“We did want to avoid pointy noses and things,” she tells EW.
“There was lots of trial and error.
But then we left that idea.
Kathryn Hunter in ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’.Apple TV+
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did this project come your way?
Did director Joel Coen reach out to you?
to which there was only one answer, of course.
The witches have been interpreted in so many ways over the centuries.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said.
The whole process was evolving ideas and collaboration, which was so exciting.
You’ve done a lot of Shakespeare.
What were your previous experiences with Macbeth and the witches?
It was very short-lived.
It was so thrilling how Joel and Fran really explored the language.
Does your work start in the body or with the text?
There’s this strange kind of dichotomy: are you a physical actor or a text actor?
The text informs the physical, and then the physical informs the text.
First of all, I said, “Are they real or are they in Macbeth’s mind?”
and Joel said, “Both.”
Then he said, “I think they’re like crows or standing stones or women.
Sometimes they’re crows; sometimes they’re like standing stones, sometimes they’re women.”
She’s a woman who lives on the battlefield where there are crows, and she embodies the crows.
They are her companions.
As the witches, you do this amazing contortion with your body, especially in the first scene.
How did you hone in on what worked best there?
It’s funny because people are talking about contortion, but I never thought about contortion.
I just thought “bird” and let my arms do what they wanted to.
And then, a shifting from one persona to another means that your body has to change as well.
Working on it, I developed a little sequence, and then she makes the spell.
Creating it together and Fran going, “Which persona was that?
Maybe try the other voice.”
It was very much working in collaboration.
How did you figure out which voice made the most sense for each witch?
In my head, I created three different characters.
One was quite young.
One was middle-aged and a little wry and ironical.
And the other was older, gruffer, and angrier, and more aggressive toward Macbeth.
They had different qualities in their voices.
How did you make sense of who the witches were and where their power was coming from?
Shakespeare is clearly referencing the three Fates in Greek mythology.
In this time, they had the Anglo-Saxon frame of witches.
But the subtextual reference is the three Fates.
And the Fates, they are quite riddling.
When Macbeth says to them, “How now you secret black and midnight hags?
What is it you do?”
and they say, “A deed without a name.”
To confront him with himself.
On a psychological level, they are himself, his darkest, inner self.
I believe there is a choice there.
Do you think Macbeth would reach his fate regardless of the witch’s involvement?
It feels like we all have witches inside us, as it were.
We’re supposed to be talking about a world where people have lost their moral compass.
They’re not bad, they’re not evil, they’ve just lost their moral compass.
And so, murder becomes easier and second nature.
As he says, blood will have blood.
If you go down that road of killing, it will just go on and on and on.
What was the reality of that on set?
The reality was that we filmed not at that great height.
We might have done it if it hadn’t been in COVID.
We were in COVID conditions, and Joel had to shoot fast.
Without COVID conditions, I maybe would’ve worn a harness and done the scene three times.
For him to configure the cauldron as this water that rises up is very beautiful.
They’re not extravagant and weird choices, but Joel’s choices are really extraordinary and captivating.
Were there certain things you wanted to avoid or perhaps lean into keeping that in mind?
Again, it was following Joel’s lead.
I imagined the cauldron inside myself.
That somehow, this prophecy had to be vomited up from deep inside.
You predominantly work with Denzel Washington on-screen throughout.
What was the most effective thing he did as a screen partner?
I was amazed with Denzel.
The way he speaks the verse feels like he’s minted a new way of speaking Shakespeare’s verse.
He is so direct; it’s like he’s speaking his mother tongue.
Whereas at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the U.K., it can get a little stentorian.
Also, with Fran, there’s this complete directness.
And the childlessness and the grief of that.
And with the lightest of touches, they suggest a long-term relationship.
They’re consummate; I’m just in awe.
What they’ve managed to do is marry their thoughts through the voice, so it’s just fluid.
It’s a great adaptation.
I’m sure Shakespeare’s nodding.
Why doesMacbethendure and remain something that can speak to an audience in 2022?
There are many reasons, but the big thing that comes out is nature.
In a world that has lost its moral compass, nature goes awry.
Murder is a part of that.
As a soldier, as a general, Macbeth is lauded for killing.
“I unseamed him from the knaves to the chops.”
But when is killing legitimate ever?
Shakespeare always goes back to a basic Christian faith, “Thou shalt not kill.”
As to why it’s for now, it’s to do with what do we believe in?
Where do we live?
And our relationship to nature.
And then it’s a very well-written thriller and enjoyable and funny and extraordinary.
