In real life, O-T Fagbenle is quick to laugh, which is a departure from the characters that have put the actor on the map. Since 2017, the native Brit has played the perpetually worried husband of June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) on The Handmaid’s Tale. He next took on the challenge of portraying Barack Obama on The First Lady, then frustrated financier Cameron Lautner on WeCrashed. Fagbenle’s character on Presumed Innocent, prosecuting attorney Nico Della Guardia, doesn’t have much reason to smile either, as he tries to land one of his own staff members behind bars. But none of these heavy narratives stop Fagbenle from thoroughly enjoying the position he’s in. “I would love to keep doing roles that are politically and philosophically subversive, that challenge the way we look at things,” he says. “Ultimately that’s the best part of art.”
DEADLINE: When you commit to a character, you really commit. As you’re looking for projects, is the ability to create someone, almost on a cellular level, a draw for you?
O-T FAGBENLE: Absolutely it is. It’s what really excites me. It’s funny because sometimes there’s a center of gravity around the last performance you did. And because Luke from Handmaid’s Tale has quite a big sense of gravity, lots of parts like that come by my way. So, I’m really excited when something different comes by, because it gives me a chance to jump into a completely new world. I got that a lot in my early career when I was doing theater. I would be doing such a diversity of roles. I’m excited that, this year, I’ve managed to jump into some different stuff.
DEADLINE: Let’s start with Presumed Innocent. What was the appeal of that project?
FAGBENLE: I mean, what’s there not to like?
DEADLINE: Maybe the fact that it was done really well previously?
FAGBENLE: Sometimes you think, why can’t you just leave good alone? It’s hard to improve on it. But the team—our directors [Greg Yaitanes and Anne Sewitsky], our writer [David E. Kelley]—was so exciting and they had their own original voices. I was very curious about how that would come together. And then, to be honest, I’m just a big fan of Jake [Gyllenhaal]’s work. I think he’s extraordinary. And Peter [Sarsgaard], as well. I’ve known Ruth [Negga] for a long time. So, the cast was amazing, and it looked like a really great team to be a part of. Also, I read the part, and two things happened. On one side, I read what had been written, what was meant for that part. But I also had this other idea about it. I just was like, “Oh, this could be really interesting.” There was a way of doing this guy in a way that is more, I don’t know, unique, so that you might feel more ambivalent about him.
DEADLINE: What was your idea for Nico Della Guardia? What would make him unique?
FAGBENLE: In preparation, I went and watched a bunch of politicians—politicians who had law degrees—and when I really started studying them, they’re a weird bunch, to be honest. They’re quite idiosyncratic. There’s this performative aspect to them, which on one hand must be adaptive, because it helped them get elected, and on the other hand seems so inauthentic that it’s strange that anybody would want to be led by these types of people. So, I thought it was an interesting dichotomy there to be played, where on one hand you have intelligence and competence—they’re maybe articulate, verging on verbose like myself—but on the other hand, you’ve just got someone who is smarmy, inauthentic and power-hungry and desperately trying to hide it. I just became fascinated with those people.
DEADLINE: What’s the first impression you want people to have of this character?
FAGBENLE: To some extent I try and avoid thinking about what people will think about the character. But I get your question. I kind of had a touchstone idea for Nico, which was that he felt not only that he was superior to everybody else, but everyone else was a fucking imbecile. In England, there’s a show, Black Adder, with Rowan Atkinson, and it’s classic British comedy. He’s the archetype of this person who is just absolutely infuriated that everybody is beneath him, not as smart as him and in the way of his political machinations. So, [with Nico] it’s that conflict between his high opinion of himself and his low opinion of everybody else.
DEADLINE: Well, I’m glad I read it right. How fun is that to play?
FAGBENLE: Oh, it’s really fun. And, I guess, somewhat useful, because it could be easy to get on set with Peter and Jake and play small around them, because they’re great – and on set, they’re fucking powerhouses. They’re not pulling punches. They are going for it. They’ve got so much confidence, strength and ability. So, it was quite nice playing someone who could look at their characters and just be like, “You idiots.” It’s really fun. And the great thing about both Peter and Jake is that they are game to play. There is nothing that you could throw them that would put them off. They’re just like, “Oh, yeah, bring it, bring it, bring it.” And that kind of attitude led to it feeling electric on set. Anything could happen.
DEADLINE: The accent. How did you come to that?
FAGBENLE: You know what’s funny? I never get to do my own accent because even if I’m playing English, my accent has been influenced by America and Nigeria enough that even English people often ask me where I’m from. So in every single character, I’m making some kind of choice. It just so happened that in this one, when I was studying these politicians, I was like, “They have weird voices.” They’ve got these peculiar ways of phrasing things. I started studying all the most annoying voices I could think of. The most smarmy ones, like Alan Rickman in Die Hard. I talk about the bad guy from Ghostbusters a lot. Yeah, I really had that voice somewhere in me, so I carved it out, and I worked with some dialect coaches. Joe Gold is one of the guys who helped me find the center of that voice. And, yeah, it caused quite a stir [Laughs].
DEADLINE: Do accents come naturally to you? You’re on No Good Deed next, and that is a completely different accent.
FAGBENLE: You know, I am bad at accents, and when I say that, I mean, I have no talent for it. For me, going from my English accent to my first American accent, it took thousands of hours of work. Exhaustive. People wouldn’t think I was good at accents if they knew how hard I worked on them, because they would just be like, “Of course, if you spend all those hours, you’d be able to do that.” But after learning that I could work exhaustively on an accent, then I was like, “Oh, I can do this for lots of things.” And it turned out that I had lots of different types of accents. But it’s not because I had any natural talent. I’m so jealous of actors I meet who can just roll off 20 accents, and they put hardly any work into them. That’s not how my ear works, unfortunately.
DEADLINE: You’re currently on your sixth season of The Handmaid’s Tale. How has it been to sit in that character for so long, constantly worrying about your wife?
FAGBENLE: I know. All the trauma that is Handmaid’s. It’s been one of the greatest gifts of my life and career to work on material, which is both artistically of the highest level, but also philosophically and politically compelling and relevant to the times. And, along with that, to have a chance to work with everyone from Elizabeth Moss to Reed Morano, to Samira Wiley. Moreover, even eight years into shooting, people turn up to that set ready to get it. There is no complacency, no phoning it in. People care. And as somebody who cares a lot about my art, there’s nothing that excites me more than working with brilliant people for whom this is their passion, their vocation.
DEADLINE: Your career now has a lot of momentum. If you were to be center stage, what’s the dream role?
FAGBENLE: Center stage isn’t the most exciting thing for me. I played Mercutio—it’s a much better part than Romeo. And getting to spend time with Peter was really fascinating to me, because I just think he’s had such a brilliant career, and it’s centered around working with the greats. I would love to work with the greats and keep doing a diversity of roles, doing things that are politically and philosophically subversive, things that challenge the way we look at things, because I think ultimately that’s the best part of art, that it helps us not only see our own lives and feelings and relationships anew, but gives us sometimes a new way of looking at the world. That really motivates me.
Presumed Innocent is now streaming on Apple TV+.
English (US) ·