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On the Verge: Matt Gavan on Playing Charles “Crankshaft” Cruikshank in Apple TV+’s ‘Masters of the Air’


February 21, 2024

Matt Gavan is one of those classically trained British actors who can do Shakespeare at the Old Vic and also convincingly play a genuine American hero without anyone knowing where he really comes from. The talent and skill behind something like that is hard to come by, but Gavan has it in spades.

While you may or may not have seen the Shakespearean actor on stage, to see him play that American hero, Charles “Crankshaft” Cruikshank of the 100th Bomb Group, all you need to do is tune in to Apple TV+’s limited series Masters of the Air. Episodes are now streaming. Gavan spoke to us from his home in England.

How did you get started acting?

In the town where I grew up, I had a really good active youth theatre and a bunch of us went on to drama school in one way or another. That was my crowd. At uni, funnily enough, I was there with [Masters co-star] David Shields, although we didn’t really know each other then. He’s only about two years younger than me, but in the context of a three-year course, it might as well have been on a different planet.

I went to drama school after that. RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] in London. I did that for three years. So I was an undergrad doing plays in one way or another for six years.

So once you get out of RADA, I’m assuming that that led to a fair amount of theater work.

Yeah, I had some crazy good luck. When I first left, I went straight into King Lear, with Glenda Jackson. I know she came over to the States and did it a few years later, but that was our first attempt. Then I went back to the Old Vic for more theater stuff a year and a half later for an adaptation of Fannie & Alexander. I’ve done some touring of theater to China, Wales, Scotland, so yeah, certainly in the first few years, that was my main stage.

I imagine doing that kind of theater allows you to learn a lot about the world while you’re doing it.

I think so. I mean, I’m very, very cautious about sounding too sentimental about the wonderful job that we do, but I think that, for me, it’s a bit like being a generalist. You have to be a semi-expert in everything. For Masters of the Air, you have to become a functional expert in the P-17 and be in the US Army or whatever.

If you’re doing a massive Shakespeare play on a big stage, you have to become an expert on that play, not just on your part, but on the nature of the poetry of the plot, all that kind of stuff. So that, for me, is the great pleasure of it, the corners it takes you into.

There’s something to that. Having that kind of wealth of knowledge.

Yes, it makes you a real bore at the bar. (Laughs)

Or very good at trivia.

Yeah, well, listen, I love a pub quiz. So I’m there for that for sure. (Laughs)

You mentioned Masters of the Air, which is why we’re here. For a lot of the guys on the show, this is their first big gig. But you were in another Apple TV+ show, Foundation.

In any normal sense, Foundation is a huge show. Of course, it was a huge show. But the difference in scale was still palpable. I mean, for me, Foundation was the biggest thing that I’d done, and I literally went from filming Foundation in the Canary Islands, straight into bootcamp. That kind of sheer immersive thing made you really feel like you were standing in the tradition of Band of Brothers and learning all about these real people we were playing. So even coming straight from Foundation it still felt like a step up.

How much research we’re able to do on Charles Cruikshank, and what kind of sense did you get of him as a person?

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to speak to his family. There aren’t that many of them left, and they were difficult to contact by the 100’s group. Luckily, for me, there’s an amazing interview with him and Hambone Hamilton and John Brady that was recorded in the late 80s. It’s half an hour, 45 minutes of them just chatting, and obviously, while they’re old men, you do see them relax [and] tuck it away. It was such an amazing resource for his accent, primarily, but also for his vibe.

“Crankshaft” Cruikshank was a jovial, fun, loving, relaxed guy. But not knowing more is in a way quite freeing. You get to retro-engineer this personality, so you go back from those few facts, as long as you’re from Massachusetts, as long as you sound like the person.

What, if anything, do you take from a role like this?

I think this is gonna sound counterintuitive, but the thing that I took away from playing Cruickshank and from being in the show, is the sort of practical nature of all of this stuff. These guys were doing this incredibly practical job, and so much of what we were doing felt real.

There’s a scene where I had to burn the crease of my uniform with a matte straw and get the fleas out. We were doing it in this place that looks pretty gross and horrible, and I was dealing with a real match and they were real trousers. They put this tiny popping noise in the edit, just to get the sound right, but other than that it was totally real. And that’s it. You’re in the moment doing that thing. It’s not a psychological experience that you have to give yourself to trick yourself into performing some kind of magic, you’re doing it. It’s real.

I think the simplicity of that, it’s a lesson you learn over and over and over again. The moment is the thing. The arc is important, of course. Do your research. Look after yourself in and out. Be interested in what you’re doing. But stay present in the thing. All you have to do is just stick in that moment, the thing you’re doing, and the art will take care of itself.

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