William Tomomori Fukuda Sharpe has many strings to his bow. As an actor, he won a Bafta for BBC drama Giri/Haji and was Emmy-nominated for The White Lotus, while his writer/director credits include Channel 4 black comedy Flowers and Sky mini-series Landscapers, as well as feature film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. In Too Much, a new ten-part Netflix comedy from Girls’ Lena Dunham, the 38-year-old plays Felix, the love interest of New Yorker Jessica, played by Hacks’ Megan Stalter.
It was a combination of being a fan of Meg’s, as well as Lena’s work and these very funny, very tender, very Lena scripts. I felt I could find a way into the character of Felix. He has lots of layers to unpack.
I mean… I never really thought about Felix in those terms. Lena’s obviously very aware of the tropes of the classic British romcom – but I always felt, first and foremost, that this is a Lena Dunham show. It’s certainly not shy about tackling some of the more complex and difficult aspects of a relationship.
My job was to play Felix. But Lena is very open and collaborative and interested in everyone. She was very curious about our thoughts and ideas – not just me, but this amazing cast she’d assembled. She wanted to use our imaginations.
Yeah, we tried to make it as sloppy and s**t as possible. Was he gentle? No – he’s really strong!
It’s not a holiday – you’re working – but you can still appreciate the beauty of your surroundings. We were in Taormina, a beautiful town in Sicily, and Mount Etna was right there. I had to remind myself every day how amazing it was to look at.
I lived in Japan until I was eight, so I got to experience two different cultures from a first-hand perspective. But there’s also a degree to which you never feel any place is exactly home. You drift between places, which brings with it a certain restlessness. But it also means, in theory, you’re happy to try to fit in wherever you go.
I don’t know if it would have held me back, but the advice I was given at the time was: “We don’t want to ethnicise you”. It made sense to me in the moment, butin hindsight, maybe it’s a bit odd. Was it the right decision? I don’t know.
Not yet, but maybe now you’ve asked me! No, I definitely have an awareness of it, but when I’m on set, I’m not thinking about that sort of noise. I’m focused on the task at hand. It was an interesting challenge to get into the headspace of Mozart. Obviously there’s no footage of the real man, so I tried to get a sense of him through his music, which at times is grand and dark, and at other times sweet and playful – like the seemingly paradoxical elements of his psyche.
It’s a good question. Having an understanding of how it works, and ways of thinking and adjusting your behaviour to try to temper the mood fluctuations, has been really helpful. When I was younger, I thought of the creative process as being like an explorer – getting to the emotional far reaches, then bringing it back and putting it into something for the audience. But as a way of thinking and working, that’s draining and unsustainable. So as I’ve got older, and hopefully wiser, I’ve found more measured ways to approach it.
I think we’d work together to bring our different strengths to the problem. But I’m not sure we’ve really retained any useful medical knowledge, to be honest – sorry!
Too Much is on Netflix from Thursday
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