films three times its length.

But Structurally chaotic. It shifts register constantly and trusts you to follow the argument. Some people find that liberating; others just find it confusing.

F for Fake poster

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