Andrew Scott has revealed the ‘genuinely terrifying’ challenge he had to take on while playing fictional serial killer Tom Ripley during a candid chat with Jimmy Kimmel.
The Irish actor, 47, made his small screen return as leading star of Netflix’s adaptation Ripley which aired on Thursday and has already earned raving reviews.
Opening up about his demanding role he revealed that it wasn’t taking on the role of a murderer that scared him, but the fact 15 percent of his acting was in Italian.
‘It was genuinely terrifying, because he would be good at speaking Italian,’ the Fleabag favourite admitted.
‘So I’m an Irish playing an American which also speaks Italian, but I’m also an Irish playing an American imitating another American, speaking Italian,’ he added, leaving host Jimmy bewildered.
Andrew Scott has revealed the ‘genuinely terrifying’ challenge he had to take on while playing fictional serial killer Tom Ripley during a candid chat with Jimmy Kimmel
The Irish actor, 47, revealed 15 percent of his acting was in Italian while playing the demanding role in the new Netflix’s adaptation, which was released on Thursday
The All Of Us Strangers star also explained he had an Italian coach teaching him because he had to be fluent and nail the accent.
‘You want to get those details right. It’s for one’s own pride,’ he said.
Andrew plays in the fresh take on Patricia Highsmith’s enduringly popular 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley – a role previously played by Matt Damon and John Malkovich.
Set in the 1960s, Ripley is hired by a wealthy New Yorker to travel to Italy to convince his wayward son Dickie (played by Johnny Flynn) to return home.
Ripley lies his way into the lavish world of the elite before resorting to deceit and murder in a desperate attempt to keep his place at the table.
The Hollywood alum continued to display his impeccable sense of fashion as he donned a dogtooth blazer for his appearance on the American talk show.
Andrew looked in good spirits as he waved to a dedicated mob of fans cheering him.
The Spectre star donned a white tank underneath the stylish jacket, and teamed his look with faded denim.
He added white loafers and rocked auburn-tinted retro shades as he beamed.
‘It was genuinely terrifying, because he would be good at speaking Italian,’ the Fleabag favourite admitted
The Hollywood alum continued to display his impeccable sense of fashion as he donned a dogtooth blazer for his appearance on the American talk show
He waved to a dedicated mob of fans cheering him
The Hollywood alum appeared please and in jovial spirits, and didn’t seem to mind greeting a few lucky fans.
He recently opened up to discuss more challenges the iconic thriller role required.
What makes the tale by Highsmith so unique is that Ripley is the novel’s protagonist, Andrew said, despite being a serial killer, and encourages readers to see his humanity.
‘The challenge of it was ‘How do you make the audience feel what it’s like to be Tom Ripley, rather that where we might usually go, which is to feel like to be a victim of Tom Ripley’,’ the actor said.
While promoting the series, Andrew said what makes Highsmith ‘one of the great crime writers’ is that you are sometimes ‘willing’ for Tom to get away with his crimes, rather than simply seeing him as a villain.
The Sherlock star stopped to sign a few autographs as a flock of fans climbed up the enclosed gates in an attempt to reach out to him.
He said: ‘He’s the protagonist he’s not the antagonist, so it asks us to look at what’s dark within ourselves.’
The 1917 star went onto say that humans choose to categorise the perpetrators as ‘monsters’ in order to ‘make ourselves feel safer’.
‘Actually all these things are perpetrated by human beings and we have to be able to in some ways accept the very terrifying nature that people can make mistakes and be bad and inept and innocent and yet still do these terrible things,’ he added.
‘And I think that’s what is so sort of unsettling about the character. So he’s actually a deeply human character, but maybe not one that we choose to want to look at too much.’
The Fleabag favourite donned a white tank underneath the stylish jacket
Andrew added white loafers and rocked auburn-tinted retro shades
The Sherlock star stopped to sign a few autographs as a flock of fans climbed up the enclosed gates in an attempt to reach out to him
Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) wrote and directed the latest adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, following in the footsteps of the 1999 movie which starred Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.
With a noir take, in comparison to the sumptuous visuals of the Hollywood movie, critics have compared the Netflix version to Hitchcock in style and pace.
Ava star John, 70, – who previously played the title role in 2002 movie Ripley’s Game – returns to the world of Tom Ripley in a wildly different part while the star-studded cast also includes Dakota Fanning who portrays Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy who starts to suspect Tom’s motives.
While praise has been given to Andrew, some reviewers felt the supporting cast came up short with Evening Standard’s Anna Van Praagh deciding that Dakota Fanning ‘can’t compete for a second with Gwyneth’s Paltrow’s flawless Marge Sherwood, and Johnny Flynn is left dead on the side of the road compared to Jude Law’s portrayal of Dickie Greenleaf, a character he inhabited perfectly.’
The director’s visuals though have left the critics awe-struck with Carol Midgely of The Times noting that ‘it is so cinematic that it feels less like a TV series and more like a very long film,’ declaring it as ‘a completely hypnotic experience.’
The Daily Mail’s Christopher Stephens writes: ‘This isn’t just television, it’s a homage to great 1940s directors such as Carol Reed or Alfred Hitchcock.’
Meanwhile Andrew’s central performance has captivated early viewers, with the Irish actor labelled ‘spellbinding’.
Lucy Mangan for The Guardian writes in her five star review that ‘Scott’s Tom is everything and nothing, and mesmeric either way,’ adding: ‘There is magic at work here.’
But The Independent’s Adam White is insistent that Scott, who also serves as executive producer, ‘feels all wrong for this’ and is comparable to an EastEnders baddie, looking ‘more like a lost Mitchell brother than a high society interloper.’
Andrew plays in the fresh take on Patricia Highsmith’s enduringly popular 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley – a role previously played by Matt Damon and John Malkovich
The star-studded cast also includes Dakota Fanning who portrays Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie
Fans have also applauded Scott’s performance, as taking to X, formerly, Twitter, on Wednesday evening, mesmerised viewers wrote: ‘Ok so I’ve already done two hours work and I’m having a big cuppa tea and watching the first episode of Ripley on Netflix and I’m here to tell you that it and Andrew Scott are both astonishingly beautiful & strange & deeply unsettling & you should watch it;
‘Ripley series is on Netflix today. Slow-burner but intriguing… Scott is superb’; ‘A New Netflix Series Makes Andrew Scott the Definitive Tom Ripley’; ‘Saltburn? Netflix said I present to you Ripley. We love a scammer!’
Scott has called Ripley ‘a heavy part to play,’ telling Vanity Fair that he ‘found it mentally and physically really hard. That’s just the truth of it’.
‘I feel like you’re required to love and advocate for your characters, and your job is to go, ‘Why? What’s that?’ You don’t play the opinions, the previous attitudes that people might have about Tom Ripley.
‘You have to throw all those out, try not to listen to them, and go, “Okay, well, I have to have the courage to create our own version and my own understanding of the character.”‘
