When Rankin told his parents of his decision, the reaction was unexpected. “My dad was not impressed, but my mom is very liberal, and I think she thought she could have the experience vicariously. But my dad thought it was maybe a passing phase.
“I had a lot of passing phases when I was a teenager. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a pilot. I wanted to be a musician. I think that spoke volumes that I had a passion that had to be put into something, but I didn’t know what it was. My dad didn’t think it was a good move. ‘My God, what is the success rate in that field?’ ”
Rankin lost his father a year and a half ago. It’s a blow that still stuns, he says. “That’s like nothing else, nothing compares to that,” he sighs. “It’s like the impossible has happened. That immortal figure of a parent, that’s the one constant that feels unchangeable, and then it’s gone. It feels quite an emptiness, quite a void, confusion.”
Still he finds joy in his work. “The best part of my job is succeeding with a role, developing and telling the story of a character, but feeling you did it justice and you did it properly,” he says. When you have developed a well-rounded, satisfying character, you get a lot from that. When you feel you’ve poured enough of yourself into that to truly have transformed the character — that’s very rewarding.
“The worst part is the insecurity. You never know how far you’re gonna go or where you’re going to end up in a year or two. Unfortunately, I think that’s always there.”