Netflix’s fresh new adaptation unleashes Andrew Scott as the complex and definitive Tom Ripley. Scott explains his approach to the eponymous role and his elusive sexuality.

INDULGE: This series is a huge departure from Anthony Minghella’s movie, especially when it comes to the pace, stretching over 8 parts, and the gorgeous black and white. Totally unique.

SCOTT: I think that we’ve taught the audience how to watch because along with the black-and-white, the pacing of the show is really original, a little bit like a novel because we don’t read a novel for the most part in one go the way we watch a movie. So it’s very much like watching a novel in the sense that we have time like in a chapter of a book. Sometimes a description in a James Joyce novel can take five pages, and we can really enjoy it. That’s a new, quite mesmeric way of watching television and teaching the audience to watch, particularly in a time of TikTok, where we are told to get on with it. So I love that this is breaking the mold in a way.

“So many of us, whatever our sexuality, can feel like we don’t have access to certain parts of ourselves, and I think that’s why we root for this character because we recognize him.”

INDULGE: How did you approach such a complex character?

SCOTT: I love that he’s not a hero in the sense. But he is a protagonist, and to be able to watch somebody like that is so pleasurable. It’s something that I love to see onscreen. It makes the audience sort of lean forward and think, OK, what’s he going to do? What mistake has he made? And the audience is going, “Don’t forget about that! Oh, my God, what about those footprints!” People are concerned for him.

It was a big question I had in relation to Tom, and how you approach not just his sexuality, but also his age, his nationality, his upbringing. And one of the things that I strongly feel is that people have enormous questions about him too. They want to find him, they want to know. But I think it’s better not to overly diagnose him. I think he’s very ‘other.’ And he’s very ‘othered’ in the sense that he’s never been given the opportunity to be himself and be exposed to many beautiful things in the way that the other characters are. I think he’s a con-artist, but he’s an artist nevertheless. I don’t necessarily think he’s a lonely character, but he’s certainly a solitary character. And there’s a kind of blankness to the character which I think was the greatest challenge for me, first of all to recognize in order for me to play him. For me, all those words like sociopath and killer and villain are quite ‘othering’ and for me, your first port of call as an actor is not to judge a character.

INDULGE: How do you perceive Ripley’s sexuality, his feelings for Dickie? Would you identify him as bisexual, gay?

SCOTT: He’s a solitary figure but I do think there’s an enormous love that he has for Dickie. And it’s hard for him to express exactly what the nature of that love might be, particularly given the atmosphere and the laws of the time. And what he does notably in this story is that he uses the conspiracy of silence around same-sex relationships for his own gain. So many of us, whatever our sexuality, can feel like we don’t have access to certain parts of ourselves, and I think that’s why we root for this character because we recognize him. So do I think that if you gave Tom a boyfriend or a girlfriend that everything would be OK? No, I don’t. I don’t think he would feel comfortable in a gay bar anymore than he would in a straight bar. All that stuff is very fascinating to me, it’s like holding water. I think there’s an awful lot of people who can identify like that, people who are asexual. And that’s a perfectly legitimate and acceptable way to live your life.

— Kelly Fine