Christian Cooke on ‘Rematch’: A celebration and a cautionary tale

Yan England’s Rematch recreates the 1997 match between reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov and IBM super computer Deep Blue. The six-part series features Christian Cooke playing the Russian Grandmaster.

The role called for intense research and provided insights. “I learned that I’m not very good at chess,” Christian says laughing. Speaking over a video call from London, Christian says he watched documentaries and read books by Kasparov in preparation for his role.

“With that material and the script I started to get a sense of who he was as a person. Single-mindedness, drive, ambition and tenacity were some of the adjectives that came to mind when I thought about Kasparov.”

Kasparov’s intense focus and precision was compelling and challenging, says the 37-year-old actor. “When you’re playing something as focused as chess, you have to concentrate specifically on the board in front of you, on the table the board is on, and on the person sitting opposite you.”

That, Christian said is a practical line of sight. “You’re not moving around, you’re not interacting with props or people. That innately results in a specific type of focus, which is the same focus a chess player has in real life. I just tried to personify that intensity.”

For the chess scenes, Christian says they worked with chess master Malcolm Pein in England and a Hungarian Grandmaster who was on set every day.

Precipice of change

Rematch revisits a pivotal moment in the history of AI. “It was the precipice of this huge change. Now, 30 years later, we’re standing at the precipice of another large leap forward. Human beings didn’t know what they were in for back then, with the advent of personal computing and the Internet. The digital age was just taking shape, and now AI is becoming a part of people’s lives.”

There is a parallel to the present moment, says Christian. “It’s going to be interesting to try and get a grip on how we want technology to affect our lives versus what we want to stay the same.”

Kasparov’s story is both a cautionary tale and a celebration of human ambition, says Christian. “It’s incredible what one human being can achieve when playing against a computer that could do 200 million moves a second. It’s a celebration of what the human mind is capable of, but also, a cautionary tale as Kasparov was ultimately beaten by the computer. I don’t know what that means for humanity in general, going forward, in terms of technology, but hopefully we can learn to work with it instead of against it, or hopefully we won’t let it work against us, who knows?”

Intimidating and motivating

It is always intimidating to play a real person, Christian says. “That also provides motivation to buckle down and get on with it. Sometimes what scares us is also what drives us and that was true for Garry. He was probably intimidated by the prospect of a computer being better than him. But it’s what drove him to take the challenge.”

Playing Kasparov reminded Christian of how hard one has to work to be at the top. “Kasparov worked very hard, and trained and researched a lot. It’s not all about natural ability. It’s about how hard you work and the hours that you put into being good at something. That’s true of every discipline.”

Deep dive

Shooting the chess games was a real challenge, Christian says. “You’re sitting in a chair for 12 to 13 hours a day acting like you’re playing chess. It’s exhausting mentally as an actor, because you can’t re- energise yourself by getting up and interacting with others. Physical scenes might have been less tiring, in a way. There’s something exhausting about just sitting in a chair and having your very small, specific points of focus.”

You also have to communicate a lot as an actor, says Christian, without doing too much. “You’re playing chess, and have to communicate how each move is affecting you as a performer. It’s quite niche and specific.”

Too much or too little

Jan Ingram, the director, wrote voiceovers into the script to show Kasparov calculating the moves he was making, instantaneously. “Jan wanted the audience to understand the sort of math that was going on in his brain. I was a little worried about that. Voice over is a delicate thing in film, it either works or it doesn’t. You’re giving the audience too much and can seem patronising.”

Christian raised his concerns about the voiceovers with Ingram. “He listened to me for about 20 minutes, and then showed me this clip from A Beautiful Mind where Russell Crowe is at the chalkboard, and there is this voice over, with the words blending into each other. And he said, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’ That put me at ease.”

Though Rematch is about more than chess, being also about obsession, legacy and control, Christian admits not thinking about themes. “As an actor, you’re thinking about practical, tangible things like the writing, or if the story works structurally, if the character three-dimensional.”

Filming took place in Montreal and Budapest, which are among Christian’s favourite cities. “I filmed there multiple times. It’s nice to return to a city that you love.” If he could ask Kasparov one question, Christian laughs and says he’d ask, ‘Do you think I did a good job?’”.

Rematch is currently streaming on Lionsgate Play