Baranski and Grant on theatre, parties and the art of ageing gracefully

Two actors who have spent decades in separate orbits finally found themselves in the same dressing room this autumn, preparing to perform Noël Coward's Hay Fever at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. Christine Baranski and Richard E Grant had never worked together before, despite careers that spanned the same decades and often the same rooms—award ceremonies, film sets, the kinds of places where actors accumulate stories. "Despite our vast combined vintage, our paths have never crossed before, have they?" Grant asked her backstage. Baranski laughed. "Regrettably not. We could have had some good fun a few decades ago."

They are playing a married couple in Coward's 1925 comedy, one of the playwright's most performed works. The role Baranski inhabits—Judith Bliss, an aging actress unable to accept that her moment in the spotlight has passed—carries a particular weight for her. She has played it before, but never in the West End. The part has been taken on by some of the finest performers of the past century: Edith Evans, Celia Johnson, Judi Dench, Penelope Keith, Lindsay Duncan. What draws them all, Baranski reflected, is the character's essential vulnerability. "She's an ageing actress, and how delicious to play that in your later years," she said. "It's all about the vanity and vulnerability of ageing. There's a poignancy to it; I really find her rather dear." Coward wrote the play at twenty-four, she noted, which meant he understood something about the gap between public glamour and private doubt even before he had lived much of his own life.

Grant, who has spent recent years in what he calls the "condiment years"—appearing in smaller roles that add flavor to larger productions, like vinegar or mustard to a meal—has built a different kind of career. He was unemployed for nine months in the early 1980s before landing the role of Withnail in Bruce Robinson's cult film Withnail and I. Robinson had told him to drop the theatrical affectation he brought to the audition. "The character is not as affected as you're thinking," the director said. "Read it with more rage." Grant had rage to spare. That hunger, that desperation, became the film's beating heart. Since then, he has worked steadily, often in supporting roles that allowed him to disappear into character. He directed one film, Wah-Wah, and has appeared in prestige television: Gosford Park, Downton Abbey, and others. He has also accumulated a lifetime of anecdotes.

One of his favorite stories involves Robert Altman and the chaos of making Pret-à-Porter, the 1994 fashion-world comedy that Altman directed with almost no script. Actors would be told to improvise entire scenes with minimal direction. On one day, the actor Danny Aiello lost control of himself during a scene involving Sophia Loren. He began shouting insults at other cast members, calling Lauren Bacall a "left-wing Commie bitch" and insulting Rupert Everett for being English. Bacall, then in her eighties, responded by, as Grant put it, taking "no prisoners." She "ripped him five new ones," Grant said. The rest of the cast refused to speak to Aiello for the remainder of filming. It was, Grant noted dryly, more dramatic than anything that actually made it into the film.

Baranski has her own collection of stories from working with legendary directors and actors. She won an Emmy in 1995 for the sitcom Cybill, a role she took on reluctantly at forty-one or forty-two, having spent her earlier career in theatre. She had been reluctant to move to Los Angeles, so she commuted, living in a hotel and catching the first red-eye back to her children. The Emmy changed her visibility. Mike Nichols, whom she had worked with on Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing on Broadway, cast her in The Birdcage. She appeared in Bowfinger with Eddie Murphy, whom she described as intelligent and genuinely funny, though very private. She danced with Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple II, a film she acknowledged was not good, but working with Matthau and Jack Lemmon at the end of their careers was a privilege. Lemmon was always the first one on set. Matthau was, as she put it, "this curmudgeonly, lovable old woolly bear."

Both actors have found that the later chapters of their careers have been surprisingly rich. Baranski has spent eighteen years in television, first on The Good Wife and The Good Fight, and now on The Gilded Age. Grant has become a fixture in prestige dramas. They have both benefited from a shift in how the industry values older performers. Grant noted that this year saw an unprecedented number of Emmy awards going to female actors over fifty. "It's about time," Baranski said simply.

When the conversation turned to hosting parties—a theme in Hay Fever, where the hosts are decidedly poor at the task—both had strong opinions. Grant's late wife had a foolproof rule: everyone at a party should know at least two other people. That creates enough "social glue," as he put it, that the host can step back and let people enjoy themselves. Baranski hosts at her house on a lake in Connecticut, where guests can watch the sunset from the living room and then, if they wish, skinny-dip in the water after dark. She had hosted Mark Rylance there during a nine-month run of Boeing-Boeing on Broadway; they became close friends, and he became a godfather to one of her grandsons. They would howl at the moon at four in the morning. When Grant asked if she had ever had guests who refused to undress, she laughed. One actress she knew would sunbathe naked in the middle of the afternoon and sometimes fall asleep on the dock, waking at dawn still there. It was not a prerequisite for visiting, Baranski said. She only encouraged it if people were comfortable and if it was pitch dark.