Johnny Flynn: 'rehearsal spaces can be very toxic'

The star of The Motive and the Cue talks to Alexandra Jones about fame, fraught rehearsals and theatre’s big culture shift

- Alexandra Jones

IT’S two days before the opening night of The Motive and the Cue — the hotly anticipated Sam Mendes play about Richard Burton and John Gielgud — and

Johnny Flynn (who’ll be playing Burton) seems pretty relaxed. The only giveaway that he feels anything other than totally zen is his habit of covering his eyes with one hand when he’s answering a question. In those moments, as he strives to maintain focus, I catch a glimpse of an agitated mind busy at work beneath the calm facade.

“I am feeling the pressure, of course,” he says. He is perched at the opposite end of the narrow bed in his dressing room at The National (banish all thoughts of twinkling vanity mirrors, the room is prison-cell-small and smells like rotting foliage thanks to a couple of bouquets which have seen better days). “The fact that this has been on the horizon for so long hasn’t helped my anxiety [Flynn began reading with Mendes and playwright Jack Thorne in 2021], it’s been like this mountain coming towards me.”