An unseasonably cold wind is whipping around the rooftop of the National Theatre. Below, on London’s South Bank, tourists race to grab jackets from backpacks and school parties search for sheltered spots to eat packed lunches. Up here, though, despite the bluster, everyone’s eerily still. Nobody can take their eyes off Taylor Russell and Paapa Essiedu—or, rather, the alchemy burgeoning between the fledgling co-stars—as they shoot their British Vogue portraits.
“We only met for the first time at 8 am today,” says Russell, to my surprise, when I catch up with the 29-year-old Canadian, and the 33-year-old British actor Essiedu, in a school hall-like rehearsal room an hour later. The pair are here to begin preparation for one of the most anticipated plays of the summer: the National’s revival of The Effect, Lucy Prebble’s society-examining, taboo-breaking production about two drug trial volunteers falling in love, uncertain if their romance, played out in front of doctors, is real or a side effect of the dopamine they’re being given. It’s a modern classic—one that “actors and especially drama students wax lyrical about,” says Essiedu, laughing—and this new version promises to thrill.
It’s rare that stars align like they’ve done for this show. Prebble, now world-renowned thanks to her writing on Succession, will be hands-on for the production. (“Meeting her was like, ‘Oh, my God, is she going to think I’m stupid? Does she think I’m funny?’” says Essiedu.) Tony-nominated Jamie Lloyd is directing, fresh from his Jessica Chastain-led run of A Doll’s House on Broadway. And then, of course, there are its leads. First, Essiedu: a Royal Shakespeare Company alumnus, who’s as celebrated for his raw stage portrayals of Hamlet and King Lear’s Edmund as he is for his BAFTA-winning turn in Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. And Russell: Hollywood’s new cool girl, who has won legions of fans—including Jonathan Anderson, who invited her to model for Loewe—with her roles in cult indies such as family drama Waves and Timothée Chalamet-led cannibal romance Bones and All.
“I know I’m supposed to say this, but they are dream actors for these parts,” says Prebble, over the phone. “Paapa is an actor of extraordinary power. Every time I think of him doing it, I get this rush of joy and relief. And then Taylor is just, you know, this rising legend.”
The Effect broke controversial ground when it was first performed in 2012, by a tracksuit-clad Billie Piper and Jonjo O’Neill, here at the National. Inspired by the moral ambiguity surrounding a 2006 drug trial, which left participants with swollen body parts, the questions it asked—whether anti-depressants actually work, what love actually is—seemed “blasphemous” at the time, Prebble tells me. A lot has changed since then. Anti-depressant use has spiked. Mental illness is less stigmatized. “I started doing therapy about six years ago and it was still a thing where I was like: do I tell people about it?” says Essiedu, adjusting the sleeve on his oversized jacket. “But now if you’re not doing therapy, people won’t date you. It’s been flip-reversed.”
To Russell, this means The Effect couldn’t be more topical. Sitting cross-legged atop a chair, her swoosh of a bob catching the light as she talks, the Vancouver-born, New York-residing actor explains that when she’s told friends about the play they’ve related to the characters. “They’re like, ‘That’s exactly what I’m going through with depression medication,’” she says, “‘questioning your feelings, not knowing how much of them are “you” and how much of them are down to the drug you’re taking.’”
But Prebble wants to push things further still, reworking the play so it delves into the politics of mental health in a way it didn’t in 2012. “Depression is considered purely a medical state now,” she says. “It has been important to get to this point. But it’s also very beneficial for the political class to be able to just call it ‘a medical state,’ rather than notice what kinds of people are getting depressed. If you look at prescriptions for anti-depressants, and the areas where they have gone up, you can see huge poverty issues that are ignored in favor of a diagnostic route.”
Expect a war cry of a show, then. Although, as Essiedu says, “It would work whether it was a drug trial on dopamine or not. As humans we’re obsessed with watching people form relationships in isolation—that’s why we all love shows like Love Island.”
There’s a buzz of excitement in the National today. Somewhere amid the rabbit warren of backstage corridors here, work is underway to give its Lyttelton Theatre a huge restructure for The Effect. Russell and Essiedu have a giddy first-date nervousness about them, too.
“I’m terrified,” admits Russell. The Effect will be her first stage performance since she put her dreams of being a ballet dancer on pause to take acting classes aged 18. “I just want to be challenged and do things I’ve never done before,” she says. For Essiedu, the play is a homecoming, not only because he’s a Londoner born and bred—he got into acting while in sixth form in Walthamstow, bored by the science subjects he’d chosen to study. “That was my teenage rebellion. How lame is that?” he deadpans—but also because it’s a return to theater after a whirlwind few years of screen ascent.
“It’s where I started,” he says. “I feel so comfortable on stage. It’s a place where your profile doesn’t really matter: if you’re good, people say you’re good; if you’re bad, people say you’re bad. It’s democratizing.”
Suddenly, Russell and Essiedu are pulled in different directions by assistants. It’ll be two weeks until these stars meet again for rehearsals, for the whispered jokes and supportive glances that entranced everyone on set today to begin to transform into a full-fledged creative partnership.
“We’re going to be able to hold hands and grind shit out together,” says Russell, laughing. “It all just feels like a beautiful new collaboration.”
The Effect will be at the National Theatre, SE1, from August 1.
Paapa’s grooming: Christian Okonta and Francesca Daniella. Taylor’s hair: Claire Grech. Taylor’s make-up: Victoria Martin. Nails: Trish Lomax. Digital artwork: The Hand