Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy for Savage House.

In this interview, the stars discuss Peter Glanz’s script, the absurdity of human nature, and why their characters would be canceled on Instagram.

Grant also shares the status of The Celebrity Traitors UK Season 2, and Foy gives new details on Danny Boyle’s Ink.

Richard E. Grant tells Collider’s Steve Weintraub he immediately found the appeal of writer-director Peter Glanz’s (The Longest Week) grotesque sophomore feature, Savage House, upon his first read of the script. This dark comedy, which premiered at SXSW London, is a satirical tale of two 18th-century social climbers, Sir Chauncey Savage (Grant) and his wife, Lady Savage, played by The Crown’s Claire Foy, who are desperately clawing for status and wealth, even as they near bankruptcy, never mind the massive pox outbreak or social upheaval of the time. During their conversation, Grant and Foy share why an American filmmaker’s take on such a tumultuous time in England’s history lends itself to both a timely sharpness and hilarity, but why their distinctly English approach to acting made Savage House anything but a savage set. Grant also reveals the status of The Celebrity Traitors UK Season 2, and Foy shares new details on Danny Boyle’s upcoming fictional billionaire biopic Ink. Don’t miss the full conversation for more on Savage House, plus Grant and Foy discussing their most unusual skills for a job, favorite artists, and more!
Richard E. Grant Confirms ‘The Celebrity Traitors’ UK Season 2 Has Already Filmed

“It was a unique experience.”

Host Claudia Winkleman publicity image for The Traitors UKVia. BBC

COLLIDER: Richard, this is probably the most important thing I’m going to ask today. There was a petition to get you on The Celebrity Traitors Season 2, and apparently the petition worked, and you’re going to be on it. RICHARD E. GRANT: I am. Have you already filmed it? GRANT: Yeah, yeah. I know you’re a big fan. What was that experience like for you? Were you a little nervous? GRANT: It’s the British version, so it’s not Alan Cumming hosting. It’s Claudia Winkleman, who’s English, doing it, so I don’t know whether it will ever show outside of England. CLAIRE FOY: Oh, it will. GRANT: It was a unique experience. FOY: That’s his line, and he’s sticking to it. He won’t say anything else on that. I’ve tried. He says it was “a unique experience” and he’s hopefully made friends for life. GRANT: [Laughs] Thank you. I’ll just take my arm out of your bum now.

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Barbra Streisand’s Most Famous Song Became Richard E. Grant’s Life Mantra

The pair plays a round of Get to Know Your Cast Member.

Barbra StreisandImage via NPR

Before I jump into the movie, which you are both so fantastic in, I want to do something called Get to Know Your Savage House Cast Member. I have 41 questions, but we are not going to ask all 41, I promise. I would like each of you to pick a number. Claire, what is something that you did for a role that would sound insane if someone overheard it out of context? FOY: Oh, I don’t know. I learned to be a falconer, but that’s not that insane. I mean, I shaved half my head for something, but that also isn’t. I’m not very insane. Turns out I’m much too sane. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything, really. Have you ever done anything really nuts for something? GRANT: No, but in talking about what the sex life is of the character that I’m playing, and then the secret fantasies within that character, if somebody overheard that, they could be worried. But that wasn’t my question. FOY: I know, Richard. I’m trying to be more interesting by adding you to it. Richard, if you could have a song play when you enter a room, what song would it be and why? FOY: Wow. GRANT: “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” sung by Barbra Streisand. The soundtrack version from 1968. FOY: Why? Apart from that you love her. GRANT: Because it is a mantra of going, “Don’t put me down. Don’t say I can’t do this. Don’t say I can’t do that.” Because from when I was a little boy and I voiced, stupidly, when I was 12 years old to somebody that I wanted to be an actor, people said, “You don’t have a chance in hell. The way you look, everything.” So, that’s what I have in my head. FOY: That’s a great choice. Claire, what emotion is surprisingly difficult for you to fake convincingly? FOY: Laughter. It’s not an emotion. Joy is not that hard, but I think genuine hysterical humor is incredibly difficult to portray onscreen because you have to do things multiple times. Things are often only funny once. GRANT: Yeah, but if you pop a gummy, you’ll be fine. FOY: Yeah, unless you’re on something. I think it’s very difficult, actually, to do convincingly. I think you notice when you watch something, and someone is actually genuinely laughing, that it makes you laugh. It’s reciprocated. But if you’re sat there just like, “I don’t feel anything as they’re laughing…” And I laugh all the time, so it’s hard. I find things funny, but it’s that real, real hysterical, can’t-stop-laughing laughter that’s the hardest for me. Richard, if you could see any musician alive or dead in concert, who would you see and why? GRANT: Barbra Streisand, of course. I’ve seen her many times. [Laughs] This poor man is reeling around. That’s who I would like to see, please.
A Timeless Human Absurdity Lies at the Heart of ‘Savage House’

“We’re our own worst enemies, really, aren’t we? We can’t help ourselves.”

Image via Paramount Pictures

If you could actually go back in time to 1715, when Savage House takes place, for a week, would you be willing to go back there? I ask because this movie depicts it, but a lot of people don’t realize how dirty everything was back then, there was no clean water, and medicine was… FOY: Nonexistent. GRANT: No sanitation. Exactly. FOY: I’d definitely like to go. As long as I could make it out alive and I didn’t get smallpox, then I’d love to go back. GRANT: I’d go in with nose plugs. FOY: But wouldn’t you want to smell it just to see? GRANT: No. No, because it would be so rank. I think that if you saw somebody as beautiful as Lady Savage, and you knew that her armpits stank like an open grave, you wouldn’t go — never mind lick her bum. She’d have to be put in a pail of boiling water first. FOY: [Laughs] The idea of licking someone’s bum who’s so filthy is so awful. GRANT: It is, but I’m sure she did wash it. FOY: Oh, yes. As a kindness. GRANT: He would’ve got my manservant… FOY: To wash it. GRANT: “Wash the lady’s bum first!” What did you each learn about each other about the way you like to work on set? I’ve spoken to so many actors, and everyone has a different process, and I’m just curious if your process is aligned or if each of you has a certain way of working that is different than the other? GRANT: Well, we’ve both done the theater. We’re both English, so I think that immediately there’s a common ground of the way of working. The English acting tradition is not method-based as such, so everything is to do with what is on the page. So, honoring the writer is the most important thing, which every actor who’s worked in the theater does because the playwright is God. Whereas my experience of working with American actors, by comparison, is that they’re much looser with sticking to the actual script and thinking if you improvise around it all, ad-lib stuff, that is more usual. And I’m not saying one way of working is better than another. FOY: Just different ways of working. GRANT: But we certainly are not method actors in any shape or form. FOY: No. I think we both want to have a good day. We don’t want it to be arduous and torturous. GRANT: Yes. And you come fully prepared. You know your lines. You’re not going to sort of find them during the day when you’re working, which is torturous. Because some actors that I’ve worked with have had the delusion that if they sort of know the lines, it’s going to make it more real or improvisatory when they’re working, and in my experience, that is not the case. FOY: No. It’s just rubbish. [Laughs] GRANT: So, we’re in agreement on that.

Image via Paramount Pictures

100%. The film is set during a pox outbreak and an uprising, yet the Savages are entirely consumed by social climbing. What do you think this movie says about the timeless absurdity of human vanity? FOY: That we’re our own worst enemies, really, aren’t we? We can’t help ourselves. It’s the same as when you go and visit Pompeii, and you think that what you’re going to see in Pompeii is some sort of unbelievable truth about who we are as human beings, which happens, but what you also see is two neighbors arguing about where the fence they put was. “Your fence was in my part of the garden, and your fence is in the other part of the garden.” You think, “Oh my God, we’ve not moved on!” Everyone’s protecting their own little thing. Everybody’s trying to, not better themselves, but trying to elevate themselves or want more. Just more. Just want more things. Never satisfied and always wanting. GRANT: I think people are starstruck. In whatever shape or form, whether it’s a politician or a sports person or an actor or writer, they have this need to invest another human being with traits that are maybe apparently superhuman, but of course they’re not, is something that drives us. I’ve been starstruck my entire life. Every single time I work with a new actor that I admire, I’m starstruck by that, and I find that very attractive. If Sir Chauncey and Lady Savage had access to Instagram, who would be better at pretending everything was fine?

FOY: Lady Savage. I’d be really good at putting all the stuff, all the dirty dishes, on that side of the room and then going, “I’m just gonna cook something for the kids.” Whereas yours, you’d get canceled on Instagram. GRANT: Canceled instantaneously. FOY: You’d put awful photos on there, and you’d be talking to all sorts of people, asking them to do all sorts of inappropriate things. GRANT: Yes, and saying something that was politically incorrect, or saying, “Lick my bum.” All of it. I’d be canceled. FOY: Yeah, but I’d be keeping the ship afloat. GRANT: Yes.

I know both of you read a lot of scripts. What was it about this script that said, “I absolutely want to do this?” GRANT: Well, firstly, I thought that the fact that it was written by an American, Peter [Glanz], really surprised me because I thought, “This is set in 1715, in England, and it’s very specific to that time.” I thought, “How is it possible that somebody who’s come from a country that didn’t exist in the same way then is conjuring this all up?” But maybe that is the perfect person, because it’s an outsider looking at it with a fresh eye. FOY: And seeing the absurdity of how people live. About class, as well, in this country, which is so specific and was also so specific to that time, the idea of your class defining your ambitions in life. GRANT: The other experience I had in 2001, the late, great director Robert Altman was American, and his take on the British class system in Gosford Park was absolutely extraordinary because he was an outsider, so he could see it and underline and emphasize all its comedy and tragedy at the same time, and I think that that’s what Pete has done in his script.
Claire Foy Reveals New Details About Danny Boyle’s Upcoming Biopic ‘Ink’

“It’s brilliant, and it’s also really funny.”

Director Danny Boyle looking through a camera on the set of 28 Years Later.Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

Claire, I do have an individual for you. I’m a big fan of Danny Boyle, and I saw some footage from Ink at CinemaCon, and it looks fantastic. Danny just does such great work. Can you talk about what that project is about and who you play because while I respect Rupert Murdoch a little bit for his business, but I fucking hate that man. FOY: [Laughs] Sorry, what was that? You fucking hate him? Oh, I’ll say it loud. I despise that man. FOY: I think it’s really interesting. I’ve seen the film, and I think it’s incredible. It’s about the beginning of The Sun newspaper in the UK, which is one of the biggest tabloids. The Sun sort of ushered in a new route towards the news, which is something that we see today, which is that it’s entertainment as opposed to education. GRANT: So it’s like the National Enquirer. Very factual. FOY: [Laughs] Yeah. Very factual. But I feel like what’s really interesting about it is that Rupert Murdoch, I don’t know the man, but we know him as he is now, and Guy Pearce plays him in the film, and I think it’s just really interesting. I think sometimes you have to stop, and you have to go back to the genesis of something. You have to go back to the beginning to see how you got to where… So it’s really important to park that opinion at the door to see what the film investigates about the beginning of the newspaper. I play a fictional character, because there were no female editors in newspapers at that time. It was very much a boys’ club. It was very, very hard to get into journalism as a woman. But my character is sort of an amalgamation of lots of pioneering female editors who broke through somehow into news when it was completely dominated by men. So, it’s factual, and it’s also very, very fictional. But I think it’s brilliant and it’s also really funny and it’s great. And Danny Boyle directed it! Nuts. Savage House is in theaters now.

Release Date

June 5, 2026

Runtime

114 minutes

Director

Peter Glanz

Cast

Richard E. Grant

Sir Chauncey Savage

Roger Ashton-Griffiths

Dr. Hemmings