Olivia Williams on Battling Matthew Fox in the London Debut of LaBute's In a Forest, Dark and Deep

London-born Olivia Williams made a Hollywood splash in Rushmore, The Sixth Sense and, more recently, as Carey Mulligan’s teacher in An Education, but the Cambridge University graduate has rarely been long absent from the London stage. Now she is making her West End debut, playing the sister to American TV star Matthew Fox (Lost) in the world premiere of In a Forest, Dark and Deep, Neil LaBute’s revelation-laden drama of sibling rivalry (running through June 4 at the Vaudeville Theatre). The winning Williams took time during the two-hander's opening week to talk to Broadway.com about LaBute-ian misogyny, acting American and guiding stage neophyte Fox into the land of London theater.

What’s it been like to open a new play in the West End?
The exciting thing about doing a world premiere is that the writer—and in this case the writer-director [Neil LaBute]—is tinkering with the text [during rehearsal], and that can be very intense. People say to me, “How on earth do you cope with being shouted at for an hour and a half by Matthew Fox?" Actually it’s much harder being shouted at by Matthew Fox from 10AM to 7 PM! [Laughs.] And after doing the school run [Williams and her husband, American actor Rhashan Stone, have two daughters, ages three and six], this is looking like a bit of a holiday.

Is playing an American second nature, since you've done it often on screen?
Yes, but when I’ve done it before, it’s been such tiny little gobbets that you can almost do it parrot fashion. I have a bit of an improvisatory habit, so that when I deviate the odd word, as soon as I leave the straight and narrow [the accent] goes a bit English. I can be pretty shocking with lines, whereas Matthew is astonishing; he’s absolutely punctuation-perfect.

Have you felt somewhat like Matthew’s guide—both to London and to the ins and outs of theater?
I wish that were true! I wish I could say that this wet-behind-the-ears, slightly hopeless bloke turned up from America needing my guidance, but Matthew just took to it. As soon as he got here, he was so completely at home in the rehearsal room—the body, the gestures, the voice—he just seemed happy to be in the theater. There was no sense of this grande dame of the stage teaching him how it’s done. He’s been tremendous.

Did you feel as if you had to bone up on back episodes of Lost before meeting Matthew?
I didn’t, and we don’t discuss it, fortunately. I think Matthew’s had enough of it; he’s moved on. We haven’t discussed one another’s work. Nor do I know the timing of who was cast first, but can I just say that I’ve never been ashamed to be the last one cast! [Laughs.] Anyway, I’m sure they needed his name attached in order to move forward.

The issue of misogyny, so frequently applied to Neil LaBute’s plays and films, has resurfaced yet again, not least in lines delivered by your character’s rough-around-the-edges brother [Fox].
I know, and it’s funny because when I first read the play, I found it distasteful. I think partly I took it because I wanted to have it out with [LaBute]. But when you meet him, he’s absolutely not that at all, and the way he has treated me isn’t that. I think part of it is profoundly observational and comes from Neil hearing this and that and saying, “This is who I think we are,” even if some of us then turn our faces away. What’s been fascinating has been finding sympathy for Betty, this woman I have no sympathies with—who is traumatized by the passing of her sexual attractiveness, whereas I’m not particularly bothered!

You get the feeling during the course of the 100 minutes of the play that Betty on some level is keen to lay bare the secrets and lies that Bobby helps elicit from her.
That’s very intrinsic, I think, to both this text and this character. My mum is a criminal barrister, and she’s always been interesting on the urge to be found out and to confess. Betty does say at one point to Bobby, “I brought you here because I wanted to tell you,” but you don’t know whether or not that’s a lie because she is a consummate liar. I was raised in some ways as a dodgy old Catholic, and the urge to confess is massive, I have to say [laughs].

As the mother of two young daughters, is it difficult to commit to an eight-show-a-week run?
That’s what was great at the National Theatre [where Williams starred in Lucinda Coxon’s Happy Now? in 2008]: You do the play in repertoire and then you get a two-week holiday, which for an actor is unheard of. The West End, is tough, but I’m very lucky in that I have an amazing husband and an amazing nanny. I did say to my children, “This is the last bedtime story Mummy’s going to read to you until June 4,” but the joys of having your days free is that you can see them during the day; parents have done worse things.

Finally, do you read reviews?
I do, and I find myself getting slightly irritated when the critics say “hackneyed old stuff” or “the structure of the play is basic.” There are those in the audience who don’t go to the theater every night and aren’t paid to do so, and they’re all on this play like a hawk, getting a kick out of the thriller aspect. And you know what? I’m really happy to be a part of that; it gives me a kick.