Ron Cook on Comedy, Cruelty and Relishing His Role in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming in London

The veteran actor Ron Cook needs little introduction to devotees of the British stage, given that he moves from show to show with consummate ease. With credits ranging from Brian Friel’s Faith Healer to Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good and on to his Olivier-nominated performance last year opposite Jude Law in Henry V, the actor is now winning raves for his work at the Trafalgar Studios in the 50th anniversary revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, directed by Jamie Lloyd. Broadway.com chatted with the genial actor about his latest role.

The part of the father Max in The Homecoming is fantastic: bitterly funny, vituperative, complex. Have you acted in many Pinter plays?
I haven’t, though I’ve always wanted to. I was in a play he directed some years back called Vanilla. I was doing the original production of Our Country’s Good in the West End, and one evening there was a knock on my dressing room door and in walked Harold Pinter. He said, “I’m doing a play and I’d like you to be in it.” How can you say no to Harold Pinter?

How did it feel to take on this assignment?
It was a mixture of daunting and very exciting. I’d worked with Jamie Lloyd before [on The Ruling Class with James McAvoy], so I knew that I’d go on a journey with him but I also knew that Pinter doesn’t want a meaning imposed on his plays. Things would come out just by playing the text.

Did you have any particular way into playing the text?
It’s interesting you ask that because I’ve actually written the word “relish” on the front of my script. I once heard [Pinter] say in an interview that he wanted actors, and people in general, to “relish [his] language,” and that is what I try to do.

I was amazed at how much comedy you and your co-stars mine from this story of a British couple returning home from the U.S. to a rather forbidding all-male London household.
Well, one of the things I came across from working with [Pinter], which I then took to Jamie, was that he was always insisting his plays were much funnier than people think, and Jamie said he knew that. You look at the text and you see it’s full of black humor and we thought we’d take that on.

Some of the stuff Max says is pretty shocking—funny in its outrageousness but also quite cutting and cruel.
Yes, and I think as an actor that you always have a third eye so that you can adapt to how the audience is reacting. If they’re laughing, for instance, you obviously have to surf the laugh but you try not to change your performance to suit the audience.

Do you recognize the machismo of the play, even though it was written a half-century ago?
Very much so. My dad worked in a car factory and a foundry and my mum was a cleaner and there was that macho spirit around. This was all well before feminism was up and running.

Your career is so truly all-encompassing, from classics to new plays, the West End to Broadway, stage to TV and film.
Yes, I think I have been very lucky in that I’ve been able to do varying parts: no one has put me in a pigeonhole, which means I can surprise myself and that is lovely.

Any idea what’s next for you after this?
Nothing yet but that’s how it often is. Serendipity is more interesting than anything I could think of!