Tom Hollander (The White Lotus) takes on the lead role of Truman Capote in the second season of FX’s FEUD anthology series. FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans focuses on the relationship between the bestselling author of In Cold Blood and the glamorous New York socialites he nicknamed the swans. These high-society women who took Truman into their confidence ultimately learned that spilling the tea to a writer in need of another bestseller was an incredibly ill-advised decision.
Capote took their deep, dark secrets and planned on exposing them for the world to see in his novel Answered Prayers. But Capote learned his swans have vicious bites after an excerpt from the novel was published in Esquire.
Tom Hollander recently participated in a press conference hosted by FX to discuss the eight-episode season premiering on January 31, 2024, at 10pm ET/PT. During the Q&A, which also included the talented ensemble who play the swans, Hollander was asked for his opinion on why the upper echelon of New York’s society would have wanted to be friends with Capote.
“I think he was the greatest writer of his generation, so for a bunch of people that were very rich and fancy houses but kind of, at some level, disempowered by their marriages, to have the greatest writer of his generation in their salons made…he was an accouterment. He was a dazzling accouterment on their dinner table. And maybe he would celebrate them,” offered Hollander.
He continued: “So maybe at some level, their vanity was flattered by having him around and him understanding them and listening to them in a way that their husbands weren’t, didn’t have time for. He was filling a great gap in their emotional lives, and he was brilliant. He was an incredibly entertaining, perceptive, clever, interesting, singular man, so I’d say that’s what they were getting out of it. Quite a lot. Until it went wrong.”
Getting into character meant doing extensive work to nail Capote’s unique voice.
“In terms of getting the voice, honestly, I just listened to it a lot, and I was helped enormously by the most brilliant voice coach called Jerome Butler, who was there with me every day. And then Truman himself was on my phone in my ear before every take, and so I could be with him whenever I wanted to and remind myself what he sounded like.
And so, you just keep scratching away at it. It’s not something that you get and then you’ve got it, and then you can hold on to it. You have to keep going, keep working at it. That’s it.”
Playing Truman Capote also meant observing his mannerisms and then following writer/executive producer Jon Robin “Robbie” Baitz’s advice. Baitz didn’t want Hollander to do an impression of Capote. Instead, he suggested Hollander approach it by playing Truman as almost a mythical person.
“I tried, rather than to become Truman Capote, I tried to – because I don’t look like Truman Capote – I tried to be someone who could only be Truman Capote. That’s Truman Capote. It’s not, ‘Oh my God, it’s a facsimile of Truman Capote.’
I watched him and watched him. I watched him, his television appearances, again and again and again, and I’m trying to find the bits of me that could be him or the bits of him that were like me, and then you somehow try and meet the character somewhere in the middle. Not quite in the middle, a little bit further towards him, I would say, because vocally and physically, he’s so distinctive. And I was helped by everyone.
Ryan [Murphy] was very helpful. He said, ‘Get the flamboyance and get the Truman, the stuff, the classic stuff, in early so that the audience feels reassured that they’re seeing the person they imagined they were going to see, and then later you can start being your version more.’
And so there was a sort of strategy in there. You’ve got to nail some big moments where he had to be sufficiently flamboyant, and then I could find other moments with Gus [Van Sant, executive producer/director] where I could just be or be listening or do smaller behavioral things where I was still. I was actually, ironically, paradoxically, I was trying to find stuff where he could be still a lot of the time because he’s so…you know, there’s so much movement in him,” explained Hollander.
The swans – Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny), and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart) – experienced multiple betrayals, from backstabbing friends to cheating husbands. But it was Truman Capote’s betrayal of their trust that cut so deeply that they reacted by banishing him from their circle, effectively deeming him persona non grata in New York City.
Hollander shared his opinion of why Capote’s actions caused such a vicious reaction from the swans.
“I think maybe they didn’t really think he was one of them. And he didn’t believe that he was one of them either. He knew that he was a sort of, at some level, he was a tourist in their world, and at some level they thought he was lucky to be there. So, when he turned, or when they felt he turned, they were vicious because they [thought], ‘From you? You were the adornment in our house. You are not our equal.’
And I think at some level he probably knew that, which is why he writes ‘Côte Basque’ in the way that he does, because at some level he’s enraged at his own position,” said Hollander. “He’s somewhere between them and their staff. He’s not quite at the same level as them.”
