Mank Star Tuppence Middleton On the Enduring Appeal of Old Hollywood
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Some of the characters in Mank—director David Fincher’s new drama, which follows the story of how Citizen Kane was made—are instantly recognizable. Whether they’re on-screen legends like Orson Welles and Marion Davies or behind-the-scenes rainmakers like Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg, they’re often people who made an outsized impression on their times and remain part of Hollywood lore even today. Other characters are just as vital, but far less recognizable.
That suits Tuppence Middleton, the Downton Abbey alum who plays Sara Mankiewicz (the wife of the film’s titular writer), just fine. “I would say very few people know much about Herman Mankiewicz and most people would know absolutely nothing about Sara,” she says. “So, it was really exciting for Gary [Oldman] and me to create that relationship.”
Indeed, it’s Sara who helps anchor her husband—a boozy dreamer who’s known to run his mouth at all the wrong moments—when he finds himself at loose ends writing Kane. And while Sara doesn’t get any of the credit history (if not Welles) has given to Herman Mankiewicz, Mank gives her a shot at a certain kind of biopic immortality. Here, Middleton tells T&C about getting into character and why she’ll take modern Hollywood over the Golden Age any day.
How much did you know about Citizen Kane and these characters before taking this job? Was it something you were already well versed in?
I was of course familiar with Citizen Kane and Orson Welles but I wasn't familiar at all with Herman Mankiewicz. I'd heard the name, but I certainly didn't know his influence or the extent of his contribution to Citizen Kane. I did read around the subject a lot. There was a great book that David [Fincher] gave me—Mank by Richard Meryman—that had a lot of great source material about Sara, about her relationship with Mank and about how they met and their journey to Hollywood.
What was the process of getting this role like?
I'm still questioning that myself; I don't quite know how it happened. Initially it was the usual route, I did a self-taped audition, which has become more the norm now instead of doing casting in a real room with a casting director. Often, especially if you're taping for projects in America, you could send off your tape and then not hear anything for a few months. Eventually, you see the thing on TV or on a cinema screen and think, oh yeah, I guess I didn't get that one.
When I taped for Mank, I originally taped for the part of Rita [who’s played by Lily Collins]. I didn't hear anything for a few months, and then they came back to me saying, "we really liked your tape and wondered if you'd tape for Sara?" I was like, great, sure, then a few days later they said, “David would love to Skype with you.”
Is that when you know you’ve landed it?
It was kind of a miniature experience, like a taste of what it is to work with David. I'm sure you've heard that, famously, he does a lot of takes. We went through the scene a lot of times and it was like “ah, so that's it.” It got me used to the way that he works, and actually, although it feels like you do a lot, it's very quick and very precise. It kind of eliminates the time for you to overthink something and you become much more instinctive. Then, a few weeks later I was on a plane to L.A. and in a rehearsal room with Gary and we were chatting about Sara and Mank. It felt like there was an initial period where nothing happened and then it was all very quick.
What about Sara made her exciting for you? She’s not one of the legendary stars portrayed here, but she’s got an invaluable role.
I think that it was really important to David that there was a genuine love between Sara and Mank—genuine affection and respect and fun as well. I think they really appreciated each other, even when it got hard and even though he wasn't always the easiest man to be with. But through all that, she remained his rock and I think she was one of the people that he truly trusted and whose opinion he really respected above all others, even though he was surrounded by these glamorous and powerful figures. I think still Sara was the person who could really bring him back down to earth.
The movie also recognizes the contribution she made to her husband and getting this legendary film made. It wasn’t just these two men who created it.
I think that Hollywood was somewhere that [Mankiewicz] went for work but also for inspiration because there were these outlandish characters getting away with some pretty crazy things. He was able to be amongst them and observe them and that fed his storytelling as well. There was an element of it that was work but, in a sense, he was always at work then because he would probably consider going to the latest party part of his job. There was method to his madness, but I think that David wanted to show that there is an impact when you live a lifestyle like that.
You’re an actress working in modern-day Hollywood. Did making this movie about an older, maybe more glamorous, version of your industry teach you anything?
I think that there is certainly a perception of glamor to that era and that period, but delving a bit deeper made me think I much prefer the way things are now, even if it means that that Mank going to a party and impressing everyone with his wit and his jokes and his personality means that he then gets a job at the biggest studio. It also felt very unprotected, especially for women of course. It’s crazy that it feels still quite recent that women are starting to speak up about the awful things that have happened to them in this industry, or the way they've been treated, or the inequality. We've made huge steps in the last few years, but I think there's still a long way to go.
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