Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams interview for Old Times It's really, really good fun, very hard work, but really interesting because I will have my little version of the scene and I will suddenly see Lia do hers and think "How could I have missed that?." Lia Williams: It's like having two actors" brains working on one role at any given moment. We springboard off each other. It's inspiring. DC: So it's like an accelerated learning curve? KST: I wouldn't say it's accelerated. It's not a question of speed, it's a question of depth and intensity. DC: You're going to alternate the roles every so often, and have one show a week where you decide which part to take at the last minute - is that right? LW: It's roughly every four days but each Thursday evening there's going to be a lucky dip. Ian thought it might be good for Rufus to toss a coin in the foyer. KST: I didn't know it would be decided that way. Is that a good idea? Laughter DC: Some have said that Kate and Anna are aspects of the same woman. How much does the act of sharing these roles serve as a reading of the play? LW: I think it's a masterpiece because it's open to so many interpretations. And it stands all of them because it's so powerful. DC: Can you indicate what the line of thinking behind the production is? LW: I honestly don't think we should. I think the audience will read what they need to read from it. I think that if Harold was sitting here, he would say it's up to you, we can't tell you what to think or feel. KST: We've got a good map of what has been going on - what actually happens, what is imagined or suggested and what gets established as fact. LW: But we don't dictate that to anybody because the play is about memory and the whole point is that our memories fail us and that we recreate truths as we would wish them to be. DC: Is there a character you're more at ease in playing? KST: The surprising thing I'm finding is that I thought Kate would be the easier of the two roles to play because she says very little. But she's really difficult. She's very still, very mysterious. With Anna, you've got lots to hang on to. LW: Anna is a bit like diving off a cliff edge. It's exhausting but liberating. You're right, Kate is really difficult - her silences are words. You have to fill those silences with very specific thoughts. DC: Do you say "This is my reading?" or is there going to be an overlap in your approaches? KST: We're still discovering and developing things but I think it would be absurd to do a project like this and not feel free to borrow from each other. LW: But even if you do share, you're still you. It's going to be your own version whatever you do. DC: The actor Colin Blakeley, who played Deeley in the original production, said it was very much a play about people in their forties and mid-life looking back on old times. LW: Yes, it very much is. It's about mortality. KST: It's also about roots, about wanting to go back to where you come from. It's about reconciling the young person and the adult. I suppose it's about how you imagined things were going to be and how they turned out, which is a very mid-life-crisis type of reckoning. DC: There's a huge amount of latent violence in the play. Is that something potentially difficult to deal with, as you come off stage? KST: We don't know how doing this night after night, sometimes twice a day, is going to have an effect. There are enormous feelings of rage and desolation. LW: Don't you think it's a good thing that we're playing both roles? KST: In terms of your own personal sanity? It's funny, the play deals with such a lot of dark stuff, it's so dangerous between us, that the moment we stop we get like 12-year olds. You're coming out of this potentially traumatic experience and suddenly you're wiggling your bum to some terrible piece of music. Laughs LW: We've got a ping-pong table over there. We play ping-pong! The remarkable thing about Pinter's work is that he strips everything back. The audience gets kicked in the ribs by something raw and real and true. That's how Pinter should be. It should never be opaque and dreamy. He's giving you something true to grasp on to which I think is theatre at its greatest. Old Times begins previews at the Harold Pinter Theatre (0844 871 7622; www.oldtimestheplay.com) on Saturday.