Helen McCrory

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is Helen McCrory, one of the most critically acclaimed actresses working in Britain today.

Presenter0:51

Throughout her thirty year career, she's won rave reviews for her theatre performances, from Chekhov's Uncle Vanya to Euripides' Medea. On screen she's played Anna Karenina's Sherry Blair twice, Harry Potter's Narcissa Malfoy, and Peaky Blinder's Matriarch and Polly. Her performances have been remarkable both for the emotional insight she brings to characters we might otherwise struggle to understand, and for the transformation she undergoes while playing them. A diplomat's daughter, she spent her early childhood in Africa, where family concerts honed her skills as a performer. She married fellow actor Damien Lewis after falling for him at first sight and today they make a formidable acting duo.

Presenter1:34

About her craft, she says, I'm much more comfortable subjugating my personality to someone else's. I'm an interpreter, that's my job.

Presenter1:42

Acting isn't about you.

Presenter1:45

Well, it's all about you today. Helen McCrory, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Acting isn't about you, then, Helen, but I know that when you approach a character, you do start by making a list of the similarities and differences between you and them. And I wonder who's been most like you that you've played so far?

Helen McCrory2:05

Oh, I think I'll probably have to say one of my first jobs ever, which was Rose Trelawney and Trelawney of the Wells, because.

Helen McCrory2:11

Yeah, she was an actress. She'd been brought up in a theatrical trunk and loving what she does. And at the end of the first act, she says goodbye to it all and she goes and marries a posh boy. So there you go.

Helen McCrory2:24

Money.

Presenter2:24

Yeah.

Helen McCrory2:24

How Art Ref

Presenter2:25

Fletts Life.

Presenter2:27

You've played many memorable parts and yet apparently offset and offstage you're often not recognised. Is that the way you like it?

Helen McCrory2:38

I mean, I think that just suits me down to the ground and

Helen McCrory2:42

It's always happened, you know. I've been able to walk through many a stage door past everybody. Well, I say that, they probably just think I'm absolutely awful and don't want my autograph. I mean, I remember we were in um for Sam Mendes decided for his last play at uh The Donmar.

Helen McCrory2:57

That he was going to do a two-hander and he was going to get 12 actors, and we're all going to play.

Helen McCrory3:03

Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya. And one week we'd do one play, the next week we'd do another. So we did it in London, it was fantastic, and we took it over to New York.

Helen McCrory3:13

And one night the dressing room door goes, which actually my dressing room was the loo right next to the stage, which they put up. So basically I just sat on the loo to do my makeup. And in walks Lauren Bacall. And I looked at her and she looked at me and she went, I loved it. I loved you. I just thought you were fabulous. I said, well, thank you. She said, oh, no, really, you Sean. I mean, I've always been a fan of your work.

Helen McCrory3:36

And now I begin to panic, because this is about my seventh job.

Speaker 23:37

It is about

Helen McCrory3:39

There's no way she's been a fan of my work because I don't think she saw my Gwendolyn in Harrogate. And I said, Oh, I'm terribly sorry. That's Emily. I'm Helen. I play Yelena. And she was like, Oh my god, that is so embarrassing. And then after me making such a big thing to come and visit you. And I said, Oh, that's all right, Miss Hepburn. Ever since Philadelphia's story, I've been an enormous fan of yours. It's an honour to meet you. And she was like, Ha, you're a dame. We're gonna go out.

Presenter4:04

You're a d

Presenter4:06

Go out. And we did.

Presenter4:08

Helen, you don't often talk about your life, but I know you're making an exception for Desert Island Discs today. Thank you very much for that. What's that kind of natural reticence about? I don't.

Helen McCrory4:19

Really reflect. For this programme, when I was asked to look at different bits of my life, I had to look on the internet to see what I'd done.

Helen McCrory4:28

I just I've lived life at one hundred and fifty miles an hour, I think, is the truth of it. And I've never really stopped, and I think that that is a by product of that.

Presenter4:38

Alright, well let's start with your first disc to day.

Helen McCrory4:41

I had to choose a Bob Dylan because he has been somebody I have listened to since the age of five when my parents played him. This one I chose because it's remarkable that he knew what he'd want to say to me if he ever had met me. I've got a carte blanche from my husband that if I ever meet Bob Dylan I am allowed to run away with him.

Speaker 25:02

Uh

Speaker 35:02

I am allowed.

Speaker 35:04

Is it rolling, Bob?

Helen McCrory5:05

Also makes me think of the one I did actually marry. Second choice, best available.

Speaker 35:10

To be alone with you.

Speaker 35:14

Just you and me.

Speaker 35:18

Now won't you tell me true?

Speaker 35:22

Ain't that the way it oughta be?

Speaker 35:25

To hold each other tight.

Speaker 35:30

The whole natural

Speaker 35:34

Everything is always right.

Speaker 35:37

But I'm alone with you.

Presenter5:41

To be alone with you. To be alone with you by Bob Dylan. Helen McCrory, you were born in London, but your father's job as a diplomat took the family overseas when you were just a baby. So he had come from a working-class background in Glasgow, I believe, and he worked his way up in the Foreign Office. He must have been very driven. Tell me a bit about him.

Helen McCrory6:02

Yeah, my dad came from a very tough background. He grew up in Glasgow in the fifties. He stood out'cause he was the kid with shoes in the class, you know.

Helen McCrory6:13

I think he didn't like the sectarianism then, you know, because it was like being in Belfast. It had the same sort of hatred running through the streets. And he got out and joined the Foreign Office and set sail around the sea.

Presenter6:29

He played and still plays a very important role in your life, I know, and you've said you owe everything to him. What was it that he gave you?

Helen McCrory6:36

I think the biggest thing he taught me was you've got to be able to laugh at everything and nothing, I tell you, nothing is off limits. And once somebody's laughed at you as a kid and you laugh at them, it gives you enormous confidence because you know who you are. You're not trying to be anything other than exactly what you are.

Helen McCrory6:57

You know, if I'd get in a sulk, he'd go, Here comes, here she comes, Griselda Gruntfattuck I used to be furious. How can you say that to me? I'd go, Oh, it's lovely, a bit louder, they can't hear you in the gallery Oh, poor me, it's a dying duck in a thunderstorm You know, and you'd sort of at the end you'd just roar with laughter.

Presenter7:18

Your mum, Anne, is from Cardiff. She trained as a physiotherapist, I believe, and then moved to London, where she met your dad. How do you describe her?

Helen McCrory7:26

She used to smell of the Yves Salon en Rive Gauche, and she'd have this dark coal eyeliner, and she'd wear these white mini skirts. It was all very cool in the 60s. You know, she did her own thing. So she taught me from a very young age my idea of what being a woman was. She thought that good housekeeping was a work of fiction and it didn't matter what you looked like as a woman at all, which was great.

Presenter7:49

Is it true that your mum took a degree a little bit later in life so that she could argue politics with your dad?

Helen McCrory7:56

Yeah, she studied politics because she was so annoyed with my father, who had been actually on the press desk of the Foreign Office, saying things like Well, I should know I was there, I signed the treaty So she went off and basically studied for quite a long time before she went Well, what she didn't know is three years later they overturned that treaty, Ian.

Speaker 28:03

And with

Helen McCrory8:15

They're very alive, my parents. Let's put it that way.

Presenter8:18

Yeah.

Helen McCrory8:19

I'm very, very lucky. They're still my best friends. It's time for your second disc, Helen. What's it going to be and why have you chosen this? So one thing I haven't mentioned about my father and my mother.

Helen McCrory8:29

is of the evening after the heated debate has calmed down.

Helen McCrory8:35

There is nothing nicer than singing, and we have always done it. My father's got a beautiful voice, as is my mother. We all sing in our own keys, with no accompanent apart from twenty fags and a bottle of bells. And we have done this all round the world. But my Dad will always look at my mum, and he will either sing Farewell, my Nut Brown Maiden, or Will you go, Lassie Go.

Helen McCrory8:59

So, this is for them.

Helen McCrory9:02

Where you go?

Speaker 29:04

Oh la sigold.

Speaker 29:08

And we'll all go together to pull

Speaker 39:14

I heal Mountain Time.

Speaker 39:19

All around the blue and hell

Speaker 29:25

Where do you go? Let's see you go.

Presenter9:31

But

Presenter9:31

The Corries and Will You Go, Lassie Go. Helen McCrory, your family moved to Africa when you were a toddler, so you first went to Cameroon and then to Tanzania. What are your memories of those years?

Helen McCrory9:44

Tanzania

Helen McCrory9:46

to me was definitely my most formative country. We used to go to the sea every day, and there used to be a whole sort of a sea echin colony that I used to go down to, and in my little world I used to talk to them all, and there was a king and a queen, and there were whole big sagas going on there. I also was quite sort of

Helen McCrory10:05

Physically confident is a nice way of putting it. A pain in the ass is probably not a good way of putting it.

Speaker 210:08

Okay.

Helen McCrory10:12

I would never be put in charge of health and safety, let's put it that way. I'd steal a machete and then I'd go off with all my, you know, my brother and the lost boys behind me and I'd cut through a wasp nest and then they all ran after us. And of course I was quick, I just was at the front, you know, and the poor kid at the back had someone like twenty-seven blisters all over him.

Helen McCrory10:32

I mean photographs of me, I'm just I've got matted, curly, short hair, and I just used to wear white knickers. That was it. That was me, done for the day. My outfit was decided.

Helen McCrory10:43

And I'd be off.

Helen McCrory10:45

I loved Africa and it stays with you.

Presenter10:47

It's often part of the diplomat's job to socialise and host parties. What were evenings like at your family home growing up?

Helen McCrory10:55

Oh, they were always full of music, always full of people talking. I used to sit on the stairs and watch the doors go in and out of people bringing food and bringing drinks

Helen McCrory11:07

I remember one night absolutely furious one particular night.

Helen McCrory11:11

Because I'd been sent to bed early'cause now I couldn't have gin martinis, you know, the Swedish ambassador.

Helen McCrory11:16

And I do still remember standing on the top of the stairs, walking down, completely starkers, and shouting furiously You haven't some, little darlings yet and the whole place laughing, and me storming back up stairs again.

Presenter11:32

It's time to take a second for some music. This is disc number three, Helen. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen it?

Helen McCrory11:38

This is a song sung in Swahili. I remember listening to all the chat below.

Helen McCrory11:44

with my brother in the same room, watching the fan go underneath our mozzy nets.

Helen McCrory11:49

hearing this song play through the floorboards and

Helen McCrory11:53

Looking forward to being grown up when I could have vodka martinis and stay up past six thirty-two.

Speaker 312:00

Malaika

Speaker 312:05

Nakufenda Malay.

Speaker 312:13

Malaysia,

Speaker 312:24

Inge Puwawa

Speaker 312:27

Ah Maliway.

Speaker 312:30

In Gekua!

Presenter12:32

Malika by Miriam McCaber

Presenter12:35

Helen McCrory, your father's posting in Africa came to an end and you continued your education here in the UK. You were in the school choir and I think there was a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. That was a pivotal moment for you. What happened?

Helen McCrory12:49

That night I will never forget walking in and standing on that stage, having been not that interested up till then. I mean, it's quite hard to get excited about Mozart's Requiem when it's you and another other, you know, eleven spotty, plump teenagers singing it.

Helen McCrory13:05

But suddenly the orchestra started up.

Helen McCrory13:08

And I sang so loudly

Helen McCrory13:12

And the whole body vibrated. It was the most extraordinary thing that I'd ever been part of. A piece of music I would never ever be capable of writing. And I realized from a very young age I would never be original. I would never be a great artist. But what I could do is I could be part of another great artist's work.

Speaker 213:33

Uh

Helen McCrory13:34

I could be an interpreter.

Helen McCrory13:36

That felt so good not being me. I'm Mozart, I'm going to continue being Mozart.

Presenter13:43

After school in 1985 you applied to the Drama Centre in North London. How did you get on there?

Presenter13:51

Uh

Helen McCrory13:51

I'd chosen Juliet, and so I did my gallopy pace, sat down with a smile on my face, and he said, Yeah, well lovely

Helen McCrory13:58

Have you ever been in love?

Helen McCrory14:00

And I went to her No

Helen McCrory14:03

And he said, Well, are you a virgin?

Helen McCrory14:05

And I went, which I w yes. And I went, Well, why the hell did you choose that piece then?

Helen McCrory14:11

You are going to be standing on a stage in front of people in that audience who will have been married for fifty years. You are going to be in front of people who will have lost the love of their lives. You are going to be in front of all those people talking about love and you know absolutely nothing about it. Get out of here and live a bit. And I just thought that's the school for me. It's the Glaswegian school of acting, because they were just honest. And I went off and I lived in Italy for four months and fell in love and I went back again and I auditioned again and I stood in front of this man, Christopher Fettis, and I got onto the waiting list.

Helen McCrory14:51

I'd been offered another four places at the different schools, and I wrote letters of thank you very, very much, but I won't be accepting a place, and I photocopied these and sent them to Christopher Fettis and said, I will do this every year until you give me a place in your school. And he wrote back and said,

Presenter15:06

But he said

Helen McCrory15:07

I'll see you in September.

Helen McCrory15:09

And that was it. I was in. I was on my way.

Presenter15:11

Okay.

Presenter15:13

Things took off for you pretty quickly once you left. You got leading roles at the National Theatre early on in Lorca's Blood Wedding and then later in Richard Eyre's production of Trelawney of the Wells. That's quite an auspicious start. Was there ever any concern in your mind that it might be happening too quickly?

Helen McCrory15:29

I played seven leads at the National. I just don't know if you'd be able to do that now. You know, take a total unknown and put them right in the middle of a two thousand seater and say off you go.

Helen McCrory15:41

The National Theatre is definitely if you'd say to me acting that's what I think of

Helen McCrory15:47

All the dressing rooms face into each other, in the middle.

Helen McCrory15:51

So if you imagine there are five or six, I can't remember, floors, thirty or forty people on each floor all the way up, and you can all see each other. So people are constantly hanging out there, having a fag or shouting or not anymore, of course, but you know, in the old days, or shouting to each other.

Helen McCrory16:08

On a press night, you've had your

Helen McCrory16:11

I'll give you a half an hour call, please, half an hour call, and then you have fifteen minutes and ten minutes, and it's five minutes to act one, please, five minutes to act one. Can we have the beginners to the stage? Can that be Miss McCrawry, mister Strong, mister and as it's going down, you go to that middle, and the whole of the companies of every other play at the National Theatre

Helen McCrory16:32

Bang on those windows as loudly as they come, and they drum.

Helen McCrory16:38

from really low, low, low and until it's absolute frenzy and people scream and boom, and then you're on. It is the most terrifying thing you've ever been in, but it is the most extraordinary thing you've ever been in. To being a part of that, I think, to me is

Helen McCrory16:56

Very, very special.

Presenter16:59

It's time to go to the music, Helen. Disc number four, what are we going to hear next?

Helen McCrory17:03

When I was at Drama Centre there were marches, it was Thatcher's Britain, there was anger on the streets, but there was just a kind of an electricity about London.

Helen McCrory17:13

And I love London. I love the bones of it. I love the smell of carbon monoxide. I love the drinking dens of Soho, to which I dedicated most of my twenties and thirties to pioneering the way for others behind me.

Helen McCrory17:28

I love the museums, I love the people, I love all of it and to me this reminds me of London.

Speaker 317:41

A message to you, Rosin

Speaker 317:46

A message to you.

Speaker 317:57

Stop it fooling around

Speaker 318:02

Time you straighten right up

Speaker 318:07

Let her think of your future

Speaker 318:10

And so why not?

Presenter18:12

Yeah.

Presenter18:12

A message to you Rudy Despecials.

Presenter18:16

Helen McCrory, your friend and colleague, the late Alan Rickman, once said of you, Helen has a kind of darkness of spirit to bring. What do you think he meant by that?

Helen McCrory18:25

I don't think I ever thought any at any point in my life that it I was going to be happy all the time.

Helen McCrory18:31

Nor did I seek it really. I think when it comes to my own life.

Helen McCrory18:36

And my own experiences of unhappiness, it makes you

Helen McCrory18:41

Fight more for the positive. I don't think I ever went on stage without being sick for about 10 years.

Helen McCrory18:47

And I was very frightened of going on stage, but I wanted it more than I was scared of it.

Helen McCrory18:52

And I think that it makes you want life.

Helen McCrory18:55

More than you're scared of it.

Presenter18:58

You said that acting isn't therapy. You know, you yourself say that. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean.

Helen McCrory19:05

Uh

Helen McCrory19:06

I've been to performances when actors on the stage who are particularly playing tragic parts suddenly and it it is a technique, you can just suddenly go off voice and you can make it sound like you really are having

Helen McCrory19:19

That breakdown in that moment.

Speaker 219:21

Bang.

Helen McCrory19:22

But if you were to do that throughout the entire play and go, okay, I'm going to play this for real, which again is just a technique.

Helen McCrory19:28

It unnerves the audience because you think this person isn't in control and hang on, I don't want to watch a real breakdown. That's what I haven't paid my money for.

Helen McCrory19:39

I've paid to see that character, not Helen McCrawy.

Helen McCrory19:44

And I think that that's why it must never be a therapy.

Presenter19:48

And as a performer, what's it like playing a real person? You played Sherry Blair twice. How do you prepare for a role like that?

Helen McCrory19:54

That. When I played her first, he was still at number ten. So she was um mute, basically. And I'd studied her like Latimer would study an ape from the outside.

Helen McCrory20:05

And I just watched and I suddenly would notice that when she was about to say something, she suddenly would stop and then she'd smile and put her head back and you realized, Oh, right, she smiles like that because she was about to say something and then she realizes they're not asking for her opinion.

Helen McCrory20:22

When I played her the second time, it was a bit more difficult. He was out of number ten and she was was on Radio Four every morning on Woman's Hour reading and it all became I definitely the game was up. Everybody went, She's nothing like Sherry Blair. Then I stopped playing her. It became far too cold.

Presenter20:35

Came far too complicated.

Presenter20:38

It's time for your next piece of music, Helen. What have you chosen, and why?

Helen McCrory20:41

This is a lovely bit of French frou frou. When I was in Tanzania, I used to roller skate with Nikki Keys, but we didn't have any of the stoppers on the front, so the only way we used to stop basically was just like by collapsing onto the gravel.

Helen McCrory20:59

And I love this. I then lived in Paris for six years and and I used to listen to it then and just think, wow, I'm never going to be a Parisian woman, however hard I try, because basically I'm sort of just roller skating to it and falling in the mud.

Speaker 321:28

Faba Bada, Faba Da Bada.

Speaker 321:32

From ba-da-bara, far-bara-bara.

Speaker 321:37

Come on, jump a dump, jump a dumb.

Presenter21:49

A Man and a Woman, composed by Francis Ley and Pierre Barreau, from the soundtrack to the film A Man and a Woman. Helen McCrory, by your own admission, you were a feral and compulsive liar as a child, and apparently carried on being economical with the truth well into your adult years. Why and what form did those lies take?

Helen McCrory22:07

You say it like it's a bad thing. I mean, it was always a white light. It was never terrible, and it was always about things that had happened in the past. It would be.

Helen McCrory22:15

Had my father worked with the Queen? Yes, because he was in the Foreign Office and we had the Queen's Commission hanging in the loo. Was he the Queen's personal bodyguard? Perhaps not. It was that sort of there was a grain of truth in it somewhere along the line. I just think it's the fun of telling stories, but apparently the imagination and the memory are very closely linked.

Helen McCrory22:40

So I think perhaps it's because I'm not reflective enough, so I just kind of speak to fill the space. And I think I still do it occasionally to win an argument. Truth is a very subjective thing, and mine just happens to be very different from anybody else's in the room at the time.

Presenter22:58

And acting of course is a search for a different kind of truth. What are you looking for there when you get on stage or in front of a camera?

Helen McCrory23:05

Oh, just to be completely and alive in the moment and truthful. Otherwise the audience get bored.

Helen McCrory23:11

That's the fun of doing it.

Presenter23:13

Is it still fun even when you're playing a character that is incredibly difficult to empathize with? I mean, I'm I'm thinking of Medea. You played Medea in twenty fourteen at the National and you won the Critics Circle Theatre Award as Best Actress. Medea kills her children. I mean

Presenter23:28

approaching a role like that. Is that still fun?

Helen McCrory23:32

I wouldn't say fun was the right word, exhilarating, but no, I decided on that, that I was going to have to break with tradition.

Helen McCrory23:39

And instead of believing, Buchayos did.

Helen McCrory23:42

I would just pretend.

Helen McCrory23:44

Because I had two children and I couldn't get my head

Helen McCrory23:47

No, there'd just be a point that I just now know how to technically deliver everything, and this is the story.

Helen McCrory23:53

But I couldn't engage with it.

Helen McCrory23:55

It's time for disc number six, Helen. What have you chosen and why? Cigarettes and uh chocolate milk. I chose because I do love the fact that he's quite right. Everything naughty is bad for you. The wine that everybody chooses to take on to their desert island, it's bad for you.

Helen McCrory24:13

Smoking, I can't do that anymore, I'm not allowed to because I can read a paper and I know how bad it is. Camel bear, bad for you. I mean, everything that's enjoyable is bad for you. And he sums this up beautifully and poignantly in this. And when I'd be on my desert island, I'd be able to listen to it and I wouldn't have to miss anything because I'd think, well, there we go. I'm having a lovely detox with the monkeys.

Speaker 324:40

Cigarettes and chocolate milk

Speaker 324:45

These are just a couple of my cravings Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me If I should buy jelly babies Have to eat them all in just one sediment Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter A little bit fatter A little bit

Presenter25:17

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk by Rufus Wainwright. Helen McCrory, you met Damian Lewis, your husband, in 2003 when you were both in a play called Five Gold Rings. The director Michael Attenborough said that the electricity between you was like directing a fire. So when did you realize that you weren't having to act with this particular male lead?

Helen McCrory25:38

Um

Presenter25:38

Yeah.

Helen McCrory25:38

Uh

Helen McCrory25:39

Right, she's choosing every word very carefully now.

Helen McCrory25:44

Damien's naughty.

Helen McCrory25:46

And I've always loved my naughty boys, and he makes me laugh, and that was quite uh apparent quite early on.

Helen McCrory25:54

He just never lets me get away with anything, and that would make me laugh even more.

Helen McCrory25:59

So I think we hit it off pretty quickly.

Helen McCrory26:03

And we had uh a bumpy courtship. I think we leave it like that. We are completely different as people, but we're very similar in our values.

Helen McCrory26:13

I very rarely ever sort of disagree with very fundamental things like parenting, which is a real acid test, I think, for any couple.

Helen McCrory26:23

He said

Helen McCrory26:24

I don't want to say too many nice things'cause he's going to be roaring with laughter at the radio.

Presenter26:29

The radio.

Helen McCrory26:31

And tease To me.

Presenter26:33

You haven't performed together since that first play Five Gold Rings, would you like to do so?

Helen McCrory26:39

Yeah, we're looking to do something together at the moment actually.

Helen McCrory26:42

You just got to be very careful though, because you don't want everybody sitting thinking, oh my god, here we go.

Helen McCrory26:49

But I'd like to work with him not because he's my husband or because I know him, but because I like his acting.

Presenter26:55

What would you like to do together?

Helen McCrory26:57

Well, I think we'd probably try and do a comedy because we're doing Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf at Home? So so we don't need that.

Helen McCrory27:06

Yeah.

Presenter27:06

And do you feel that there are still as many good roles open to you today? I mean, we hear a lot about female actors finding it difficult to find those really good parts, whereas that's not generally the case for men as they get older.

Helen McCrory27:18

I'm very, very lucky that I'm offered good parts. In British television and stuff, I think you are finding writing that's serving women fantastically, and you're getting older women playing fantastic parts. But yeah, it's not an equal playing field. And what you do as an actress is you make sure that when you get a part, you don't make it dependent on your sexuality, because that's not going to make it easy for the women behind you. You know, if you present yourself constantly as the most important thing about this character is the fact you find her sexually attractive.

Helen McCrory27:54

You just look as a woman, because as an actress, you know, that you'll have put filters on, you'd have had makeup, you'll have had lighting, and you just go, Well, thanks very much. Do you know what I mean? That's not possible. I mean, I don't look like I look like on screen in life. Nobody looks like they look like on screen in life. But that's one way to try and redress that balance: look to ourselves as well. Look to ourselves. It's time for your next disc. What are we going to hear?

Presenter28:21

Yeah.

Helen McCrory28:22

One of my happiest moments and still is, and we danced to this when I was selecting for this programme.

Helen McCrory28:31

Is dancing with my husband. Damien is a superb dancer.

Helen McCrory28:37

And that's very important to me. I love dancing, and this just brings out all the naughtiness, and I know that.

Helen McCrory28:43

If ever I want him in a party and I can't see where he is, and, ladies and gentlemen, it won't surprise you to know that's quite often, I will go up to the DJ and I will say, put this song on.

Helen McCrory28:55

And I know that if I am in another building he will find me and we will dance to this.

Speaker 329:05

Long time

Speaker 329:10

Go down to the mamma, baby.

Speaker 329:14

Private in between

Speaker 329:19

Cool.

Speaker 329:21

Do we?

Speaker 329:24

Don't cry.

Speaker 329:26

Ruby

Speaker 329:28

And

Speaker 329:31

Yeah.

Presenter29:32

Pull Up to the Bumper by Grace Jones. Helen McCrory, along with Matt Lucas, you and Damien are co-founders of the Feed the NHS campaign and that raises money to provide hot meals to frontline NHS workers. So this campaigning work has obviously kept you busy during the last few months, but on a more personal level, how have you coped with lockdown?

Helen McCrory29:53

Then when you move around a lot as a kid.

Helen McCrory29:55

What's quite interesting is you realise there is no such thing as normal.

Helen McCrory29:59

There is no such thing as it's the way it is, and so I've always been quite clear and just following my instinct.

Helen McCrory30:08

Well, I'm here to tell you, I haven't taught myself any languages.

Helen McCrory30:12

I haven't read any book of any worth.

Helen McCrory30:16

I've never had so long to sit and think, that's been strange for Damien and I. I mean, we've never and I've only just met him. I hadn't I had no idea he was an American till about a week ago.

Helen McCrory30:27

Um

Helen McCrory30:28

So but we've been with the children who are now twelve and thirteen and

Helen McCrory30:33

That's been fantastic privilege to be with them.

Presenter30:36

I'm about to cast you away to your desert island. I wonder how you're going to deal with the challenge.

Helen McCrory30:39

They deal with the challenge.

Helen McCrory30:41

Terrible. The desert I've decided though is going to be a very lovely white sands.

Helen McCrory30:48

Coconuts beautiful animals that don't eat each other or me, no insects whatsoever.

Helen McCrory30:56

And there's going to be enough food, there's going to be everything you want to drink, eat, and smoke on our island to keep you very happy for a very long time.

Presenter31:03

What's going to be the most difficult thing for you?

Helen McCrory31:06

Yeah.

Presenter31:06

Island.

Helen McCrory31:06

Uh

Presenter31:06

Uh

Helen McCrory31:06

Being without people.

Helen McCrory31:08

I never, ever, ever crave my own company, to be without my family.

Helen McCrory31:13

I'd absolutely hate it.

Presenter31:17

You shouldn't have any trouble sleeping, though, from what I've heard. You are queen of the catnap.

Helen McCrory31:21

Oh yeah, I can sleep between a first half and a second half of a play.

Presenter31:21

Oh yeah.

Presenter31:25

No, in the interval.

Helen McCrory31:27

Yeah.

Presenter31:27

Yeah, I could

Helen McCrory31:27

And so

Presenter31:27

Sleep everywhere, anywhere.

Presenter31:29

One more disc, then, before we send you off to a desert island, Helen. What's it gonna be, and why have you chosen this?

Helen McCrory31:35

This is Don't Worry About a Thing Stevie Wonder. I love the sentiment Don't Worry About Anything. The shit is gonna happen and it will hit the fan, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't think it will.

Helen McCrory31:46

But worrying about it too much, it's just bad for you. You know, it's really, really bad for you. And I didn't used to worry about anything. And then I had children and I worried about everything. So this is the lie that I tell my children. Don't worry about a thing. I don't actually believe it myself, but maybe if I dance enough to this on the desert island, I'll get that carefree attitude back again.

Speaker 332:09

But don't you worry about a thing

Speaker 332:14

Don't you worry about a thing, mama.

Speaker 332:18

Cause I'll be standing on the side when you check it out

Speaker 332:27

You say your style of life's a dragon And that you must go out of places But Jeff don't you feel too bad When you get fooled by a smile

Speaker 332:41

Smiling faces, don't you worry about a thing?

Presenter32:45

Stevie Wonder, and don't you worry about a thing. It's time to cast you away to the tranquility of your desert island, then have a good time.

Helen McCrory32:52

Paradise Island.

Presenter32:54

My Paradise Island. You can have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to help you pass the time there. You can also, of course, take a book of your choice. What would you like?

Helen McCrory32:55

Island

Presenter33:03

Either.

Helen McCrory33:03

The most comprehensive book of philosophy.

Helen McCrory33:07

My other choice is Spike Milligan The Complete Works, because having been in lockdown and realized you've had quite a few weeks in which you could have picked up any of the books on philosophy, and yet you still haven't, have you, Helen? And actually, you've got to be able to laugh.

Helen McCrory33:27

So what am I going to go for?

Helen McCrory33:30

I think I'm going to have on the outside the complete works of philosophy, but on the inside it's actually going to be the complete works of Spike Milligan.

Presenter33:37

So you want Spike Milligan with a Bertrand Russell dust cover, yeah?

Helen McCrory33:41

Thank you.

Presenter33:42

Simply says.

Helen McCrory33:42

Yeah.

Presenter33:43

Yeah.

Helen McCrory33:43

He sees me, and then I'll

Presenter33:43

Other island. Done. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Presenter33:48

Now am I allowed the V and A?

Presenter33:51

Well, there is precedent on this actually, Helen. The poet Imtiaz Darka took the V and A as her luxury item in 2015, so it's all yours.

Helen McCrory34:00

Oops.

Presenter34:00

Yeah.

Helen McCrory34:00

Well, I shall be taking my own V and A, and I shall plunder it, and I shall wear all the jewels, and I shall wear all the costumes, I shall take out the samurai swords, some of the greatest swords ever made, to make my hut, and I shall enjoy myself on my desert island, surrounded by what I love most, which is humanity.

Helen McCrory34:21

Yeah.

Presenter34:21

And if you could only save one disc from being swept out to sea, which would you choose out of the eight that you've played us today?

Helen McCrory34:27

Stevie one

Presenter34:27

Yeah.

Presenter34:29

Hallan McCrory, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Helen McCrory34:33

Thank you very, very much. And sorry about my very sore throat, but thank you very, very much.

Presenter34:40

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Helen. We'll leave her in the splendour of the VA having a chuckle at Spike Mulligan. I mean, I'm quite jealous. We've cast many actors and actresses away over the years, including Anne-Marie Duff, Harriet Walter, Wendell Pearce, Rupert Everett, and Kathy Burke. And in 2014, Kirstie Young sent Helen's husband Damien Lewis to the island. What sort of a little boy were you?

Speaker 335:04

I think initially I was quite a shy boy. Why do you think I don't know? I see pictures of myself then. I look rather anxious a lot of the time. And I don't know why that is. I would like to say to you that I was thoughtful and sensitive and thinking, Kirstie, but that might not have been true. But.

Speaker 335:26

By the time I was, I suppose, eight, I was on full throttle. And what were you interested in? What would you have been playing at? What was in your toy box? My favourite dress-up costume was a First World War officer with peak cap and rifle, and quite like dressing up as Robin Hood occasionally. You said get dressed in him, so he was a character. Give him the opportunity. The biggest characters of our childhood were invented by my brother and myself, and they were called Bob and Charlie. And Bob and Charlie went up and down the streets, the mean streets I had of St. John's Wood, solving crimes of our own, imagining on our grifters, the new Raleigh bike that was brought out in the early 80s.

Helen McCrory35:46

Give it the opportunity.

Helen McCrory36:02

Oh no.

Speaker 336:07

And that took up a lot of our time. And I've read you describe your mother as strong. Tell me more about her. Mum was a fiercely protective, loving, giving woman. Tough love. A generation that was still giving tough love, but probably more likely to say, you know, your father and I love you in a letter than to your face. But. Really, really loved, gave a lot of time to other people. It was sort of a family joke that our house just off Abbey Road became a sort of refuge for children, friends of all of ours, who maybe didn't see their parents so much, or when they came to stay in London, would always stay at our house. And mum was always there, and as they grew older into their 20s, she was always ready to sit down and give people advice. And was it a house with wisdom and love, and was it a sort of quiet, contemplative house, apart from your father getting up to sing at Sunday lunch? Or was it a loud, rumbustuous place to live? B. B. We were a family that learnt to talk very quickly and make one's point quickly in order to get it in before you were interrupted. Right, so you had to play big in a room to get your voice heard. Yes. We're terrible listeners, is the truth of it. We were probably all just very keen to make our point. Mostly because we were encouraged to make our point by our parents. You know, substantiate your point. What does that mean? But I think someone might have said at some point, and now listen to someone else's, maybe, or maybe I just didn't hear that bit.

Presenter37:51

Damien Lewis, talking to Kirsty Young in 2014 and you'll find his Desert Island discs on BBC Sounds. Next time my guest will be the novelist Helen Fielding. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 238:16

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