UK actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw: ‘We’re all living a pyschological thriller in the real world’

UK actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw has a theory as to why on-screen thrillers are so popular right now – we’ve all been living one in the past few years.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in a scene from the Apple TV+ thriller Surface.

UK actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw has a theory as to why psychological thrillers are so popular right now – we’ve all been living one in the past few years.

It’s a perennially popular genre on the printed page as well as the big and small screen, but the star of Morning Wars and Belle says they are particularly resonant at the moment, both for her personally and for the wider world.

After making her first psychological thriller last year – The Girl Before – she’s now backed up with Surface, a twisty-turny tale about a San Francisco woman who loses her memory in an accident and then has to piece together the elusive elements of her former life.

“I think there is a heightened element to psychological thrillers and in many ways, the last couple of years in the pandemic have almost felt like we’ve been living in a psychological thriller in the real world,” Mbatha-Raw says via Zoom call from England, where she’s just about to start shooting season two of the Marvel hit Loki.

“So many unexpected things have happened in our culture and twists and turns of what’s going on with the human race and the world at large. Maybe that’s why there are more being made at the moment because people really resonate with the idea of the world turning on its head.”

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in a scene from the Apple TV+ thriller Surface.

Mbatha-Raw says its natural for actors to be fascinated with psychology and “analysing what makes us all tick” but she was particularly intrigued by the prospect of a playing a character who didn’t know who she was.

Under normal circumstances, she’d create an elaborate backstory for any given role and that imagined past would inform how she played the present that the audiences see. But in Surface, her well-heeled socialite Sophie, who is fished from the water after supposedly falling from a ferry and with no memory of how she got there, only rediscovers her past at the same time the audience does.

“That was an interesting process,” she says, “because that’s not normally the way that you would work and, in a way, I built Sophie as the audience sees her. As we go through, Sophie herself is the mystery and she’s trying to solve the mystery of herself as we go through the show.”

“But also, there’s the really fundamental question of if you do have a blank slate, are we destined to make the same mistakes, are our fundamental character traits innate or can we make better choices or change? Is there really such a thing as a fresh start, or will you essentially always become the same type of person?”

Gugu Mbatha-Raw says it was fascinating to delve into the issues of memory for her role. Picture: Getty Images

The writer and creator of Surface, Veronica West, arranged for Mbatha-Raw and director Sam Miller (I May Destroy You, Luther) to meet with a memory-loss expert to delve deeper into the condition and how and when flashbacks may occur. They also devoured medical articles that discussed new therapies – including the use of psychedelic drugs – and the effect memory loss can have on families and loved ones.

“From a lot of the things that I read, it’s also very difficult for the people in that person’s life as well,” says Mbatha-Raw. “Not just from an injury, but if you’re dealing with different types of dementia or other types of memory loss. They’re all very specific.”

Mbatha-Raw’s first forays into psychological thrillers with The Girl Before and Surface also marked her first steps into the world of producing. One of her producing partners on Surface was her Morning Show co-star Reese Witherspoon, whose production company Hello Sunshine has been behind recent hits including Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere and the acclaimed movie adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing, which opened in cinemas here last week.

“She’s just such an inspiration,” Mbatha-Raw says of Witherspoon. “Seeing what she’s built with Hello Sunshine and their ethos of empowering women. She was instrumental in championing this project in terms of the pitch to Apple and bringing me on board to pitch with Hello Sunshine and Veronica for this show.

“Reese is very smart in that she’s also surrounded herself with some incredible people at Hello Sunshine. She’s definitely the pioneer and the leader of the company, but there’s many great people that keep it going.”

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in a scene from the Apple TV+ thriller Surface., which she helped produce.

Mbatha-Raw says stepping up as a producer has been a huge learning curve, but having acted on stage and screen for nearly two decades, she relished the chance to have a bigger voice in her projects, from pre-production and choosing collaborators right through to the editing room and post-production.

“Obviously, you always have opinions as an actor, but as a producer, you actually have a place to put them and a place to really be heard,” she says. “I think that’s probably the difference. It’s been really inspiring as a woman to be surrounded by female producers in a female-focused story like Surface. I’m excited to continue with it.”

But first there’s the opportunity to reprise the mysterious and menacing Ravonna Renslayer opposite Tom Hiddleston’s time-travelling, universe-hopping title character in Loki. Filming began in the UK last month and once again the Marvel cone of silence has descended.

“I really can’t say much but I’m excited to get back into that world,” she says with a laugh. “But there are lots of new adventures in store.”

Surface streams on Apple TV+ from July 29.