In conversation with… Sule Rimi
If this is not the first one in my series of conversations that you are reading, you may have noticed a pattern: I always ask people whose work I really enjoy to be part of the series. If someone’s work speaks to me, it will make me want to speak to them, and to discover more about it. For me, these conversations are a great source of joy: both because they allow me to find out more about the incredible work of the individuals I get to talk to, and because I get to share it all with you.
However, I’ve always been shy about approaching actors: there’s something about that craft in particular that fascinates me but asking the right questions always seemed impossible. How do you ask someone to explain the magic behind their own stage presence?
I finally made that (giant) leap, for an actor whom I’ve seen on stage in three different productions, and was left a bit in awe of how incredible his performances were each time. And I discovered that Sule Rimi is not only an incredibly talented actor, but also a very interesting person to have a conversation about acting with.
Sule Rimi is an actor, on stage and on screen. His more recent theatre acting credits include those for the Royal National Theatre (in Bijan Sheibani’s Barber Shop Chronicles in 2017, with a consequent tour in the UK and beyond, and Nadia Fall’s production of Three Sisters in 2019), Almeida Theatre (in They Drink It In The Congo, directed by Michael Longhurst and Mary Stuart, directed by Robert Icke, in 2016/17), Donmar Warehouse (in Josie Rourke’s Measure for Measure and Lynette Linton’s Sweat, which also transferred to the West End, in 2018/19), the Old Vic (in Rachel Chavkin’s production of The American Clock and All My Sons, directed by Jeremy Herrin in a co-production with Headlong, both in 2019) and the Royal Court (in Glass.Kill.Bluebeard.Imp., directed by James Mcdonald in 2019). In 2020 he was scheduled to perform in Ellen McDougall’s In The Blood at the Donmar Warehouse.
Sule, I usually start the interview by asking the person how they got into their current career, but I know a little bit about your story already. More specifically, I know that we owe the pleasure of seeing you on stage to your disenchantment with a career in law. Could you tell me a bit more about how — and why — you chose to become an actor, and what did your beginnings look like?
It was a combination of factors in my life at the time. I already had a history with performance from my time in school and university where I used to get involved with the respective drama departments. I was always encouraged by the teachers and lecturers to carry it on after completing my studies. When I started working in an office I did a lot of amateur productions in film, TV and and stage and also signed up with an agency that got me a lot of screen background work. Then a chance to play Othello at the Swansea Grand Theatre cropped up and I managed to get the time off to do it. I think this was the job that made me realise I could be taken semi seriously as an actor and maybe even get paid for it. That happened pretty much at the same time as stuff in my office job was beginning to get complicated. The tipping point was an event in my personal life that made me think carpe diem.
Do you feel like your lack of formal training as an actor has ever been a hindering factor to your career — either in terms of your own confidence or the way in which the industry responded to you? What were the biggest challenges you faced in getting to where you are today?
I think my lack of formal training has only been a hindrance psychologically. Once I brushed that chip off my shoulder everything seems to have flowed a lot more easily. That ties in with the biggest challenges I’ve had as well. Once I stopped overthinking things everything seemed to just kind of fall into place.
You have quite a long list of acting credits to your name and you are an incredibly versatile stage actor. You’ve also done parts in seemingly everything: from new writing, to contemporary plays and classics, including reinvented ones (such as Inua Ellams’ take on Three Sisters). What is it that makes you want to bring a certain character to life, or be a part of a certain production? What makes a character interesting and exciting for you?
I always look at a potential role and try to think what parts of his or her character are similar to mine and then try and figure out how I would respond to other characters and scenarios if I were in their shoes. The challenge of trying to identify with a different persona every time is really exciting especially when you get the guidance of a good director. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of my favourite directors and fellow actors and it’s always joyous when as a team you successfully figure out how to bring the individual and collective stories on a piece of paper to life.
Do you have a preference between acting in plays that have been around for a while and acting in a piece of new writing, and why? (Is either of the two more of a challenge, or a responsibility, perhaps, in cases where the playwright is present in rehearsals and/or can see the final result on stage?)
Not sure if I have a preference. They both present their own challenges. New writing is always interesting because 99% of the time (in my experience) the play isn’t really stage ready when rehearsals begin. With established plays you’re less likely to have the writer in the room so there might be varying interpretations of the text.
When I saw you in Glass.Kill.Bluebeard.Imp. at the Royal Court last year and recently in the National Theatre’s streamed recording of the Barber Shop Chronicles, I could not help but think how fun it looked being on those stages, particularly with the Chronicles, due to the overall energy of that production. Is being on stage as an actor fun, from your perspective, or is it primarily a job in a similar sense that law was?
As with any job, it’s as fun as the people you have around you. Barber Shop was definitely the most fun I’ve had both in rehearsals and in performance. Everyday I laughed with those guys till my stomach hurt and tears rolled down my cheeks and I think it was apparent from our camaraderie on stage. Equally, if you’re not gelling offstage, there is every chance it will be reflected in your performance.
I am interested to learn a little bit about what your process ahead of becoming someone else on stage looks like. Do you have a sort of a standard way in which you approach your roles — in terms of research and preparation — or does that vary with each new role? Could you tell me a little bit about this, and walk me through the steps of that process?
It does vary. To research a role in which I played a Ugandan preacher I attended Sunday services in a church in Peckham and watched videos of Priests in Kampala on YouTube. Another time i played a Congolese national and was put in touch with a linguistics expert who taught me how to recite pages and pages of Swahili like it was my native tongue. Different roles present different obstacles. For the character I just try to find clues on the page. An example is the role I played in Three Sisters. My stage wife described him in one scene as an oaf so I leaned towards making him a bit bumbling and goofy. Again, the guidance of a good actor’s director is priceless.
Barber Shop Chronicles was wonderful, but it also looked pretty demanding, with quick switches between various characters, with their different accents and completely different backstories. Also, the transitions between the stories were almost as important as the stories themselves: with the singing, dancing and the amazing ways in which perfect scene locations would emerge each time from the apparent chaos of chairs/trolleys/barbershop signs… and twelve men on stage. It is the most wonderfully choreographed play I’d ever seen and was absolutely exhilarating to watch!
I know it was a while ago, but can you tell me a little bit about the biggest challenges of rehearsing, and performing, that play specifically? How did you make all of your three characters familiar enough to be able to play them, despite, I assume, not having too many shared experiences with any of them? And what was it like developing and rehearsing those incredible transitions? Was the process of putting it all together as interesting — and as fun — as the end result made it seem?
I think the biggest challenge in the rehearsal period was trying to not get fired for laughing too much and having too much fun. It genuinely got in the way of us actually doing work sometimes. Always a danger when you find yourself in a room with so many brilliant and funny actors. This also posed a potential problem on stage because when you’re that comfortable with each other and with the piece that you’re performing, the banter and highjinks find their way into the performance. Thankfully it all fit perfectly and seamlessly into the Barbershop world.
Most of us actors based our characters on people we knew or had met at some point in our lives. Most of those characters you would easily find in an Afro-Caribbean barbershop so it was not a stretch for a lot of us to base them on people we’d encountered. Accents wise, two of my characters were Nigerian which is my country of birth so I was very comfortable voicing them. For my Zimbabwean character, Dwain, I was coached by the wonderful Hazel Holder.
Aline David was our choreographer and she was very keen to incorporate actions that we as men associate with grooming ourselves or that were commonplace in a barbershop. She would put us into groups and each would have to come up with a short sequence of synchronised moves, most of which made it into the final production.
Going back to the topic of the wonderful craft of acting more generally: is there an element of self-consciousness to being on stage for you? Are you partially Sule and partially whoever you are playing once the performance starts, or are you always just the character once you find yourself on stage?
I think as a default setting there is part of me in most roles that I play.
What has been the character you’ve played so far that has been the hardest to do, and why? Do you have a favourite character you’ve played?
Probably my character in a play called They Drink It In The Congo. He was part ghost, part conscience (a sort of cross between Banquo and Jiminy Cricket) who was always on stage but never had any direct dialogue with the rest of the cast even though he vocally responded to them. No one could see him but he was on stage throughout the production and when he finally had an actual conversation with someone it was over eleven pages of dialogue in Swahili (a language I don’t speak or understand). He also had to sing lead in a band (I’m not a singer). In one scene I had to construct the whole underscoring soundtrack of a scene using my voice and a loop machine and at the beginning of second half of the play I had to perform an energetic and unchoreographed dance which took the wind out of me every night. Purely for the challenges it gave me and that I overcame, it was also probably my favourite role.
I know actors often say that the best thing about theatre is the interaction with the audience which, in some ways, shapes each performance anew. Have you had a particularly memorable experience with an audience in your career that you could tell me about: either a positive one, or, perhaps, a story where absolutely nothing went right?
Performing in Barbershop Chronicles and Three Sisters at the National Theatre has given me some wonderful experiences as an actor. The most diverse audiences I’ve ever witnessed and the most engaged.
What does great acting mean for you and what do you particularly strive for with your performances? Also, looking back at your beginnings from today’s perspective: what is the one thing you thought you knew about acting when you were starting out that has turned out to be completely wrong?
I used to think that good acting meant getting everything right 100% of the time. I’ve since realised that good acting is about how you deal with the shit that goes wrong.
I know that, had everything gone according to plan, right now you would have been half-way through the run of In the Blood at the Donmar Warehouse, but that sadly never got to happen. What do you miss most about theatre, now that it has been put on hold for a while? (Do you miss it?) What are you most looking forward to once the lockdown is over?
The socialising. It’s what I miss and what I look forward to.
What is your favourite thing about being an actor?
Every job means new friends and new stories to tell.
