Interview

The tale of young Rupert Friend begins like many other British coming-of-age stories: in a quaint, almost anachronistic one-horse village in the English countryside. But unlike so many other legends of English lore, Mr. Friend’s journey so far has not involved any kings or warlocks or elves or quests for magical golden rings (though the same cannot be said for tights, which Friend has donned on more than one occasion). His trajectory has been somewhat more earthy: grew up in the county of Oxfordshire in a house with no VCR; became enthralled with the idea of traveling around the world when he saw his first film in a theater, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989); decided it was his destiny to be like Indiana Jones; discovered that Indiana Jones was an archaeologist, and that most archaeologists aren’t as proficient with whips or as prolific in their love lives, which thus makes the profession slightly less appealing; realized, though, that the person playing Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, is an actor, and he seems to be having a fine time of it; and thusly embarks on a career in the performing arts.

After attending drama school at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Friend’s professional acting career got off to a fast start with roles opposite Johnny Depp in Laurence Dunmore’s The Libertine (2004) and his future girlfriend, Keira Knightley, in Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005). But as with every good coming-of-age story, there’s a time when the protagonist must step up and be his own man. That moment appears to have arrived for the 27-year-old Friend. Having recently done duty in the British WWII drama The Boy in the StripedPajamas (2008), Friend stars with Michelle Pfeiffer in Stephen Frears’s upcoming Chéri, based on theColette novel of the same name, and is the male lead in The Young Victoria, a film about the life of Britain’s Queen Victoria, in which he plays Prince Albert to his interviewer here Emily Blunt’s Queen V.

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EMILY BLUNT: Tell me about growing up in Oxfordshire. I remember taking a little tour around there and you showed me the corner store where there used to be a girl who you pined for.

RUPERT FRIEND: That wasn’t my village we were in; it was the next village along. But they’re the kind of villages in that area where there’s only one of everything—the boy who bullies you, the shopkeeper who gives you sweets, and the girl you pine for. And then there’s the butcher who does his work by hand with a sword, which was always quite frightening. He didn’t have a fridge either. There were whole carcasses just sitting on a wooden table. It was quite weird. He closed down, and now I know why. But when I was 8 years old, I didn’t know why what he was doing was bad.

EB: You didn’t buy your meat from there, did you?

RF: We didn’t, no. But then the postmistress was also in love with the postman . . . I mean, the village was a little bit like Dylan Thomas and Postman Pat all mixed together. The whole environment was sort of great because there wasn’t any notion of culture or anything contemporary at all.

EB: Now, this childhood bully—did you ever get into fights growing up?

RF: Was I bullied? Um . . . I was fought. I wouldn’t say they were actually fights, because fight implies that there were two people involved, and I don’t think I ever managed to successfully hit back.

EB: So were you not allowed to go to the cinema much as a kid?

RF: We didn’t ever go to the cinema.

EB: Why not?

RF: I don’t know. We didn’t have a video player at home either. I didn’t have a deprived childhood or anything, but watching movies wasn’t something that we did. One of my uncles took me to my first movie in a cinema—Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

EB: Was Harrison Ford your first man-crush?

RF: Indiana Jones more than Harrison Ford himself was—and still is—quite a big man-crush of mine. You know, the guy who’s on the adventure with the hat and the whip and the leather jacket . . . But Harrison is a big man-crush, too. He’s a very cool guy.