Exclusive Interview: Ben Hardy Chats The Girl Before, His Character’s Evolution, and More

From playing a superhero in X-Men: Apocalypse to acclaimed drummer Roger Taylor in Bohemian Rhapsody, Ben Hardy has quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s most versatile young actors.

This year, he can be seen starring opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jessica Plummer, and David Oyelowo in The Girl Before. The must-see thriller tells the story of Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who gets the chance to move into a beautiful, ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect (David Oyelowo). There’s just one catch: the occupants must abide by his list of exacting rules. Jane starts to feel the house changing her in unexpected ways, but when she makes the shocking discovery about her predecessor, Emma (Jessica Plummer), she’s forced to confront unnerving similarities. As the two women’s timelines interweave, Jane begins to question if her fate will be the same as the girl before. Ben shines as Simon, Emma’s loving boyfriend who will do anything to make his girlfriend happy.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Ben about The Girl Before, his character’s evolution, and more!

PC: Tell us about The Girl Before and your character in the series.
Ben: The Girl Before is based on a New York Times bestseller written by JP Delaney. It’s a psychological thriller. It’s about a woman named Jane, played by the wonderful Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who moves into this beautiful, opulent, minimalist house. She has to pay very minimal rent, no pun intended, but with the condition that she has to follow a certain set of rules. She can only bring one bag with her. She has to follow a set of commands that the house itself gives her. Things like, “You’re done brushing your teeth.” It will stop you. It tries to control your life. That’s the price of living in that house. When she’s there, she finds out the previous tenant died in that house three years ago. That’s when the mystery really starts to unfold.

My character is Simon. Simon was in a relationship with Emma, who is the tenant that died in the house three years before Jane moves in. Jane enlists his help to try and get to the bottom of what happened in her murder because it’s unsolved.

PC: Throughout your career, you’ve brought so many dynamic and multilayered characters to life on the screen. What is your process like deciding what roles you’ll go after?
Ben: That’s a good question. There has to be something that interests me about the character or it has to be a person that I’d like to explore. It could be because there is an aspect of them that I recognize in myself. In a way, I want to explore that element of myself further. That or I want to take something that I can relate to and put it into a different scenario and see the lengths of where that could take me. What would happen? I like to approach my characters by thinking of what I would do in their shoes but then also factor in their whole psychology as well.

PC: The house itself is its own character. How instrumental was that in helping you approach Simon’s journey and being immersed in this world?
Ben: It was helpful. The interior of the house is a set. The exterior was built by set designers. It was fantastic. But the house creates this agoraphobic quality. It’s very spacious, even though it’s a TV set. It had this energy. It was also freezing cold when we shot it. It was spring over here in England, and it was freezing cold in that house. We had heaters. The whole thing felt very austere, and it added an energy to the room and to the scenes.

My character Simon hates that house pretty early on. He’s moving into that house because he loves his girlfriend and wants her to be happy. He will do anything to make her happy. It’s a labor of love moving into that house. It was quite helpful that this very brutalist architectural design of an interior had quite a cold feel, both literally and physically. That really helps inform that feeling of not wanting to be in that space.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, one of the requirements of living within this house is being a minimalist. What are the things in your life that you can’t live without?
Ben: It’s funny. This sounds really sad, but it’s hard to live without a phone these days. Can you imagine? I don’t know. It’s so hard. I like to think that I could get rid of it. Sometimes I think maybe I’ll go back to my old Nokia or something like that. [laughs] I don’t know. I feel like you’d be missing out on so much. It’s hard to stay connected with people without one. I suppose maybe you’d know who your truest friends are because you’d be chatting to them on a landline telephone. It’d be hard. I also love to play the piano. I’d find it hard to not have a musical instrument. I find it very therapeutic playing music. Not that I’m Mozart by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy it.

PC: Writer JP Delaney has said that in many ways, Simon is the most toxic version of himself. Did that bring an added pressure learning that and having him on set? What was that collaboration like?
Ben: It was great to have him on set. He was so collaborative and so helpful. I was sending him countless emails before the production and during. I was trying to pluck his knowledge because it’s his character. When he said that to me, I did feel that there was some added pressure. I felt like I was playing aspects of him in some ways. He sees a lot of himself in this character. I didn’t want to do a disservice to him.

But funnily enough—I never told him this—but after he told me that, I’d study him from afar, which sounds very creepy and a bit like a stalker. [laughs] But in between scenes, I’d loiter a few hundred meters away from him and watch how he walked and how he interacted with people. He considers himself to be a beta male as opposed to an alpha. That’s definitely something which exists with Simon. I was trying to pick up on his body language and then extrapolate from that in creating Simon.

PC: That’s such great insight. There’s such great chemistry that comes off the screen between you and Jessica [Plummer]. How did the two of you build that bond?
Ben: It’s hard with chemistry. I feel like if I was a director, I’d want to do chemistry reads every time. Chemistry is a bit of a lottery. It’s just like life. Sometimes you meet people in a social situation and you click. You hit it off. Or you don’t. It’s like trying to draw blood from a stone. It’s no one’s fault. It was fortunate that Jess and I got on early on. We seemed to have quite a natural chemistry.

I know on certain productions they will encourage socialization, which I think is a good idea. We did socialize while we were in Bristol. We didn’t know a lot of people so we were like, “Let’s hang out. Let’s go explore.” On the first day, we went for a walk around Bristol. We explored and we got to know each other. That helps build that chemistry. But we were lucky that it was very natural.

PC: Without giving any spoilers, you do such a brilliant job in the series establishing this character that when the reveal happens in Episode 4, it’s that much more devastating. Can you talk a little bit about the process of bringing this character to life and not allowing the reveal to bleed into the first three episodes?
Ben: I suppose because the TV series is set across two different timelines and because there’s this three-year gap in between, I see Simon in the first timeline as a very different person to the Simon three years later. People change. I’m a very different person from who I was three years ago. I’m constantly evolving and changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. In Simon’s case, it was for the worse.

It’s difficult because I had to try to provide a lot of empathy for Simon. I try to get the audience to see it from his point of view and understand why he decides to take the actions that he does. It was tricky. I tried to chart that course. How did he get from point A to point B? I would write diary entries as him throughout the years and build that story of what happened in between the first timeline and the second timeline—how he made peace with everything that he’s done, how he felt about the situation, his feelings towards Emma at that point, his feelings towards Edward, David Oyelowo’s character. I tried to take everything that was on the page and use that and build the whole world around it.

PC: You’ve said in previous interviews that while reading the book, you spent some time filling out the questionnaire. Did anything surprise you about your own responses? Did you learn anything new about yourself during that process?
Ben: I found that I actually favor living a minimalist life. I didn’t know that about myself. I realized that clutter and things just do grate on me. For me, in an ideal world (this may make me sound like an absolute introvert hermit), I just want one plate, one knife, one fork, and one glass for water. I find it really frustrating doing things that I feel are unnecessary, like having to wash loads of glasses because I’ve actually just drank twelve glasses that day. I’ve been too lazy to wash one and all of a sudden I have all this stuff to do.

I’m like, “I don’t want to be doing this. I want to be taking in something inspirational.” Whether it be reading a good book, playing some music, or watching a great film. I feel like I’m wasting time doing those things like cleaning up after things that are unnecessary. Or if you’ve got a wardrobe that is absolutely massive. You’re there constantly washing clothes all the time. Part of me wants to do the whole Einstein and Steve Jobs thing where I wear one outfit every day. [laughs] Not that I consider myself on the same level of intellect as those two geniuses.

PC: We have one final question for you. Besides The Girl Before, where can fans see you next?
Ben: I have a rom-com coming out at the end of the year. It’s called The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. It’s a Christmas rom-com. So yeah, I’m excited to see how that comes out. It was the polar opposite to The Girl Before. The Girl Before was very dark, and this is much more lighthearted, but it was really enjoyable to film. So, I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product myself.

To keep up with Ben, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Watch The Girl Before on HBO Max today.

Photo Credit: Amanda Searle/ HBO Max