A saucy Instagram ad doubles down on the likeness for those familiar with the film, showing a stream of historical images past an androgynous beauty shimmering in bleached lace and satin. But although the palette is similar, the temperature is very different: while Swinton was cool and distant, Corrin emits an invitation to play. Wolfe wrote, “She was a woman” – the best line ever It’s an atmosphere that follows the actor into the room after a day of rehearsal in a chilly London chapel. Sitting on one end of an old leather couch, they say they can’t remember a time when they didn’t know about Orlando. “But if I’m being completely honest, it was mainly through the film – because of the feel it had, aesthetically and in terms of Tilda’s performance, but also through the conversations it started about gender fluidity in a time when it wasn’t ” Really on people’s radar.” Returning to the novel last year, Corrin was amazed. “I love how he asks all these questions and allows himself to hold them there before answering them, if he answers them at all. This is a very real life and identity experience, particularly with your gender identification. It’s all about trying to answer those questions about how you feel and juxtaposing that with what society is trying to make you feel about yourself.” “When did you find out?” … Grandage and Corrin. Photo: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Since breaking out in season four of The Crown as Diana, Princess of Wales – a character they’ve described as “so queer in many ways” in terms of both the king’s otherness and the embrace of his peers – Corrin has become pin-ups for non-binary identity with no qualms about sharing their ups and downs on social media. Last spring they stated that their pronouns were “she/they”. a few months later they changed to “they/them”. Why; “Because I was working on a film in the US, away from everyone who knows me, and when people called me, I felt so weird and uncomfortable,” says the actor. This month, the actor in particular seems to be everywhere: he’s been promoting a lead role in Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, while also appearing in theaters as the young wife of Harry Styles’ closeted gay copper in My Policeman. At the other end of the sofa sits Michael Grandage, director of My Policeman and Orlando: one a wistful reflection on the time wasted in so many closed lives in the mid-20th century. the other a joyfully anachronistic reflection on what is possible in life and art today. Woolf’s novel has been crafted by the playwright and novelist Neil Bartlett into a magpie’s nest of sparkling puns, gleefully stolen from many writers over the centuries from Shakespeare and Pope to Kander and Ebb, as well as Woolf herself and the lover in them. the novel, Vita Sackville-West. Orlando was published in 1928, a decade after women won the right to vote in the UK and almost 40 years before homosexuality was legalized in England and Wales. Grandage’s introduction to the novel took place at a boys’ grammar school in Cornwall in the 1970s. “I can’t begin to pretend I saw all that was in there, but as a boy of 16 or 17, time travel was interesting to me: the idea that a writer could play with form to create a character. that he passed through time effortlessly – and that there was never any doubt about it. Nobody says “That’s not possible.” ‘Started conversations’ … Tilda Swinton in Orlando (1992). Photo: Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Growing up on opposite ends of a tumultuous period for sexuality and gender identity, the duo have an easy rapport but also the curiosity of two people looking at each other across an ocean of history. “When did you learn? [you were gay]?” asks Corrin of Grandage, who has had a creative and personal relationship with theater designer Christopher Oram for as long as Corrin has been alive. The question prompts an anecdote from Grandage about a disturbance at school, “when someone spat the word at me ‘queer’ on the playground and I had to go home and ask my dad what queer was, because I had no idea.” She would have been about 14, he recalls, “and you have to understand that when you were 14 in the 1970s, it was like being 11, or even nine, now. And I remember my dad looking at me saying, “Queer is a really bad word for gay.” Well, that didn’t help at all, so I asked him what gay means. There was a pause, and then, in what I now appreciate to be a piece of supreme parenting, he said, “A homosexual, my son, is a free spirit.” “Do you think he knew?” Corin asks. Grandage says he never got a chance to ask because his father died when he was 18. “I think he must have – that’s why he said it – but I didn’t know that either at 14. I had no idea. In Penzance in the 1970s? Give me a break!” The trailer for My Policeman, directed by Grandage and starring Corrin alongside Harry Styles Corrin ponders this before reflecting that, even in the five years between them and their younger brother, attitudes have changed. Dropping out of Bristol University after struggling with their identity, they only found their feet when they made a fresh start at Cambridge. “When I first started dating a girl, my brother sent me a message on Instagram saying, ‘Hey, you’re welcome. I’ve been out for years.’ And I said, “What?” He just got on with it quietly. So he has an amazing girlfriend, but he’s masculine and feminine and wears makeup and heels and is everything at the same time. I guess that must be what he feels in his friendship group. But I think it’s a testament to my family as well, creating a safe space for him.” Orlando celebrates the openness of minds, the ease with which we might find fluidity within ourselves Emma Corrin Grandage points out that part of the mission of the production company he founded in 2011, at the end of a decade in charge of London’s Donmar Warehouse, is to make West End theater accessible to the younger generation by offering them cheap tickets. Not many will have memories of Swinton’s iconic performance in a film that is, in any case, of its time – and one big difference is the strides made towards diverse casting. “There are 11 people in the cast and – I’ve got to get it right – only one of them is a man,” Grandage says carefully. What does this mean? “Well, you’ll tell me.” It’s a challenge that’s heightened by the gender shifts in the play itself. It was funny, Corrin jokes, seeing him get his pronouns in a twist: “Like, ‘He, she – oh no! I mean them.’ But actually,” they continue, “you’re really good at it.” Grandage accepts the compliment, adding, “I’ll tell you one of the reasons I’m not worried about it — is because even before I started the casting process, a trans actor said the most beautiful thing to me: ‘Look, the only thing you have to remember is that, provided it’s never done maliciously, getting it wrong is perfectly forgivable, because everyone knows you’re trying to get it right.” And strangely enough, the moment you free yourself from that anxiety, you discover that you get it right.” “So queer in so many ways”… Corrin as Princess Diana in The Crown. Photo: Des Willie/AP “How strange to have so many selves,” Woolf wrote in her diary in 1935. In a discussion about when exactly the word “queer” was reinstated, Corrin reveals that she has not heard of Section 28, the infamous bill that introduced . by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the late 1980s, who banned the “promotion of homosexuality” from schools and local authorities. “It was a dark time in LGBTQ history, there’s no doubt about it,” Grandage says. “We all rallied against him and Annie Symons, the costume designer on My Policeman, got arrested and went to jail for it. That’s why I think the film is important: because we’re in a fragile period where all these Section 28 themes seem to be re-emerging.” It’s not that everything is now going backwards, he makes clear, but that forward momentum has stalled. “And going backwards is going to be scary. I think the moment this new generation starts to realize that it can actually happen will be the beginning of an uprising like we’ve never seen before. Because they are not going to give up the freedoms they rightfully enjoy, after many struggles involving many of us over many years. Neither are we, by the way, but what a great, powerful voice.” That, they agree, is why Orlando remains a groundbreaking work nearly a century later. Says Grandage: “It made people think, ‘Wow, just look at the ultra-dramatic mind of a writer who can say, ‘She was a woman’” – the best line ever. What is this trigger for a modern audience? We’re using a piece of literature and a play to reflect a huge conversation that’s happening in society right now.” Corrin says: “It celebrates the openness of minds and the ease with which we should be able to find fluidity within ourselves and our society. For me, this is very relevant, but I also think that, for many people, I hope it will be cathartic and empowering. Isn’t it really an ode to freedom and love?’ Orlando is at the Garrick Theatre, London, from 26 November to 25 February.
