Written By: William Buckley
The astoundingly talented actress has been moving between worlds long before she entered the orbit of MI5. Raised between Morocco and France, Hiba possesses a cultural fluency that lends itself well to bringing characters to life. Now, with a scene-stealing turn in Slow Horses, an increasingly international career, and stories of her own in development, her star is rising. For our COSMOS issue, we caught her somewhere along the ascendent trajectory.
As I settled into my sofa and switched on the fifth season of spy thriller phenomenon Slow Horses, an opening scene of a shooting in North London jolted me out of my evening reverie before Mick Jagger’s aptly discordant title track, Strange Game, sidled through the speakers. A few set-up scenes later, we meet honey trap Tara Younis, played to a scene-stealing tee by Moroccan-French actress Hiba Bennani. Tara is seducing the paradoxically dim-witted computer whizz Roddy Ho, played to perfection by the seemingly unstoppable Australian actor Christopher Chung, as part of an elaborate plot to infiltrate MI5 and unleash cyber warfare and political chaos upon Britain. Fun stuff.
If you haven’t seen Apple TV’s Slow Horses, clear your schedule. The Gary Oldman-led ensemble of MI5 misfits is responsible for some of the best television on streaming. As I write this, we’re approaching the finale of Season 6, with another two seasons already commissioned. You know Gary; he’s been Dracula, Sirius Black, and Batman’s Commissioner Gordon. He’s spent four decades disappearing into roles, winning an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in 2017’s Darkest Hour. He’s a legend, and his Slow Horses character, the foul-mouthed, flatulent, spectacularly cantankerous but oddly lovable Jackson Lamb, might be among his finest achievements.
So when our cover star discovered that the mysterious production she’d flown to London to audition for, operating under the distinctly unremarkable title Embankment, was actually the fifth season of this cultural phenomenon, she was understandably rattled.
Across the show’s revolving cast of villains, conspirators, and assorted intelligence-service catastrophes, Hiba delivers one of its most compelling guest performances. She’s magnetic, mysterious, and deliciously dangerous. And, as I discovered, considerably less threatening when she isn’t plotting the collapse of British national security.
On set in Paris, we talked about her breakthrough role, and her experiences growing up between two countries, two languages, and two cultures, which, she explains, proved rather useful in a profession devoted to inhabiting other people’s lives. As Arab and North African actors increasingly take ownership of their stories, Hiba is part of an exciting generation challenging the industry’s old assumptions about who gets to play whom.
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Dress, ROBERTO CAVALLI
WILLIAM BUCKLEY: Okay, I want to talk about Slow Horses. I saw it, I loved it, it was so good.
It was the best season for me, and you were obviously one of the major reasons for that. You were incredible. How did it come about? How did you land that role? It’s a huge one.
HIBA BENNANI: I received a call from my agent with an audition for a series called Embankment. In the beginning, I didn’t know that it was Slow Horses at all, and thank God I didn’t because I was much more chill, you know? I did the self-tape, and within a week my agent told me they wanted to fly me into London for a callback. When I heard that I figured maybe this Embankment was something pretty serious. So, I went and met the team and I still didn’t know it was Slow Horses. I did the first day’s casting, and I was supposed to be traveling back home the next day. But for three days after, they were calling back my agent, saying, “Oh, can she stay in London one more day and come back to see us again tomorrow?” I knew it was Slow Horses by then, which was so exciting, but also kind of stressful. I was like “Oh my God, when will this finish?” And yeah, I got the job.
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Dress, RAISA VANESSA
WB: And what do you for three days of auditions? How much of that are you reciting lines. What does that look like?
HB: They send you the script, you rehearse the scene, and then you do it in front of the team. So, directors, casting directors, producers, assistant directors, the whole team. And when you come back to the hotel, you receive a call saying, “Can you prepare this one for tomorrow?” I am someone that always wants to prove myself, that yes, absolutely, I can learn this in three hours, it’s fine. I was spending my whole afternoon just learning three pages so I can show them the next day that I’ve got it. I can recite it. I’m the person for it.
WB: What was it like stepping into a show like that? Were you nervous on your first day? Had you met the other cast members?
HB: I have many things to say, I don’t know where to start. When I got the job, I had a month to prepare, and I did lots of rehearsals with the team.
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Dress, GEORGES CHAKRA COUTURE
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Dress, ELIE SAAB
WB: And you did that in London with the team, table readings and such?
HB: Yeah, table readings with Will Smith, the showrunner, and Saul Metzstein, the director, and the actors. It was one month of prep, reading the script three, four, five, six times to get it, writing back stories, and all the actors’ work that you do before. And the first day it was, you know, like a little kid who’s been waiting for a month to go to Disney, and can’t sleep.
WB: Wow.
HB: Yes, same feeling for me. The first day I was like, “It’s today. It is happening.” It all became real and this is my new, big, huge playground where I
can put everything I’ve done before to work. This is how it felt for me.
WB: What was working with Gary Oldman like? I mean, he’s obviously an Oscar-winning legend and even that character – he disappeared into that role in such an incredible way, and he’s really created this singular persona.
HB: It was very impressive. Can I tell you something?
WB: Yeah.
HB: In Slow Horses, Gary Oldman has a sort of big belly and I thought, watching the series, that of course, it must be a suit, but when I saw him acting, I realized that he’s such a great actor, that he can transform his body!
WB: Stop it!
HB: I swear to God, I swear.
WB: So what, he’s like pushing his belly out?
HB: I don’t know how he’s doing it! I just remember sitting in a car with him talking, and then he got out of the car and straight away his body changed. I asked the director too; I’m telling you, he is one of the greatest actors ever. Although for me, I try to forget the legend to focus.
WB: Sure, you don’t want to fangirl on set.
HB: Yes, I try to focus on; this is Jackson Lamb. And this is Tara dealing with Lamb. When I first saw him, I was in hair and makeup. He said “Tara?” and I was like, “That’s me! How should I react?” But he’s very charismatic. And working with him, he was very funny. He’s like a safe place. You feel very, how to say? Détendu.
WB: Do you have a core memory from your time filming Slow Horses? Anything super fun or unexpected or surprising or just a highlight?
HB: I have many, but something that really stays with me is the running.
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WB: How so, the running?
HB: Well, you think that running on screen is the same as running after a bus, right? I was like, I can run. Of course I can run. But I was doing my running, and every time when the day was done, I felt like my whole body was gone. And I was like, okay, running on screen it’s not the same as running in real life.
WB: Why?
HB: Because you have to put all your body into it to do this.
WB: Right. And concentrate on how your face is looking and what every limb is doing.
interview
HB: Yeah, and you’re also running for your life. And Tara is running for three episodes!
WB: [Laughs] She does a lot of running, so you were super fit after that!
HB: Yeah, I think that was also the most difficult part. It was all incredible; intensely interesting and funny… But the running was like, “Oh my god, this is not how I remember it!”
WB: And so, do you feel like the show has opened up some doors, or is it more a great addition to your experience so far?
HB: Well, we’re talking together so obviously it has opened doors for me! But I think the most important thing is, when you’re a young actor and you‘re just starting off in cinema, there is a confidence that you need to continue to pursue something that will give you the hit that, “Oh I can do it.” So you know it’s more than a dream, it’s happening. The most important thing that Slow Horses has done for me is give me the confidence that I needed. And not only has it given that to me, but also it’s got me so much more excited about what is coming next.
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Dress, JUANA MARTIN COUTURE
WB: Yes. It’s given you a glimpse at what you can do and that it is achievable.
HB: Yes, that it is possible. If you’ve done it, it means you can continue doing it.
WB: Absolutely you can.
HB: Yes, I can if others can! That’s my favorite phrase in the world.
WB: So, you’ve appeared in Slow Horses, Prime Target, Ghosts of Beirut, all intense. Do you feel like there’s something drawing you towards those kinds of roles? Maybe it’s a toughness in yourself? The dark hair? An air of mysetry? I don’t know…
HB: You know what? I don’t know. The thing is, when you start as an actor, it’s your photo on a website, right? And casting directors start looking for a physical description, and then they cast you, and then they ask you to audition for a role. In the international film industry, this is the biggest opportunity I’ve had – this spy action series – so I don’t know. I was talking about it with my agent because she asked me, “You receive a lot of castings for very sad girls, why?” And it would be interesting to ask casting directors why they chose me for this or that role, but I never do this. Also in Morocco or France, I do lots of dramas, and I have some new projects coming that are not spy, so I’m excited about that for sure.
WB: Of the shows or films that you’ve done, where do you feel you really got into your stride as an actor, and you really grew?
HB: I don’t think I’ve had one specific project or one specific character that made me grow, but what I love about acting is that for every job in every role, it’s obviously not you. You have to put a new mindset in your head for a day or six months or a year, and I think every character that you portray, in a way, changes your mind in some way, and makes you grow somehow. Also in every character you can find strengths and weaknesses and goals that are not yours, and yeah, just the specificity of every human being, and the chance that you have to portray unique human beings makes you grow.
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Dress, GEORGES HOBEIKA COUTURE
WB: Do you feel like your Moroccan-French background has shaped the way you approach acting and the stories you want to tell?
HB: I grew up between France and Morocco, between two different languages and two different cultures, with very different ways of living. It made me understand very quickly in my life, at a very young age, that what can be normal for you can be logically not normal for someone else, which made me understand other cultures more naturally. That’s something that I have obviously put into my work, you know, because I’ve had to portray characters that were French and that were Moroccan. So, the first thing I do every time is to ask, where is this person coming from? What’s important in her country? What’s the culture in her country? And this makes you understand the character more quickly. And when you put this in the script, you can find similarities, you know? So definitely yes.
WB: Do you feel like the industry’s understanding of Arab North African women on screen is changing?
HB: Actually, just the other day I was speaking to my friends – amazing actresses and directors and writers – and we were like, we feel something is changing, right? Like there is something in the air that we cannot name right now, that is obviously changing. I think one of the things that’s changing is that today, when we are creating our art, we are firstly now doing it for ourselves, and secondly, we’re doing it for a purpose. I feel that now it’s more about our message being understood, that our art is understood. For me, this is my first purpose when I do something. We are starting to open conversations about all these stereotypes that existed before, and actually still exist.
WB: Right. There was definitely a period when Arabs were almost invariably cast as one- dimensional terrorists.
HB: What I would love to see most, and what we are starting to see, is that when Arab women are on screen, being Arab isn’t the story. When I was young, every time I saw Arab people on screen, being Arab was the whole story. Their characters were built entirely around that. But recently, when I was at Cannes, I saw a film starring a North African woman whose heritage was incidental to the story. It wasn’t the whole point.
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Dress, RAMI KADI COUTURE
WB: Tell me, apart from acting, what are you obsessing about right now? Book, film, music, fashion, food, a place, a time, the future, something else completely?
HB: I’ll say something very basic – oh yes! I’m so obsessed with the universe.
WB: Are you really?
HB: Yes, yes. I’m getting very interested in how we’re so little in this whole thing. They do YouTube videos about it, and I’m rewatching Interstellar. I rewatched it last night. Like, how are we so little in this huge, big space? It’s so anxious. It’s so interesting.
WB: Well, this is the Cosmos issue, so I’m down that rabbit hole all the time right now.
HB: Yeah! Also I think the second thing is, I am spending time with my family. I didn’t have much chance the last three years.
WB: And what are you working on at the moment? Is there anything you can talk about? You said you have some upcoming things.
HB: I have some upcoming films that are secrets but I can talk about my writing. I’ve been writing a short movie for two years now, and I have a production company on board now so I’m working very hard to bring that to life.
WB: No way, that’s huge. How did you make that happen?
HB: I had a producer in my head and I wanted to go with her. I did everything for her to accept my film, but she hadn’t read, and she hadn’t read it. But when she did, she called me and she said, “Okay, you know what? Let’s go!” I’ll tell you the topic, it’s about motherhood.
WB: Congratulations! And the films that you’re working on, can you tell me anything? Are they international? Are they directors you’ve wanted to work with or actors you’ve wanted to work with?
HB: I swear to God, I can’t tell you anything. I’ve signed so many NDAs.
WB: Hate those!
HB: I understand.
WB: Okay, well that was fun. I have one last question: what’s your favorite flavor of sorbet?
HB: Lemon.
Starring Hiba Bennani | Creative Concept Studio Sorbet | Photographer Loic Rodrigues | Editorial Direction William Buckley | Production La Clef | Casting Director Jean-Marc Mondelet | Styling Carmelo Corvaia | Styling Assistants Bono Van Peursem, Barnabé White | Lightning Assistant Titouan Lepeutrec | Makeup Andrew Colvin using Laura Mercier | Hair Leslie Thibaud | Nails Kingdom Nails | Jewelry Buccellati | City Paris
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