Glass talks with British actress LAURA HADDOCK about the upcoming Netflix spy thriller, The Recruit, in which she plays a woman who’s always ready to fight back.
Trains are grinding to a halt, tubes are delayed and roads are blocked thanks to the heavy rain pouring on the day of our Zoom call with British actress Laura Haddock, but this doesn’t dampen her spirits. Haddock bristles with excitement when talking about her new role as Max Meladze in Alexi Hawley’s new Netflix series, The Recruit.
Max is new territory for Haddock: “I don’t think I’ve ever had the opportunity to play a part like this, which is a really exciting career move for me, because I knew it was in me.”
You’ll previously have known Haddock from her roles as Alison in The Inbetweeners Movie, Meredith Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy plus its sequel, as Viviane Wembley in Transformers: The Last Knight, and Myrna Dalgleish in Downton Abbey: A New Era.
Enter Haddock’s latest character, the ball-busting Max Meladze, a Russian-born CIA asset who is demanding exoneration from the agency with the help of CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo). Together they embark on a dangerous journey, exposing life-threatening secrets.
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
Haddock feels blessed with the mix of roles she’s enjoyed in her career: “I never want to play the same role over and over again because that just gets quite repetitive. So if you can build in those contrasting characters across your career then that keeps it really lively.”
She radiates warmth combined with an inviting openness – the very opposite of her character in The Recruit. But it is this transformation that makes Haddock’s performance that much sweeter, or sharper I should say. “I felt I had stepped into her shoes, and it was believable,” says Haddock who, in preparation for filming, cut her hair short and dyed it black.
Of course it’s not all down to appearances when it comes to her gutsy performance. She worked rigorously with an accent and dialect coach, even learning Russian for a handful of scenes. “That was really cool but way harder than I thought,” Haddock notes, learning Russian by writing it out phonetically in English before repeating it endlessly. She also turned to YouTube and Russian television and film for assistance. “You have to get into the rhythm of a language or an accent, and that actually helps you find someone’s personality.”
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
Haddock delved deeper into her character’s psychology after speaking with various Russians. “But interestingly, when speaking to the women, they have this really steady strength about them. They will defend and protect themselves and the people that they care about until the end and I loved that.”
This steely strength is palpable on screen, but her performance of Max goes far beyond the one dimensional. Yes, Max is to be feared but her indomitable spirit leaves you feeling empowered and somewhat sympathetic towards her. She’s a nuanced character that is desperately lacking in female roles in the film and TV industry.
She would like to see more women living with everyday struggles on screen just as Haddock, a mother of two young children, is living with “a maternal pull coupled with a really strong desire to have a really successful career, one that I can enjoy and one that can support my life. That is a hell of a balance”.
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
Haddock admires female strength: “We multi task really well and we don’t always speak out about how difficult that can be sometimes, but we also don’t speak out about how wonderful that can be sometimes. Because something can be [both] wonderful and exhausting.”
Every morning Haddock gets up “trying to be the best mum and trying to have the best career. It’s okay if you don’t hit it at 100 per cent everyday. It’s doable and the beauty is you don’t realise that you can do it. And then, all of a sudden, you’re in it”. It’s not surprising then that Haddock sights Nancy Meyers, Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton as some of her greatest inspirations. She would also love to work with Greta Gerwig.
It’s clear that Max is an extremely important role for her. “I would definitely like to play more characters like that. I’m now 37, and I am in a really interesting place in my life. I love being given the opportunity to explore women who have a history … and have stuff to draw upon. It doesn’t feel light and it doesn’t feel airy, it feels layered and I am incredibly curious to play more women who feel as layered as Max.”
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
While Haddock recognises that the industry is creating more complex female roles, there could be more of them. “It’s funny because it is only really when you look back, you realise that the older you get, the more interesting stuff gets, and the more history you have that you can draw upon and learn from. You just experience more and to me that is so interesting.”
At first, Haddock was “terrified” of moving her children, four and seven, to Montreal for five months while filming The Recruit. In reality, “it was the most beautiful experience we could have ever asked for. They were seeing a different country, they were communicating in French … and they were out in the snow everyday, going to new museums and new galleries, learning about Canada’s history”.
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
It’s clear Max Meladze and Laura Haddock are two very different women but if Haddock could borrow one of Max’s personality traits it would be “her absolute strength and focus – she doesn’t let the white noise affect her”. Nonetheless, she doesn’t crave Max’s life.
“I wouldn’t want to live in Max’s head because it is incredibly lonely and I felt her loneliness a lot when I was filming. She doesn’t really have the ability or the space to explore this sadness that she has got, or explore the pain that she has been through. She doesn’t have the time to go there because it would mean losing that focus and losing that determination, and that is how she survives.”
They are, however, alike in terms of physicality. Growing up, Haddock was sport obsessed, even considering a career in lacrosse before breaking her knee and turning to drama after a teacher opened her eyes to the possibility of an acting career. She duly enrolled in drama school and never looked back.
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
She hasn’t completely turned her back on sport though, citing it as having been helpful in her acting career. In The Recruit, Max constantly fights off enemies. It’s evident that Haddock revels in the stunt scenes as she understands that Max is “a survivor so she’s ready to protect herself and defend herself and attack in any situation … So then to be able to tap into how I felt when I was playing lacrosse, there is a focus and there is a strength involved”.
The physicality doesn’t rest on the surface but seeps into the psychology of playing a survivor too. Haddocks grasps how “it effects everything. It effects the way you move, the way you communicate, the way you fight. How she holds her body”.
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
As 2022 draws to a close, Haddock looks back on her year that began with working on The Recruit. Afterwards, she gave herself time to just be at home and be a mum. “I feel this year, I’ve done a lot of shaking hands, and being happy in my skin and happy in my boots, which is a really nice feeling, and that kind of reverberates into all different situations.”
Haddock would love to return to theatre and experience the thrill of performing live again. “The rush of adrenaline you get and the connection with a live audience is really exciting. It can almost make you feel sick it’s so scary, but it’s definitely something I would want to explore and get back to.” Addictive viewing on screen or on stage, I defy you to get too much of Laura Haddock’s performances.
by Charlie Newman
Photographer: Elliott Morgan
Stylist: Aimee Croysdill
Make up: Naoko Scintu at THE WALL GROUP using CLÉ DE PEAU BEAUTÉ
Hair: Halley Brisker at THE WALL GROUP
Styling assistant: Prue Fisher
Talent: Laura Haddock
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