Rebecca Hall on The Listeners, The Studio and Onslaught

Rebecca Hall has done a staggering amount of work since her miniseries The Listeners first aired overseas at the end of 2024. But once you watch her latest towering performance in director Janicza Bravo’s five-part miniseries that premiered June 12 on Starz, you’ll quickly understand why the English actor didn’t want to let her two-plus-year-old turn fall by the wayside. 

In Jordan Tannahill’s adaptation of his own novel, Hall plays an English teacher named Claire whose personal and professional life is turned upside down when she suddenly hears a steady humming noise. She alienates her family, friends and colleagues in her desperate search for answers, and Hall went as far as to wear an earpiece that fed her various types of hums so that she could experience the character’s vulnerable state of mind.

“We had lots of different versions that [director] Janciza [Bravo] would cycle through on the day. There were times where I’d be like, ‘Give me the really aggressive, painful one. Give me the gentle, low-key one,’” Hall tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes, it was just impractical because I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, which I guess was the point.”

A persistent, low-frequency hum is a real phenomenon that people have attributed to either external or internal sources, and The Listeners follows suit by not providing definitive answers to what afflicts Claire. Thus, it becomes a piece where you can insert any number of metaphors if you so desire, and Hall certainly has her own either/or interpretation.

“I was just reading this article about all the data centers making noise. People are posting these videos of what the data center sounds like two miles down the way from them,” Hall shares. “So there’s a very real version of it, and then there’s also this, How am I trusting myself and my perception versus what I’m told I’m perceiving?”

Hall just had two films premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, The Man I Love and The End of It, but she had to forgo the event due to the filming schedule of her zombie horror movie called Zero Protocol. Mind you, she already shot a psychological horror film earlier this year called A Head Full of Ghosts. On top of all that, she reunites with one of her oldest friends, Dan Stevens, for writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard’s Onslaught this September. All four previously collaborated on 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

For years, I, and many other journalists, have pressed Wingard, Barrett and Stevens for a sequel to their 2014 cult hit, The Guest, but the brain trust have all put up a unified ambivalence to the idea of revisiting the world of their action-thriller. However, as soon as A24 released Onslaught’s official trailer, questions swirled as to whether it was a stealth sequel to The Guest. After all, both films center on a secret military experiment that turns soldiers into enhanced killing machines, and Onslaught also shot in New Mexico like The Guest did back in 2013.

Hall confirms that she plays Onslaught’s German villain, but she seemingly rules out a potential connection to The Guest. Or does she? “It’s not really [a Guest sequel], I don’t think. It has elements,” says Hall.

Below, during a conversation with THR, Hall also discusses her exit from the Godzilla x Kong franchise, as well as her guest appearance on The Studio season one.

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It’s a busy time in the world of Rebecca Hall — so busy that you couldn’t go to Cannes for your two movies, The Man I Love and The End of It.

Yeah, I was filming another one called Zero Protocol, so I couldn’t go. It was unusual because you can usually work it out in the schedule to take three days off to go to Cannes. But I was making a movie where the story is in real time. It’s the precise two hours of the film, and it’s an entirely first-person subjective experience from my character’s point of view. So they literally couldn’t let me out for any amount of time. It was unfortunate, but it’s a champagne problem.

So The Listeners — not to be confused with 2022’s The Listener starring Tessa Thompson and you in a voice role — is just now reaching the States. It came out overseas in November 2024. Did the international markets have exclusive rights for x amount of time? 

Yes, as far as I understand it, it was that sort of thing.

Janicza Bravo directed all the episodes, and she’s good friends with the aforementioned Tessa Thompson. Did Tessa play matchmaker between the two of you?

She did introduce us, but that was probably a year or two before The Listeners came about. So it was a natural progression, and now Janicza is one of my closest friends since The Listeners. 

I heard about the project, and being a huge fan of Janicza’s, I knew her well enough to have her number in my phone. So I texted her to say, “I heard you’re doing this project. It sounds brilliant. I want to be a part of it.” And it was very fortuitous because she wrote me back, saying, “That’s very funny because I’ve been thinking about you for months for this. We just hadn’t got to the point where I could reach out and offer it to you yet.” So it was all very fated in that sense.

The Listeners marks your fourth character named Claire, and Ruth Negga’s character in your directorial debut, Passing, was also named Clare, minus the i.

Isn’t that weird? Thank you for noticing. 

Claire begins to hear a humming noise out of nowhere, and it quickly unravels her personal and professional life. Did anyone propose a more method approach by giving you an earpiece with an actual hum playing? 

Yes, they did indeed, and I did indeed take them up on it. It wasn’t always the most convenient, but I often used the little earwig piece. There were different versions of the hum because the final sound wasn’t designed until much later. Devonté Hynes, who did the music, also got involved in the hum because it came into the scoring. So we didn’t have the actual hum that you hear on the show, but we had lots of different versions that Janciza would cycle through on the day. There were times where I’d be like, “Give me the really aggressive, painful one. Give me the gentle, low-key one.” But sometimes, it was just impractical because I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, which I guess was the point.

After having the sound in your head all day, did it linger at all after work?

No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty brutal about cutting things off at the end of the day. I will myself to not think about work at a certain point. You have to do that when you have a child as well. You’ve got other things to think about at home.

I found the notion of the hum, metaphorically, quite haunting. There’s so many ways to interpret this piece of work, and that’s part of what I found so appealing about it. It was quite destabilizing at times to think about it and think about what Claire’s going through.

I read that you’ve previously maintained a character’s voice in between takes, but overall, is it rare for you to do things that border on method? 

No, I do what I need to do to believe that I am the person entirely. That doesn’t mean that I can’t stop doing it when the camera’s not rolling. That’s the difference. There’s a bit of a misconception about what method is. It assumes that if you’re not doing method, then you’re not really fully believing that you are the person when you’re acting. But you are, and you’ll do whatever it takes. There are some things that are easier to do, and I do them, whether it’s the earwig or doing jumping jacks directly before a scene where you are supposed to be out of breath. It’s the same logic. I don’t necessarily subscribe to a school of acting, per se, but how people perceive method acting has been distilled in lots of different ways that aren’t what it was originally about.

The hum is a real phenomenon. 

It is. 

The show does offer some form of a scientific explanation, but it’s still open to interpretation despite that explanation. 

Yes.

As you said, the hum can take on a whole series of metaphors, so how did you ultimately define it?

Well, I had to define it [during filming] as Claire would define it. If I’m defining it intellectually as Rebecca, I look at it as a piece that rather brilliantly manages to narrativize how beliefs are made in isolation. That’s the only way I can think of it, really. You have a woman who is going through an experience that is very hard to believe to those around her. And yet, for her, it’s real. So how do we all check our reality? And if we’re living in this increasingly isolated way where our reality doesn’t match up with someone else’s reality, then how do you break out of that? That’s what becomes most potent about it, actually. And that makes it, quietly, a political piece in a funny way.

I was just reading this article about all the data centers making noise. People are posting these videos of what the data center sounds like two miles down the way from them. So there’s a very real version of it, and then there’s also this, What am I open to that someone else might not be open to? How am I trusting myself and my perception versus what I’m told I’m perceiving?

Assuming you draw on your real life, did you have any comparable experiences where you felt like you perceived or sensed something that very few people could? 

I think we’ve all had some version of that, haven’t we? We’ve all been around someone who discredits us or — to use that really overused word — gaslights us in some way. I was drawing on versions of that. I’ve also had those moments where the world looks one way, and then something happens suddenly to where everything in your orbit looks completely different. When those moments happen in life, they can be very intangible and strange. It can be something as simple as being jet-lagged, or it can be something more meaningful like experiencing a huge loss. The world is then completely reordered, and you realize that how the world looks today is not a given, tomorrow. 

I won’t explain the context, but you do something toward the end that I haven’t seen before in this fashion. You laughed and sobbed at the same time. I wish I had a better question to ask here, but how did you do that? 

I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think I set out to do that. I didn’t think it would be a good idea ahead of time or rehearse it in the mirror or anything like that. It either happens, or it doesn’t. That’s just how I work. Acting is more instinctive than I even realize. There’s a lot that’s weird about it, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do. 

To go back to the method subject, I am probably more method than I realize. I just believe that what is happening to the character is happening to me, and whatever happens, happens within the scope of the lines and the story. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen in terms of the minutia of my face or what I feel at any given moment. Every actor hopes to feel what the character is going through so it’s authentic.

Shifting gears, most behind-the-scenes photos include a still of the director pointing at something in the distance. 

(Hall gives a knowing laugh.)

For Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), there’s one of Dan Stevens and director Adam Wingard both pointing in the distance, and you’re in the background cracking up. They were making fun of the behind-the-scenes photo, right?

Yes, 100 percent. I might’ve even dared them to do it. I might have said, “They’re doing behind-the-scenes photos. Adam, you should be pointing into the middle distance and looking like a director. What are you doing?” And then everybody did it.

Dan joined New Empire mainly because you and Adam, two of his dear friends, were already a part of the franchise, beginning with Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). But now he’s the only one left on the next movie, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova. What’s the story there?

He’s been excommunicated. We don’t speak to him anymore. (Laughs.) No, he was the newbie [on New Empire], so I think his contract was just longer than ours were at that point.

However, all three of you reunited on Onslaught, which just released its first trailer for a September release. Considering both films have a military experiment that turns soldiers into programmable killing machines, a New Mexico shooting location and the same creative brain trust of Adam, [co-writer] Simon [Barrett] and Dan, Onslaught sure smells like a stealth sequel to The Guest. What say you? 

I say nothing. It’s not really, I don’t think. It has elements.

Did I hear a German accent?

Yes, you did indeed. Dan is also doing a German accent in it. 

Yeah, that’s the one thing that really throws a wrench into the Guest 2 theory.

No comment. 

Have you seen a cut yet?

I haven’t seen a cut, but I’m really excited about it because it definitely opens a door for me to enter my villain era. I had a lot of fun.

You were among the few notable guest stars who played a character on The Studio season one and not a version of yourself. Were you given a preference?

No, I wasn’t given a preference, but I think they had the good sense to know that I probably would’ve preferred to do that than play myself. I still would’ve done either. But I thought the particular storyline — a pediatric oncologist who’s dating a studio head — was conceptually a very funny idea, and I was very into it for all the reasons that became obvious. 

Seth Rogen’s studio head character kept trying to argue to a room full of doctors that moviemaking was just as important as medicine. Have you ever been in that situation where you felt a tension between different occupations?

A long time ago, I was researching to play a barrister in a movie called Closed Circuit, and I hung out with some human rights lawyers for a while. It got so interesting hanging out with these people that it far superseded any needs I had for research. They just allowed me to continue to watch and follow certain cases. But I remember realizing at a certain point that all of them were interested in acting in the courtroom. There’s this crossover, in a way, between performance and giving a closing argument.

I really enjoyed being a lawyer for three months, and I remember one of them saying to me, “Well, if the acting goes wrong, you can always be a lawyer.” Then I asked all of them, “Would you want to be an actor?” And all of them were like, “Yes, we all wanted to be an actor at some point.” But at the same time, they were like, “But what we do is obviously much more serious,” which it is. (Laughs.) So that interaction was the closest I’ve come to experiencing that predicament on The Studio.

My dad has a pet peeve that he’s passed on to me, and it’s when someone delivers a drink by holding the rim of the glass with their fingertips. Thus, your mouth ends up touching where their fingertips just were. So I’m always mindful of drink acting in scenes, and Seth’s character hands a cappuccino to your character after his thumb was submerged in the cappuccino liquid itself. Did you ever notice this? 

(Laughs.) No, I didn’t. I’m really grateful I did not, because I definitely would’ve felt a little icked out by that. You’re right.

The oners/long takes make that show very difficult to shoot. So I wonder if they noticed it, but let it go because the rest of the scene worked. 

Yeah, I don’t think they would ever reset a one-take scene because of a thumb in the cappuccino. But now that we’re having this conversation, I might mention it.

Mid-walk, he catches himself on the cappuccino he gives you, but his other hand’s thumb is still firmly submerged in his own cappuccino. 

“Firmly submerged” is a really disturbing phrase. 

You’re right. I’m really sorry if you can’t unsee this from now on. What’s up with director Rebecca Hall?

Director Rebecca Hall has got three scripts that I’m trying to get made. I don’t know which one is going to go first, but one is likely to go next year. I’ve been trying to get the next one off the ground ever since I directed Passing. I’ve got a particular taste, and it’s not necessarily the most obvious on the page to finance. But things are changing, and things are happening.

The end of Passing leaves the audience wondering whether the fall was accidental or intentional. Does the book keep it equally ambiguous? 

It’s brilliantly done in the book. It actually pulls off a serious trick of making everybody responsible, including herself. I think all things are true: she was pushed, she jumped, she pushed her, he pushed her.

What are the elevator pitches for your two Cannes films? 

The Man I Love is my second film with Ira Sachs. It has Rami Malek and Tom Sturridge; Rami plays my brother. It’s set in the ’80s in New York. It’s about the life of a downtown artist performer and the meaningfulness of counterculture art. It’s a world that feels very alien these days, but wonderful and fascinating. 

The End of It is set in the future when death is optional, and nobody options it. I play a performance artist named Claire, who was probably a Marina Abramović and an enfant terrible back in her day. But now she’s 250, and the ennui has settled in: How the hell can you be a relevant artist at 250? So she decides that she’s had enough, and she’s going to end it all. She wants to make her death her final piece of performance art and try to wake up a society that’s utterly lost their mind because death is no longer a factor. It’s a very ambitious and very darkly comedic wild ride.

Years from now, when you reminisce about The Listeners, what day will you likely recall first? 

That’s a big question. There were a lot of hard days, but it remains one of the pieces of work that I enjoyed making the most because I loved working with Janicza so much. I think it’s very good; I’m very proud of it. Strangely, it was a very physical part, and a lot of scenes felt almost like modern dance, only we shot them outside on muddy grass in rainy England. They come to mind in terms of the discomfort and the cold.

If your agent brings you another character named Claire, are you going to finally put your foot down? 

(Laughs.) It’s so funny that you’ve brought this up today because no one else has spotted this. But Janicza, weirdly, talks about it all the time. She’s like, “You and the Claires, it’s got to stop.” We were out together last night, and she actually said to me, “If I was a young filmmaker trying to get a film made with you as the star, the only thing I’d have to do is write another character called Claire.”

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The Listeners debuts new episodes every Friday on STARZ until July 10.