Alistair Petrie on Hamlet, The Night Manager and the art of resilience

Photographer – Josh Shinner

A conversation with the British actor about craft, character, and crossing oceans on and off screen.

Few British actors move between stage and screen with the quiet assurance of Alistair Petrie.
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the RSC to The Night Manager and Sex Education, Petrie’s career has been one of deliberate evolution measured, precise, and deeply rooted in his theatre training. In this exclusive LEWIS conversation, he reflects on the discipline of preparation, the moral complexity of modern storytelling, and how swimming the English Channel became the ultimate test of endurance, both personal and professional.

You’ve worked extensively in theatre — from Shakespeare at the RSC to His Dark Materials at the National Theatre. What is one lesson from your stage career that continues to shape the way you approach screen roles? 

 You can’t over prepare. In theatre, the entire process is built around rehearsing, refining, exploring and there is time to do all of that before you put a production in front of an audience. In the world of screen, rehearsal time is usually minimal and  ‘on the day’ so all the rehearsal and character work you have to do before you turn up on set. There’s no question my drama school training and my theatre work has been invaluable, certainly for that aspect of filming. 

From the corridors of Moordale Secondary to the war rooms of the Rebel Alliance — you’ve inhabited characters across wildly different worlds. How do you recalibrate your performance when moving from something contemporary like Sex Education to the heightened stakes and mythology of Star Wars? 

 You try and treat ’those two impostors just the same’ to bastardise the Kipling quote. Performance is performance whether it’s a butter commercial or a 70mm Star Wars Imax Experience. Your job first and foremost is to serve the story, work with the vision and tone of the piece – a conversation with your Director – be truthful in an imaginary set of circumstances and certainly don’t get wrapped up in the scale or mythology of any given project. Certainly, the Star Wars legacy is so utterly enormous, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it but equally I’m just an actor standing within a character, holding a script and telling a story. Another bastardised quote…

In The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies, you led a drama rooted in manipulation and deceit. What draws you to characters or projects that operate in morally grey spaces?

 We all exist in a morally grey space. Human Beings are flawed; it’s the definition of what it is to be human – we are all neither all wholly good or bad.  The interesting part is to find the good in the bad and vice versa. Good and Bad within all of us collide constantly. Of course, there is levels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and how we define that is vast and complicated but it’s a good starting point. My job is to work out why do the characters behave the way they do. I try to ‘love’ them all and not judge them. Flippantly, it’s also really fun to say the kind of things I’d never say in real life. 

Photographer credit- Josh Shinner

How do you navigate the balance between historical storytelling and making a character resonate with modern audiences? 

 Again, it comes to the Human Aspect. Human Beings have retained the same fundamental characteristics since the beginning of time. Our ability to love, to fear, to hate, to laugh, to celebrate – to feel things. If you can make a character as real and as rounded as possible an audience will identify with them or at least recognise them. Drama holds a mirror up to all of us, characters within drama too. 

You’re not only an actor but now also an executive producer through This Red Rock. Has stepping behind the camera changed your understanding of storytelling and, perhaps, your empathy for the pressures other departments face?

 Completely. The pressure exists in all departments, whether it’s screen production or theatre. Creative pressure, financial pressure, emotional pressure. Everyone is always answering to someone else. In my producer capacity, I just have a few more people answering to me. The key point, wherever you are in the chain, is to know there will be more knowledgeable and smarter people above and below you in that chain. Listen to these people but also take responsibility for the decisions you need to make. 

As a Producer, you are on a project much earlier than you are (usually) as an actor. Building a story from scratch is an exciting unknown. It takes time and god knows, you need patience. Oftentimes, a project also takes the time it needs. Timing really is all. 

Beyond acting, your endurance feats for BORNE — including swimming the English Channel with your wife — are extraordinary. What did that challenge teach you about resilience, both personally and professionally? 

 It taught me enormous amounts. The Channel swim was once described to me as 10 percent physical, 90 percent mental. Then training was akin to being an Olympic Athlete. It took a year of incredibly hard physical work. That same year took an enormous amount of mental work. My body would ask me questions as I trained. My mind way more: Can I do this? Why am I doing this? Could I stop now? It was constant.  Acting is a profession fundamentally built on rejection.  You get told ’No’ more times that you get told ‘Yes’. That goes for ALL actors at whatever stage you are in your career. The resilient mind you hope will take the lead. Sometimes your body will not offer a choice – an injury, an illness. More times, your mind will offer you a choice: do I keep going or do I stop? So resilience wise, look after your body as best as your genes allow you and how to do that is not rocket science. But look after your Mind too – however that looks like for you: meditation, yoga, reading, socialising.

It’s not always easy but that’s the happy challenge. And if you feel your resilience-o’meter struggling, never, ever be nervous about asking for help. 

Looking back across your career, from early television to international blockbusters, is there a role or moment that you feel quietly defined you, even if it didn’t grab headlines at the time?

 It’s the moments when I tell my wife I have been offered x,y or z and I want to do it. Every single time, EVERY time she has been as excited for me and for us as a family. No matter what the logistical challenges we might face as a result. We make it work as a family. No headlines publicly but she’s the best headline ever. 

Alistair Petrie reminds us that great acting isn’t about grandeur — it’s about grounding.
Whether on stage as Hamlet or in The Night Manager’s web of espionage, his work continues to explore humanity’s contradictions with poise and empathy. For Petrie, the craft is less about spotlight and more about stamina — on the stage, in the sea, and in life itself.

‘Hamlet’ is on at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre until 22 November 2025

Photographer credit-Josh Shinner

Related Articles

• Rory Alexander on Outlander: Blood of My Blood and playing Young Murtagh | Aug 29 2025 LEWIS Magazine

• Conor MacNeill on Outlander: Blood of My Blood and Becoming Young Ned Gowan | Aug 28 2025 LEWIS Magazine

• Ryan Sampson Talks Mr Bigstuff, Brassic, and The Crown | Aug 22 2025 LEWIS Magazine

• Jack McMullen Talks This City Is Ours, Sean Bean & British Crime Drama | Mar 25 2025 LEWIS Magazine

• Eoin Macken: “Unveiling Character Depths” | Mar 12 2024 LEWIS Magazine