LONDON – Documentary filmmaker Sophie Fiennes has released Acting, a cinematic study focusing on the specific processes of acting through the lens of rehearsal and the workshopping of ideas.
By documenting the developmental phase of a production of Macbeth, the film examines the structural approach to performance and the collaborative relationship between directors and actors before a production enters technical runs, dress rehearsals, and public performance. The project also revisits the continuing power of Shakespeare’s tragedy within a UK theatre ecosystem shaped by public funding and arts policy, in which rehearsal practice is increasingly scrutinised for both artistic value and workplace culture.
Rehearsal Methodology and Production Scope
The film observes the preparatory work led by Cheek by Jowl director Declan Donnellan and co-director Nick Ormerod. The production utilizes the derelict spaces of Twyford Abbey, where the crumbling interiors serve as a proxy for Inverness Castle, supplemented by actor-based exercises conducted on the grounds. The choice of an abandoned, privately owned site also underlines the growing pressure on dedicated rehearsal spaces in London’s commercial property market, forcing companies toward temporary and often unconventional locations.
Unlike comprehensive “making-of” documentaries, Acting excludes the broader business of theatrical production, such as auditions, table reads, design meetings, and the nightly repetition of performances. Instead, it isolates the exploratory stage of artistic development-where risk, uncertainty and failure are structurally permitted-offering a rare on-camera counterpart to the protected creative time envisioned in publicly funded theatre models and in the UK’s national cultural policy framework.
Personnel and Textual Analysis
The production features eight actors who rotate through the lead roles to explore different interpretations of the text and to test how power, guilt and ambition register across contrasting bodies, ages and performance styles.
The roles are distributed as follows:
- Lady Macbeth: Grace Andrews, Amber James, Sophie Khan Levy, and Hannah Young.
- Macbeth: David Burnett, Orlando James, Jonathan Livingstone, and Ekow Quartey.
The sessions focus on key narrative segments, specifically the period immediately preceding the murder of King Duncan and several major soliloquies, including “Is this a dagger?”, “Unsex me here,” and “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” By concentrating on these pressure points in the play, Fiennes captures actors and directors negotiating how much psychological explanation, external gesture or restraint a modern audience will accept.
Donnellan uses these sessions to challenge the pursuit of a definitive interpretation of the text, stating, “it’s not code for something else.” He further addresses the industry stigma regarding over-acting by comparing histrionic performance to real-world reactions. Donnellan references the behavior of onlookers during the September 11 attacks-specifically those gasping and pointing-and asks, “Who directed that?” The provocation speaks to a wider debate in British theatre and film about naturalism, authenticity and what kinds of emotional expression institutions deem credible on stage.
Cinematic Approach and Portfolio Context
Fiennes employs a daylit, meditative visual style for Acting, distancing the film from the high-energy pacing of her previous cinema-focused documentaries. Long takes and minimal intrusion allow rehearsal rooms-typically protected, closed-door environments regulated informally by company norms and, increasingly, by formal dignity-at-work and safeguarding policies-to be observed without turning the process into spectacle.
The approach is similar to her 2010 study of artist Anselm Kiefer, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, where the camera lingered on the slow construction of an artistic world. This marks a departure from the stylistic choices seen in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2013), which were characterized by a more hyperactive editing style driven by the presence of presenter Slavoj Žižek.
By foregrounding rehearsal as a site of labour rather than merely inspiration, Acting arrives at a moment when cultural institutions are reassessing how creative work is organised, credited and supported-an evolution shaped in part by collective agreements and standards promoted by bodies such as the UK’s creative industries unions.
Acting is available in UK and Irish cinemas starting 5 June.
