Luther Ford on Playing Prince Harry and Working With Rami Malek

Luther Ford doesn’t know why his The Man I Love character makes some of the choices he does. “Ira,” says the actor, referring to director Ira Sachs, “is very keen on not talking about motives, not talking about intentions.” It’s a few hours before the New York Film Festival premiere of Sachs’ latest film and Ford, dressed comfortably in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a cheeky slogan tee he bought in Barcelona, is coming to terms with the after-effects of that style of directing. “Maybe my lack of articulation about the character signifies Ira’s approach,” he adds.

That style of filmmaking might have been frustrating for a different actor. But Ford, excited to be on a real film set after several years doing television, found Sachs’ atypical methods invigorating. It was certainly a far cry from his first screen role as a teenage Prince Harry in the final season of Netflix’s The Crown. From there, the young actor went on to appear in several other shows, mostly British, including BBC One’s King & Conqueror, Apple TV+’s Criminal Record, and Netflix’s criminally underrated Black Doves. Though he enjoyed each of those experiences, he admits: “I was pretty cynical about acting.”

Not so after The Man I Love. Under Sachs’ documentary-style approach, Ford discovered a new appreciation for the form. It wasn’t just that his character, Vincent, a young Londoner fresh to New York, mirrored his own experience during production. But as filming carried on—with Ford playing the lustful chaos agent that comes between Jimmy (Rami Malek), a renowned theater actor dying of AIDS, and Dennis (Tom Sturridge), Jimmy’s longtime partner and caretaker—Ford found himself newly convinced of acting as a genuinely artistic enterprise. “It just made me feel like I can be creative in [this profession],” he excitedly recounts. “I understood the creativity of acting. Now, I feel like actors do actually have quite a lot of control if they know how to involve themselves.”

Over green juices at Nine Orchard, Luther Ford sat down with GQ to talk about making the jump from TV to film, the unique experience of filming in New York, making an AIDS film that was about life rather than death, and why he prefers to act with people he doesn’t really know.

GQ: In just a few hours, you’ll be attending the New York premiere of this very New York film. How are you feeling about that?

Luther Ford: It’s very exciting. We were filming it this time last year, so it’s nice to be back. I find that it’s a strange thing coming back together as a group of people, because you do something so intensely for a very short period of time—especially with Ira, where it’s a pretty intimate relationship—and then you disperse and sort of move on. So I’m looking forward to it, but I guess I’m a bit nervous. I’m not really sure.

How does a young British actor find his way into this New York story? You’ve only been working for a few years, and most of your work has been in British TV productions.

Yeah, this is my first film, pretty much. In a way, it’s the first good film that I’d ever had the opportunity to tape for. But I’d seen Passages in the cinema and really loved it. So when I got an email to do a tape, I did it, even though I’m always like, “Is there any point? Everyone’s going to be fucking auditioning for this.”

Then I had a meeting with Ira. It wasn’t an audition. They were like, “He just wants to talk.” I was slightly nervous, but I was also more comfortable because I was like, “I think I can be myself and give him a conversation that isn’t an actor conversation.” I think he’s interested in people and wants someone who’s going to bring a lot of themselves [to a role]. So we just talked for like, two hours about films and local cinemas and then he was like, “So would you like to do it? I’d love for you to do it.”

He offered it to you right there?

Right there. And it’s funny, because I knew that he was talking to other people as well. He had never seen anything I’d done. He just cast me off his own instinct and was just very raw about it, which was obviously very nice, but kind of confusing.

When you first read the script, what was your initial impression of Vincent?

Well, I knew, and I think Ira did as well, that the real preparation for the film would be doing the film. Just in the sense of coming to New York, like the character, and having an experience. It’s quite strange to come to a city on your own, where you don’t know anyone, and have this short, intense experience. It’s fairly isolating, but you’re locked into something.

But I just had this sense of someone who’s really hungry for some connection and [is experiencing] that desperation of a first love, where it’s not even really “love.” What he is after is, in a nice way, quite simple. He’s just sort of infatuated with this man who he’s fascinated by.

Most people were first introduced to you through your portrayal of Prince Harry in the final season of The Crown. Vincent and Harry are clearly very different people, but I think they share a similar sense of rebelliousness. Are you drawn to that quality in a character?

I don’t know. It’s so hard to know because, at least with where I am in my career where I just do what I’m cast in, it’s not really up to me. I do think it’s definitely an attractive thing to play. But I guess it’s hard for me to compare them.

What about the process of going from a big Netflix production to a small queer indie? I imagine that the actual filming experience was different.

Well, I don’t really watch TV and I love films, so this is the ultimate. This kind of filmmaking is the best of the medium for me. It’s the most rewarding and the most creative. Because when something’s massive, it’s a machine. Also, Ira has a proper method. There are no rehearsals. There’s no read-through. Normally, he doesn’t really even want to talk about it. Once you start filming, he really won’t answer any questions until you’ve done your first take, because he wants to see what you are going to do.

So is he just throwing you in, putting the camera up, and saying, “Action?”

Well, he’ll be like, “I think you’re going to stand there.” But if you start saying the lines, he’ll be like, “No, no. Just hum them. I don’t want to hear them.” For him, it’s like, Either it happens or it doesn’t. We’ll try to mold it as it’s happening, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. That was scary for me because, normally, it’s the other way around, where you are really trying to make it happen. Even when it’s not happening, you’re forcing it. But Ira’s instinct is right, and it’s a testament to the fluidity of his creativity that he is so susceptible to what is right in front of him.

Before this film, I was pretty cynical about acting. I was like, “I don’t know how creative [this profession] is. You’ve just got your lines and you’re told where to stand.” But Ira was really putting so much trust in me. It was daunting, but ultimately pretty freeing. The belief he showed in me really changed everything. It just made me feel like I understood the creativity of acting.

Given your initial cynicism, how did you start acting in the first place?

It was The Crown. I did an open casting call for it. I had no intention to become an actor, but then I did that.

What pushes you to respond to the open call if you weren’t interested in acting?

It was on Instagram.

And you were just like, “Well, why not?”

[I just had to] send in a video. It was a joke, ultimately. But I was studying film production, so I wanted to be in the industry. I loved film and I liked acting, but I’d never done it. Never studied it. I just believed that, as an industry, it was something that you could desire but could never do. I just feel like, generally, in life, if you really want something and you really work hard for it, you’ve got a better chance of getting it. But with acting, if you walk in a room and there’s a sense of desperation, it’s unattractive—unless you’re playing someone who’s desperate.

I’d love to talk about how you broke down the character of Vincent. To me, one of the things that makes him so compelling is his inscrutability. Even after seeing the film twice, I find myself racking my brain to trace his motivations. I’m curious how you would describe him.

It’s quite funny because my memory of the whole thing revolves so much around Ira and my relationship with him. As I recall it, I think I was encouraged [by Ira] to disregard Dennis as a character, and that [his affair with Jimmy] was quite a single-minded pursuit. I feel like Vincent is someone that is kind of oblivious to the context in which he’s living.

I think he’s losing himself. I think it’s genuine and that there is just a real sense of desperation to connect to someone in a new place. But I also think he’s willfully oblivious. He’s doing his best and he’s driven to a point where he becomes incredibly reckless and naïve. But as I’m speaking about it, I’m realizing that Ira is very keen on, like, “We’re not talking about motives. We’re not talking about intentions.” So maybe my lack of articulation about the character signifies Ira’s approach, which is just like, Humans don’t know their motivations or intentions. That’s not how we work.

That was empowering, the way Ira was like, “I’m not going to tell you what to do because I’m more interested in your instinct than in my direction.” There was so much trust, which is a mad thing to be given when you’re inexperienced and you’ve got an Oscar winner and Ira Sachs in front of you. What other art form is there where you can have a novice contributing equally with two people at the top? So it was mind-blowing, and by the end, I just felt like I had learned something really big. It’s made me really interested in acting in a way I wasn’t before.

Speaking of Oscar winners, what was it like spending time with Rami Malek?

I think it was very intentional that Rami and I didn’t spend much time together, because it’s not really about two people who have a bond. It’s not something that required shared chemistry.

How would you describe what they have, then?

Well, I feel like it’s more what Vincent thinks they have as opposed to what they actually have. Because what do they have? Not a whole lot, really. I think Vincent is offering Jimmy some vitality that even Dennis is kind of facilitating. But you don’t really see much of what they have.

Given how little time you spent with him, what was it like to actually act opposite Rami?

I sometimes find it more freeing to act with someone that I don’t know in any way. Maybe this is from my background of not really acting, but if I’m to do a self-tape, I don’t want to do it with someone who knows me. I feel embarrassed in front of people that know me. Sometimes, I’m sure it’s good to know each other, but there is a freedom in trying to figure someone out live. So working with [Rami] was really good. I really enjoyed it. And I think [not knowing him well] worked out in terms of who those two characters are and how they are relating to each other. Because, for me at least, it felt like I was just trying to work him out, trying to connect to him.

What about Tom Sturridge? You have a very different dynamic with him.

The same thing was going on there. I remember Ira saying to me during pre-production, “If there’s a love story in this film, it’s not yours.” And I was like, “What’s he talking about?”

Do you understand what he means now?

Yeah, I understand now.

The Man I Love is, for all intents and purposes, an AIDS film. But I love that it’s not necessarily a typical AIDS narrative, where it’s super depressing because someone is dying or super infuriating because it’s overly focused on the prejudice positive people have to face. Jimmy is dying in this film, but the movie seems much more interested in exploring the ways in which he’s amassed this crowd of friends and family who all love and support him and want to help him create one final beautiful thing before he goes.

Definitely. Ira was very clear that this is a film about life rather than death. He wanted it to be full of life and joy and the pursuit of pleasure, and not, as you said, what we’re used to in terms of the depiction of this.

Ira was really encouraging of me to understand the context of that time. But for Vincent, I think he’s kind of trying to disregard [the severity and context of Jimmy’s condition]. Like, I think Dennis is really trying to take Vincent in, to take him under his wing and understand him. Dennis is incredibly generous, and Vincent is just completely unaware and disrespectful, willfully so. It took a while to wrap my head around it, but I think he’s just coming from a place of being somewhat oblivious. He’s aware, but trying to escape it. It’s selfish, but those are things that you associate with a young person that is falling in love with someone.

What’s next for you? I know you said you were filming a show in London right now.

Yes. I just finished filming a series called Army of Shadows, which is about the UK under American occupation. And I’m the Resistance. That’s been interesting.

Also, you’re a filmmaker yourself, with a couple shorts already under your belt. Knowing how impactful this experience with Ira has been, would you say there is anything you learned from him about directing that you want to take back into your own work?

A lot! But unfortunately, I just don’t know in what context anyone gets to apply [those skills] apart from a handful of auteur directors. I feel fairly negative about the landscape of directing for young people currently. With Obsession and Backrooms, there’s a bit of an idea that there’s a resurgence of young talent when it’s actually just two people from YouTube who made horror films.

But I [am inspired by] Ira’s hunger for creativity. The amount he’s reading and watching, it’s nonstop. He’s already working on his next film. [Laughs] So I guess it’s really about fluidity. Moving with what is happening, as opposed to trying to recreate the idea that you had six months ago.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.