This is a character study of British actor Kit Clarke. This is Kit Clarke in the zone. This is Kit Clarke flexing his craft. This is Kit Clarke, a rising talent dedicated to honing his skillset. Kit Clarke lives out in the sticks in rural Oxfordshire, separating himself from the mania of the city, immersing himself in nature. Kit Clarke dives openly into his characters, finding nuances and tropes he can mimic, embody. Kit Clarke’s next role – and breakthrough – will see him play Rupert Everett in the award-winning actor’s autobiographical new film, Lost and Found in Paris, starring alongside John Malkovich and Kristin Scott Thomas. Hand-picked by Everett, Clarke will portray the actor during his unruly adolescence, sent by his parents to live with a Parisian socialite family to learn French and, basically, sort himself out. Kit Clarke will soon be a name you know well. Before that, read an interview between Clarke and photographer Laurence Hills, whose characterful portrait series accompanies the text.

Laurence Hills: So here we are, sat on a bench in Green Park watching the light slowly disapear on a cold December evening. You’ve just come from lunch with Rupert [Everett] who you will be portraying in the upcoming Lost and Found in Paris?
Kit Clarke: That’s right

LH: How do you deal with portraying someone who not only existed but is alive today?
Kit Clarke: Well, I think it’s actually a benefit for me with Rupert because every time I meet him, I am him. I go as him. And that’s very strange. But it’s also incredibly useful being able to sponge off that person as much as possible. You know, me and you sitting here, you get a feeling of who I am and I get a feeling of who you are. If I was going to play you, to have you in front of me, to get even a spark of a feeling of who you are is something that you can papier maché and put things on top of. But also it’s important to know that with Rupert I am not playing him now. I’m playing him when he was nineteen and twenty. Luckily there’s lots of video footage with him when he was young. I can walk around the room in my house talking along with an interview and no one’s going to tell me to shut up. Like Rupert has many times.

LH: And how was lunch?
KC: Well we were having lunch, Rupert and and a few other people, and he noticed someone started calling him and I said to him, “Shall I just answer the phone call? As you?” And he said, “Oh, yes, please do…” And so I picked up the phone and I said, “Oh, hello, Who is it? Oh, it’s you. Oh, nice to hear from you…” And because I was so involved and sponged into Rupert, being him, he probably hates it, the person thought it was Rupert for about 30 seconds. And for me, that was as good as winning an Oscar. And then I gave him the phone, well, he snatched the phone off me and said, “You’re an idiot.” That was a funny little moment.

LH: Would you say that you tend to live in your characters?
KC: When I’m on set, the weeks before, and maybe a few weeks after the film has wrapped, I will be in that character. From a very early age, I’ve always taken things from people I’ve admired, people that I like around me. And so in the least contrived way possible, I am an amalgamation of all of the people I’ve admired in my life… and I forgot what the question was.

LH: The question was, do your characters sort of live in you and do you live in them?
KC: Yes. Always, some more than others. I mean, I shot a film with you where I played an isolated man living in the forest, and I’m now an isolated man living in a forest. So, yeah, some more than others.

LH: And how would you describe your home?
KC: Well, you’ve been there. How would you describe the space?

LH: Well, it’s not for me to say… I would say it’s reminiscent of an old lady’s basement that she’s forgotten about for a while. Yeah. And perhaps someone’s moved in without her knowledge… maybe a school of rats.
KC: That’s exactly what it is. You took the words right out of my mouth.

“That really is the only way that I can act, when I can feel like I don’t need to act.”

LH: So what are you doing by yourself? Out in the sticks?
Kit Clarke: I’d probably say that I have a lot of energy. I have so much energy that now, at the age of 26, I am learning how to hone and direct it into the visions and the places that I want to go. And I also, you know, I’m fascinated with people. I love people, but I love observing people and being involved with people on my own terms. And for me to be able to love something fully, sometimes I need to step away from that in order to love it. So to be in the countryside is just lovely. And I’ve always loved nature and natural things and truth. And I find there’s a lot of truth in the natural world

LH: Does it get lonely?
KC: I suppose it does. But, I guess in a weird, almost painful way. That’s another reason I enjoy, uh, being alone, because it almost forces me to think about things that I’m passionate about

LH: Would you say that you have an acting style or method?
KC: I like to say that if I’m going to play a character, then I’m going to be the character and I’m going to learn everything about that character so that when I arrive on set, when the cameras start rolling, I don’t need to do anything. I’m living as the person. That really is the only way that I can act, when I can feel like I don’t need to act. Acting is one of the most truthful times that I have as a human, if that’s what I’m striving for, to be as truthful as possible when the cameras start rolling, which is why I try and live with it.

LH: When you say that you’re trying to find truth when the cameras are rolling, do you think there is maybe less truth in your day-to-day life?
KC: When I have a certain pair of blue Levi jeans on, I walk in a certain way down the road and I perceive the other person looking at me, perceive them looking at me as a certain character. That’s why I wear those jeans that day, because I felt like that. And I do this with everything I wear. I’m wearing a jacket today, and so I’m holding my back up straight and I’m looking you in your eye and I’m talking a bit posher than if I was gonna be wearing dungarees. So I think yes, I think acting, and I’m glad about this, is in every part of my life.

LH: And when you’re living that way, what gets left by the wayside, what gets sacrificed?
KC: I think at times it can be an isolated way of living. It’s a very focused way of living in terms of what I want to focus on, which is my craft and the things that I’m passionate about. I think perhaps I haven’t nurtured friendships as well as I’d like. Socialising in a more normal way with people, going to the pub and stuff. I’m, you know, I am quite isolated in that in that way. But yeah, I don’t know.

“I would like to have performances so good that other actors who are my age now or younger than me will look at them and say, well, there’s no way I could do that.”

LH: Is there a role that you feel you couldn’t play?
KC: I mean, watching, let’s say, Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. That’s a role I would love to play. But to play it the way he did it? Or Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight? I have to tip my hat to them, bow down to those performances and say, that is yours, that’s become yours. I would like to have performances so good that other actors who are my age now or younger than me will look at them and say, well, there’s no way I could do that. That is his.

LH: Speaking of that, do you have an actor that you feel like you draw from the most?
KC: I went to drama school and hated it – I left after about two months. I knew that I had to teach myself somehow. And so I went through, actor by actor, started with Marlon Brando, and then worked my way up to Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and DiCaprio and watched all of their films. When I’m doing a scene that’s very close up, I think about the energy and power that comes just from Al Pacino’s eyes and the fact that he does nothing with them and creates a whole room of just stillness, in the same way that Cillian Murphy did in Oppenheimer.

LH: How would you describe yourself?
Kit Clarke: I hopefully describe myself as sensitive and… truthful. And I’m an actor so that’s completely contrived, but there you go.

LH: Beatles. Or the Stones?
KC: Beatles

LH: Dinner date with anyone alive or dead?
KC: Princess Diana.

LH: Very good. And now for the picture round. Have you heard of a Rorschach test?
KC: No, never.

LH: So a Rorschach test is a test where you show someone a series of images and as quickly as you feel comfortable, you have to describe what you see. It is an abstract, symmetrical image.
KC: Hmm. OK.

LH: That makes sense? Ready?
KC: Yes.

LH: Number one.
KC: Two women playing bongos opposite each other.

LH: And number two.
KC: A giant looking down at me.

LH: Very good. Right Kit that is our interview concluded. It’s dark now.
KC: Pleasure being interviewed by you.

Creative direction: Laurence Hills and Molly Hackney
Photography: Laurence Hills