Copyright: BBC
We’ve just been hearing from Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson, who are the stars of the new West End production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
The pair begin their conversation with Laura by discussing how demanding it was to portray such troubled characters from the American playwright’s Pulitzer-winning play, noting how each of their roles has to confront trauma, addiction, love and forgiveness.
Or, as Cox surmised: “Well, it’s about dysfunctional families.”
Cox highlights how the play itself was a rather personal one for the famed American playwright, as it’s widely believed that the content it explores was based on O’Neill’s own life, and it proved to be a personal struggle for both actors.
“He was in a lot of pain when he wrote the play,” says Cox, adding that he’s read that O’Neill’s wife would sometime find him “weeping” after writing.
Clarkson jests that while the pair have been in rehearsals for the show, they too haven’t shied away from their emotions. “I cried yesterday for about eight hours,” she says, noting that there was a one-hour break at lunch.