The Education of Raffey Cassidy

For the 23-year-old British actor Raffey Cassidy, it was an easy yes when director Brady Corbet approached her about a role in his latest film, The Brutalist, which is nominated for seven Golden Globes this weekend. They were both attending an afterparty for Corbet’s 2018 film, Vox Lux, in which Cassidy starred alongside Natalie Portman, when the director and his close collaborator Mona Fastvold asked Cassidy to be involved in their next project. “He went, ‘Raffey, I’m going to send you a script for The Brutalist. There is a part, Zsófia, see if you want to play her if you like it, and if you don’t, don’t worry,’” Cassidy recalls. Having just developed a deep trust from working together, Cassidy knew she was ready to commit before he even sent over the screenplay and was even more enthusiastic after she read it. “The material was amazing—it was almost like this biopic, but it took you to a different place,” she says. “Everything was there with the character, and it was amazing. Obviously, I was like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, of course I’ll do it.’”

Set over decades in the post-World War II era, The Brutalist follows the Hungarian Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who emigrates to the United States hoping to find a better life. Having survived the Holocaust, his personal identity and traumatic experiences color his efforts to find a career in America and reunite with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and niece, Zsófia, who remain in Europe after being forcibly separated. After meeting a wealthy man, László is allowed to work as an architect and accepts the man’s help in bringing his family to America.

Burdened by her own trauma, when Zsófia arrives in America, it is discovered that she has chosen to be mute. Cassidy found herself excited by the challenge of taking on a role that required her performance to be portrayed with more emphasis on physicality and emotion rather than just words. “Having her being mute and having no lines was one of the most freeing experiences,” she explains. “I think it’s really specific to Brady and Mona’s writing that they could tell so much of a story without using dialogue, and I think that sometimes audiences are not given enough credit for the intelligence to understand the story. You can say so much with your eyes or facial expression. So it’s a freeing experience to be able to do it with no lines.”

To prepare to portray Zsófia, Cassidy tried to keep a balance between studying the time period’s history and maintaining a personal connection to her character. “I try not to make it too historical because I wanted to keep it really specific to the character and their story. Sometimes, when you study history so vastly, it becomes more like you’re telling a historical story, so I tried to keep away from that,” she says. “However, obviously, it’s a super, super important period of history, so I couldn’t help but delve into that.” Corbet also made himself available in ways that Cassidy describes as “so generous of his time” to discuss her character, while also being respectful of an actor’s role as a collaborator. “He won’t try to intimidate you into over-explaining a character,” she says. “It’s important for him that he has given you this part and you’re supposed to bring something to the table. He very much left it in my hands to see what I brought.”

Cassidy recognizes a shift in her approach when reflecting on how she has evolved as an actor since their last film, made when she was seventeen. “When I was younger, I loved to work spontaneously,” she explains. “Don’t get me wrong, I always put a lot of work into it and research, but I liked feeling like I was turning up and doing something natural and organic. But the older I get, the more I love studying characters and going a little too far in analytics.” She says this shift may be partly influenced by her recent completion of a degree in film studies. “Film studies changed how I watched films,” she says. “It made me analyze everything, which, in some ways, is terrible—but also, I quite like it.”

Despite already having a well-established career and having acted since she was seven years old, Cassidy felt a calling to complete her studies and was inspired to enroll by working with people like Corbet. “He is like an encyclopedia for film. Actually, that doesn’t really do him justice to say just film. His knowledge of the world and everything is so huge that I learned so much from being around him,” she says. “I wanted to be able to add something to conversations with people like him.”

When asked if there is a dream role that Cassidy would write for herself, she is quick to answer. “I would just die to be in anything that Ryan Murphy does. I think that the whole world is really super special. I think he’s a really cool director and writer. If I could call him, it would be like, ‘I’ve written myself a part to be in something you do, Ryan.’ I would do that,” she laughs.

Having already worked with the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos, Noah Baumbach, and Tim Burton, Cassidy has had no shortage of opportunities to focus on developing her craft with some industry legends, but she also gravitates to working with newer directors, explaining that she feels “you have more of a place to bring something to the table.” One of her upcoming roles is in the film Diamond Shitter, directed by Antonia Campbell-Hughes. “She’s a super intelligent person,” says Cassidy. “She’s been an actress before, which really draws me to directors. That’s why Brady is such a good director as well. Because he knows your position. Brady is like an actor’s director. Actors just absolutely love him and Antonia is similar as well.”

While Cassidy was inspired at school to perhaps one day move behind the camera, she says she’s still a few years away from being ready. “If you think about the best directors, they all have their own style,” she explains, speaking from personal experience. “You could watch their films and know that they were by them, and they've got their authorship written all over it. That takes a long, long time.”

The Brutalist is now playing in theaters.