Alistair Petrie isn’t any stranger to villains. The British star has performed a few of tv’s most infamous, particularly because the stone-faced, unfeeling headteacher Mr. Groff in smash hit collection Intercourse Schooling, which noticed his icy glare pierce by means of screens in over 55 million households worldwide throughout its 4 seasons.
However as hardcore followers of Netflix’s sex-positive teen dramedy would possibly bear in mind, Michael Groff’s redemption arc was undeniably one of many present’s extra shifting plot factors. Petrie’s character, as soon as virtually vibrating with resentment and disgrace, learns to shed his steely exterior and make amends along with his son Adam (Connor Swindells), with whom he had a fraught relationship. It’s an ending solely made doable by the work of Petrie who, not like the lads he typically portrays, is attentive, heat and softened by a palpable adoration of the craft.
“I feel the villainous roles are massively enjoyable to play, however quite a lot of quite a lot of them will be underwritten every so often,” confesses Petrie, additionally identified for roles in Star Wars spinoff Andor and the BBC’s Sherlock. “The hero’s journey must be found out and the villains can typically [fall] by the wayside. That’s what I discover so entertaining once I learn them — definitely those I tackle — since you assume: ‘Who’s the human being? The place’s the villainy come from?’ It doesn’t simply seem,” he continues to The Hollywood Reporter over Zoom in late September. “And in that sense, you’re being requested to raise the fabric from the place it was initially conceived. Each good story wants a villain, and the way do you fulfill that? You attempt to discover the human being inside it.”
It’s this seek for humanity that makes Petrie the right match for theater’s greatest baddie: King Claudius, uncle to Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet. The 55-year-old leads a mighty ensemble forged at present performing on the Nationwide’s Lyttelton Theatre till November, with Lifetime of Pi‘s Hiran Abeysekera embodying our protagonist with a mischievous sense of frenzy by means of Robert Hastie’s sharp, up to date tackle the traditional.
“What I like about taking part in Claudius on stage is that he has such major character vitality,” says Petrie concerning the king-slayer, whose act of fratricide in a bid for the Danish throne sends his nephew spiraling. “When the curtain goes up, Claudius firmly believes that he’s in a play known as Claudius. He’s not in a play known as Hamlet. That is his second.”
Alistair Petrie, above left, performs King Claudius of Denmark in Robert Hastie’s Hamlet on the Nationwide Theatre.
Sam Taylor
It’s one thing that Petrie finds brilliantly inspiring on the stage, a spot he describes as “a tremendous actor’s medium, whereas movie and tv are far more of a director’s medium.” Hamlet marks his return to theater after 11 years, and the Brit casts his thoughts again to a stint in Declan Donnellan’s West Finish manufacturing of Shakespeare in Love, by which he performed Lord Wessex.
It’s not an expertise he thinks again on completely fondly, as Petrie discovered himself pulled between the painstaking calls for of theater and household life. “I’m definitely not scared of arduous work — I experience it — however I worth my different real-life roles as a accomplice and a husband and a father,” he explains. “I blithely thought you could stay barely out of London and nonetheless commute in and shortly do a West Finish Present in entrance of an viewers after which simply pop dwelling and keep it up as regular. However you possibly can’t. It requires extraordinary reserves of vitality, actually, and one thing needed to give.”
Petrie, married to actress Lucy Scott with whom he shares three sons, additionally admittedly discovered himself somewhat slowed down by the expectations positioned upon the forged within the stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie Shakespeare in Love (1998). “It was a really big-budget present. It had very grand plans. It was type of Disney-backed,” he says, “and I feel the expectations have been so excessive and that was barely thrust onto us. … After we lastly completed, I had no need to step on stage once more. It wasn’t a lot the doing of it. It was extra [about] the way it collides together with your life, and I simply wasn’t ready to provide that up.”
Along with his theatrical mojo rediscovered, Petrie finds himself again in entrance of a stay viewers. And after over a decade away, he’s relishing the joys. “As an actor, I like the sense of being a part of of a gaggle, of an ensemble,” he says. “I do assume if we seek for something in life, we do look to belong someplace — I imply, a psychologist may have area day with me,” he jokes, “however I feel it’s very a lot tied into the notion of being introduced up as a navy child and shifting round rather a lot. You’re determined to slot in, and as quickly as you end up as part of one thing, you’re on to the following factor. There’s a sure masochism to being an actor.”
One set that Petrie discovered himself instantly at dwelling on was the fan-favorite Intercourse Schooling, an expertise that he continues to really feel the ramifications of to at the present time. “It permeates all through the whole lot in probably the most superb means. Intercourse Schooling is a present — not was a present. I put it within the current tense,” the actor says about his time as Mr. Groff.
Within the early throes of manufacturing when fellow forged members Asa Butterfield, Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa, Aimee Lou Wooden and Connor Swindells have been but to succeed in the dizzy heights of stardom, he admits there have been issues about how the present would land with Netflix audiences. “Given the explosion of all of the streamers and all of the platforms and all of the curation that folks may do,” says Petrie, “would we discover an viewers? Or would we be buried in some sort of algorithm, within the bowels of Netflix? And it was simply probably the most superb reverse,” he smiles concerning the present, which debuted to vital and viewers acclaim. “You couldn’t have predicted how individuals would obtain it, of all age teams and demographics everywhere in the world.”
Intercourse Schooling is part of his life Petrie would by no means abandon within the face of snobbery, notably as a result of it’s supplied him with among the strongest off-screen relationships of his profession. Specifically, Petrie is shut along with his on-screen son and Barbie actor Swindells, and final yr officiated his wedding ceremony to fellow thespian Amber Anderson.
“I speak to Connor actually each day,” says Petrie. He pauses, recalling his first few days on the Intercourse Ed set. “I’m completely a 50-something-year-old man trapped in a 22-year-old particular person’s physique. There’s no query I’m a whole labrador relating to working on this trade. And inside seconds, I believed, ‘Oh, that is going to be nice.’ We have been only one blissful gang. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether or not I used to be comfortably almost double their age — watching all of them soar as they’re, I look on it with nearly a parental satisfaction.” He’s engaged on a brand new collection with Intercourse Ed alumn George Robinson, Petrie tells THR, who followers will know as Isaac Goodwin.
From left: Petrie and Connor Swindells as father-son duo Michael and Adam Groff in ‘Intercourse Schooling.’
Netflix
However Mr. Groff was a job that just about escaped him. In 2019, Petrie discovered himself all the way down to the ultimate two for Prince Philip in one other Netflix behemoth: The Crown. The half ultimately went to Tobias Menzies, however disappointment was quickly eclipsed by a telephone name asking him to learn for an exhilarating new present concerning the intercourse lives of keen teenagers.
“The scripts have been clearly so good,” Petrie says concerning the materials crafted by The Crown mastermind Peter Morgan. “I believed, ‘Gosh, it is a character I actually need to to research. Tobias and I are totally different, and it was both going to be him or it was going to be me. And he was magnificent — he’s a mate and a beautiful actor — and once I noticed it, it made good sense to me.” Inside an hour of being instructed Menzies nabbed the function, Petrie bought the decision about Groff. “Serendipity hovers over my being quite a bit,” he says, “and I’ll settle for that. If serendipity is my God, I’ll take it.”
One other serendipitous growth that’s bought Petrie excited is the upcoming second season of The Evening Supervisor with Tom Hiddleston, the British spy thriller tailored from John le Carré’s 1993 novel. Within the first season, which had us gripped all the best way again in 2016, Petrie performed Lord Alexander “Sandy” Langbourne, monetary director to the crafty Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie).
What was alleged to be a miniseries is now returning on Amazon Prime Video for a hotly anticipated second installment that, at sure factors, didn’t contain Petrie in any respect. “I might get a telephone name most likely about every year: ‘We predict we’re on,’” says the Briton. “I used to be like, ‘Nice.’ After which I get a telephone name a couple of yr later, and it will be like, ‘We’re going to do it, however you’re not in it.’ I went, ‘That’s completely nice. All good.’” He remembers phoning up good pal Laurie, who serves as an government producer on each seasons. Laurie stated one thing to the impact of: “‘In the event you’re standing on set someday and the digital camera’s on you and I’m standing behind the digital camera as an exec producer, then I suppose we’re doing it.’”
Finally, after hours-long conversations about learn how to “crack” a le Carré-esque story that isn’t completely based mostly on any of the creator’s work, season two of The Evening Supervisor was a go, Petrie included. “Finally, [writer] David Farr was accessible,” explains the actor. “I feel he sat down and stated, ‘OK, that is what I might do’ and offered it. There was a normal sense of, ‘Oh, OK, it is a story price telling.’” He additionally sings Laurie’s praises: “He’s so smart and sensible about le Carré’s work. As an exec producer, he’s all the time going to be creatively concerned. I feel learn it and checked out it amongst everybody else and there was a choice: ‘That is the one. I feel that is it.’”
The Evening Supervisor is anticipated to return to screens imminently. Petrie additionally says the forged is meant to be filming a 3rd season subsequent yr. “David has delivered a Shakespearean tragedy, I feel it’s great,” he teases. “That is simply based mostly on what I’ve learn, but it surely’s going to be monumental. We’re alleged to be doing a 3rd one subsequent yr and I actually hope we do, as a result of the individuals in it and round it are simply great.”
With Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet and now a Shakespeare-adjacent season of The Evening Supervisor forward, Petrie can’t assist however take into consideration the bard’s inventive affect on his profession up to now. “He wrote about all the good themes that run by means of our emotional lives,” ponders Petrie. “He wrote about energy and love and insanity and revenge and mortality and jealousy and the worry of God, and he did it fairly properly.”
This time round, along with his sons all grown up, Petrie’s bought the work-life stability somewhat extra found out. What stays is sheer satisfaction. “In amongst the crash bang of this trade, we raised three well-adjusted, first rate human beings,” he beams. “We’ve managed to determine it out, my spouse and I, as a result of we’re such a staff. So the emotion of doing all that is operating fantastically excessive in the mean time.”
Hamlet is on on the Nationwide’s Lyttelton Theatre till Nov. 22, 2025.