Alistair Petrie is not any stranger to villains. The British star has performed a few of tv’s most infamous, particularly because the stone-faced, unfeeling headteacher Mr. Groff in smash hit collection Intercourse Training, which noticed his icy glare pierce via screens in over 55 million households worldwide throughout its 4 seasons.
However as hardcore followers of Netflix’s sex-positive teen dramedy would possibly bear in mind, Michael Groff’s redemption arc was undeniably one of many present’s extra shifting plot factors. Petrie’s character, as soon as virtually vibrating with resentment and disgrace, learns to shed his steely exterior and make amends along with his son Adam (Connor Swindells), with whom he had a fraught relationship. It’s an ending solely made doable by the work of Petrie who, in contrast to the lads he typically portrays, is attentive, heat and softened by a palpable adoration of the craft.
“I believe the villainous roles are vastly enjoyable to play, however loads of loads of them might be underwritten every now and then,” confesses Petrie, additionally identified for roles in Star Wars spinoff Andor and the BBC’s Sherlock. “The hero’s journey must be found out and the villains can generally [fall] by the wayside. That’s what I discover so entertaining once I learn them — actually those I tackle — since you suppose: ‘Who’s the human being? The place’s the villainy come from?’ It doesn’t simply seem,” he continues to The Hollywood Reporter over Zoom in late September. “And in that sense, you’re being requested to raise the fabric from the place it was initially conceived. Each good story wants a villain, and the way do you fulfill that? You try to discover the human being inside it.”
It’s this seek for humanity that makes Petrie the proper match for theater’s greatest baddie: King Claudius, uncle to Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet. The 55-year-old leads a mighty ensemble forged at present performing on the Nationwide’s Lyttelton Theatre till November, with Lifetime of Pi‘s Hiran Abeysekera embodying our protagonist with a mischievous sense of frenzy via Robert Hastie’s sharp, up to date tackle the basic.
“What I really like about taking part in Claudius on stage is that he has such essential character vitality,” says Petrie concerning the king-slayer, whose act of fratricide in a bid for the Danish throne sends his nephew spiraling. “When the curtain goes up, Claudius firmly believes that he’s in a play known as Claudius. He’s not in a play known as Hamlet. That is his second.”
Alistair Petrie, above left, performs King Claudius of Denmark in Robert Hastie’s Hamlet on the Nationwide Theatre.
Sam Taylor
It’s one thing that Petrie finds brilliantly inspiring on the stage, a spot he describes as “an incredible actor’s medium, whereas movie and tv are way more of a director’s medium.” Hamlet marks his return to theater after 11 years, and the Brit casts his thoughts again to a stint in Declan Donnellan’s West Finish manufacturing of Shakespeare in Love, by which he performed Lord Wessex.
It’s not an expertise he thinks again on completely fondly, as Petrie discovered himself pulled between the painstaking calls for of theater and household life. “I’m actually not scared of onerous work — I experience it — however I worth my different real-life roles as a associate and a husband and a father,” he explains. “I blithely thought that you would be able to dwell barely out of London and nonetheless commute in and rapidly do a West Finish Present in entrance of an viewers after which simply pop dwelling and keep on as regular. However you’ll be able to’t. It requires extraordinary reserves of vitality, actually, and one thing needed to give.”
Petrie, married to actress Lucy Scott with whom he shares three sons, additionally admittedly discovered himself somewhat slowed down by the expectations positioned upon the forged within the stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie Shakespeare in Love (1998). “It was a really big-budget present. It had very grand plans. It was kind of Disney-backed,” he says, “and I believe the expectations have been so excessive and that was barely thrust onto us. … After we lastly completed, I had no want to step on stage once more. It wasn’t a lot the doing of it. It was extra [about] the way it collides together with your life, and I simply wasn’t ready to present that up.”
Along with his theatrical mojo rediscovered, Petrie finds himself again in entrance of a dwell viewers. And after over a decade away, he’s relishing the joys. “As an actor, I really like the sense of being a part of of a bunch, of an ensemble,” he says. “I do suppose if we seek for something in life, we do look to belong someplace — I imply, a psychologist might have area day with me,” he jokes, “however I believe it’s very a lot tied into the notion of being introduced up as a army child and shifting round rather a lot. You’re determined to slot in, and as quickly as you end up as part of one thing, you’re on to the subsequent factor. There’s a sure masochism to being an actor.”
One set that Petrie discovered himself instantly at dwelling on was the fan-favorite Intercourse Training, an expertise that he continues to really feel the ramifications of to at the present time. “It permeates all through every thing in essentially the most superb means. Intercourse Training is a present — not was a present. I put it within the current tense,” the actor says about his time as Mr. Groff.
Within the early throes of manufacturing when fellow forged members Asa Butterfield, Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa, Aimee Lou Wooden and Connor Swindells have been but to achieve the dizzy heights of stardom, he admits there have been issues about how the present would land with Netflix audiences. “Given the explosion of all of the streamers and all of the platforms and all of the curation that folks might do,” says Petrie, “would we discover an viewers? Or would we be buried in some form of algorithm, within the bowels of Netflix? And it was simply essentially the most superb reverse,” he smiles concerning the present, which debuted to crucial and viewers acclaim. “You couldn’t have predicted how individuals would obtain it, of all age teams and demographics all around the world.”
Intercourse Training is part of his life Petrie would by no means abandon within the face of snobbery, notably as a result of it’s offered him with among the strongest off-screen relationships of his profession. Particularly, Petrie is shut along with his on-screen son and Barbie actor Swindells, and final yr officiated his wedding ceremony to fellow thespian Amber Anderson.
“I speak to Connor actually daily,” says Petrie. He pauses, recalling his first few days on the Intercourse Ed set. “I’m completely a 50-something-year-old man trapped in a 22-year-old individual’s physique. There’s no query I’m a whole labrador relating to working on this trade. And inside seconds, I assumed, ‘Oh, that is going to be nice.’ We have been only one joyful gang. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not I used to be comfortably practically double their age — watching all of them soar as they’re, I look on it with nearly a parental satisfaction.” He’s engaged on a brand new collection with Intercourse Ed alumn George Robinson, Petrie tells THR, who followers will know as Isaac Goodwin.
From left: Petrie and Connor Swindells as father-son duo Michael and Adam Groff in ‘Intercourse Training.’
Netflix
However Mr. Groff was a task that almost escaped him. In 2019, Petrie discovered himself all the way down to the ultimate two for Prince Philip in one other Netflix behemoth: The Crown. The half ultimately went to Tobias Menzies, however disappointment was quickly eclipsed by a telephone name asking him to learn for an exciting new present concerning the intercourse lives of keen teenagers.
“The scripts have been clearly so good,” Petrie says concerning the materials crafted by The Crown mastermind Peter Morgan. “I assumed, ‘Gosh, this can be a character I actually need to to analyze. Tobias and I are totally different, and it was both going to be him or it was going to be me. And he was magnificent — he’s a mate and a beautiful actor — and once I noticed it, it made excellent sense to me.” Inside an hour of being informed Menzies nabbed the function, Petrie received the decision about Groff. “Serendipity hovers over my being rather a lot,” he says, “and I’ll settle for that. If serendipity is my God, I’ll take it.”
One other serendipitous growth that’s received Petrie excited is the upcoming second season of The Night time Supervisor with Tom Hiddleston, the British spy thriller tailored from John le Carré’s 1993 novel. Within the first season, which had us gripped all the way in which again in 2016, Petrie performed Lord Alexander “Sandy” Langbourne, monetary director to the crafty Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie).
What was purported to be a miniseries is now returning on Amazon Prime Video for a hotly anticipated second installment that, at sure factors, didn’t contain Petrie in any respect. “I’d get a telephone name most likely about yearly: ‘We predict we’re on,’” says the Briton. “I used to be like, ‘Nice.’ After which I get a telephone name a few yr later, and it could be like, ‘We’re going to do it, however you’re not in it.’ I went, ‘That’s completely superb. All good.’” He remembers phoning up good pal Laurie, who serves as an govt producer on each seasons. Laurie stated one thing to the impact of: “‘When you’re standing on set someday and the digicam’s on you and I’m standing behind the digicam as an exec producer, then I suppose we’re doing it.’”
Ultimately, after hours-long conversations about the right way to “crack” a le Carré-esque story that isn’t completely primarily based on any of the creator’s work, season two of The Night time Supervisor was a go, Petrie included. “Ultimately, [writer] David Farr was obtainable,” explains the actor. “I believe he sat down and stated, ‘OK, that is what I’d do’ and introduced it. There was a basic sense of, ‘Oh, OK, this can be a story value telling.’” He additionally sings Laurie’s praises: “He’s so clever and good about le Carré’s work. As an exec producer, he’s all the time going to be creatively concerned. I believe learn it and checked out it amongst everybody else and there was a choice: ‘That is the one. I believe that is it.’”
The Night time Supervisor is anticipated to return to screens imminently. Petrie additionally says the forged is meant to be filming a 3rd season subsequent yr. “David has delivered a Shakespearean tragedy, I believe it’s fantastic,” he teases. “That is simply primarily based on what I’ve learn, but it surely’s going to be huge. We’re purported to be doing a 3rd one subsequent yr and I actually hope we do, as a result of the individuals in it and round it are simply fantastic.”
With Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet and now a Shakespeare-adjacent season of The Night time Supervisor forward, Petrie can’t assist however take into consideration the bard’s creative affect on his profession up to now. “He wrote about all the good themes that run via our emotional lives,” ponders Petrie. “He wrote about energy and love and insanity and revenge and mortality and jealousy and the worry of God, and he did it fairly effectively.”
This time round, along with his sons all grown up, Petrie’s received the work-life steadiness somewhat extra found out. What stays is sheer satisfaction. “In amongst the crash bang of this trade, we raised three well-adjusted, first rate human beings,” he beams. “We’ve managed to determine it out, my spouse and I, as a result of we’re such a workforce. So the emotion of doing all that is working superbly excessive for the time being.”
Hamlet is on on the Nationwide’s Lyttelton Theatre till Nov. 22, 2025.
