Centre Stage: Marcus Rutherford is Living Above the Noise While Staying Curious

Although it feels like he’s just arriving, Marcus Rutherford has been here for a minute. Back in 2019 the Nottingham native was cast as Perrin Aybara, one of the main characters in Amazon’s TV adaptation of the famed fantasy book series The Wheel of Time. In consecutive cases of unfortunate timing, the first season was released during the global pandemic and the second amidst the industry-wide strikes. This latest season finds Marcus finally able to savor the fruit of his labour out in the open, with a supporting role in an Oscar-nominated thriller to boot. 

Photography: Karl Hugill

Styling: Steven Huang

Grooming: Sven Bayerbach at Carol Hayes Management using Daimon Barber

Growing up away from the industry hub that is London, Marcus recognizes he was treading an unusual path. However, he found the Television Workshop where he was able to polish his craft and rise to the level of his classmates. “Everyone’s there for the same thing. Everyone was so good as well… as soon as I got there I realized how passionate and talented everyone was.” 

With the program being separate from Rutherford’s school life, it became an escape from daily life. “All your mates are just playing football and stuff. So as soon as I went there and I just saw people enjoying it and not embarrassed about it, I think that just fueled me even more.”

Now deep into a burgeoning career, Rutherford  uses the tools around him to aid his work. “In September 5 wearing really flared jeans, for example, just helps you get into the character; having your hair a certain way or wearing these tight 70’s polo shirts, you just start to fall into the character… Fantasy does that to a different level. I have contacts in as well as all these different big costumes, there's a physical aspect to it that allows you to sit into the character a lot more.”

This new season of The Wheel of Time serves as quite a full circle moment for him and his longest running role. Perrin, a blacksmith with a gentle heart, returns home having processed the trauma he suffered at the show’s outset, having developed his own kind of strength only to face his greatest challenge yet. As his foes team up to threaten the livelihood of his village, Perrin must lead his people against all odds. “Honestly it was quite emotional because you don't know if you're going to get to that moment, especially with TV… Playing a character who's very withdrawn, quite slow in his movements yet also very intellectual, you want to get to a moment where he does become a bit more confident, articulate, fun, and flirty - so it was really nice to get that moment this season.” 

Much like Perrin, Rutherford returns to the Two Rivers set, where it all started, with new eyes (although not as golden as his character’s). “It was really cathartic to go back to the set that we had in 2019… So much had changed in the world and on the show, and it was really nice to return to the set feeling like a completely different actor, being more confident in myself and what I’m doing”.

As Rutherford has grown with the role, so has his relationship to the book series’ hardcore fans. There was some pushback when Rutherford, who is mixed-race, was cast as a character many fans envisioned as white given the story’s European inspired setting. However, he is not one to back down from a challenge, “it kind of just made me focus even more on the work.” After half a decade with the role, Rutherford sees this dynamic with maturity. “Someone's been reading the books for 20 years before I was born. They have a certain image. It's my job just to bring back the essence of the character that I've read in the books. It's been really nice for people to message and be like, ‘oh, I can see it now. I envision you as the character.’ There's a very protective (fandom) for these books, and rightly so. It’s like a football team, I support Arsenal. A new manager or a new owner comes in, but the fans are there before and after anything.”

His other major project, September 5, finds him dealing in a different kind of moral quandary. Rutherford plays Carter Jeffrey, a member of the American sports broadcasting team who decide to adapt their live coverage once a terrorist group takes a group of athletes hostage during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. It was the first act of terrorism to ever be broadcast on live television. While it happened over fifty years ago, Rutherford finds the film in conversation with the current state of news journalism. “There's kind of this underbelly of being the first person to have the story and knowing that people are going to watch it and viewing figures. Now you look at how important data is and eyes, followers, streams, clicks, everything. So I think you start to almost see that change in the journalistic ethics of having the story or having something out there and getting eyes on it and then the actual sort of content and the due diligence.” Throughout the film, the lead characters debate over what language to use when discussing the events, they make mistakes and reckon with them. “Now you can say something and everything's so ephemeral. Everything happens so quickly and everyone has a voice in it”. 

Rutherford was also enthralled by the analog process that went into 70’s journalism as someone who learned to edit and even put together his own acting reel while at university. “I had a few days of just learning how to put thread into the machines and do all this kind of stuff and you realize there's a real kind of artistry to it. I think that aspect of how technical the job is… adds to the tension in the film because it's not like we could just live stream it.”

Him and the rest of the cast, which included the likes of Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro, got to be immersed in the broadcast world thanks to a committed decision on the production design front. “They built the set and it was an immersive thing. It was almost like a play really. You could go out of that room and there'd be an edit suite there or there's the live room… You interacted with real machines, they all had the archive footage playing. So as an actor you had things to react to in real time, which is amazing.” The film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards.

Going forward, Rutherford is hoping to expand the types of projects he can sharpen his skills on. With both of his latest characters finding themselves in rather dire situations, he’s now looking to perhaps lighten things up a bit. “When I started off acting weirdly enough, all I was doing was really big, farcical, comedic, flamboyant characters… so something a bit lighter I think would be cool, where you don't have a dead wife that you kill straight away.”

Now based in London he always keeps Nottingham on his mind as a touchstone to keep him grounded. “When I go back to Nottingham, I just know what's there. A pint is three pounds or something. People say thank you to the bus driver when they get off.” 

Amidst the modern pressure of young actors to grow a social media following, Rutherford continues to treat it like he did before becoming a public figure in hopes of preserving some mystery. “I like actors that I don't know too much about. I think there's a level of anonymity to them.”

You can watch Marcus Rutherford on this new season of The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime Video and September 5 now available on demand.