Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Critically acclaimed British actress, known for Harry Potter's Narcissa Malfoy, Peaky Blinders' Polly Gray, and award-winning stage performances.
On the island
Eight records
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.
This is a song sung in Swahili. I remember listening to all the chat below with my brother in the same room, watching the fan go underneath our mozzy nets, hearing this song play through the floorboards and looking forward to being grown up.
I then lived in Paris for six years 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.
Everything that's enjoyable is bad for you. And he sums this up beautifully and poignantly in this.
I love dancing, and this just brings out all the naughtiness… If ever I want him [Damian] in a party and I can't see where he is… I will go up to the DJ and I will say, put this song on. And I know that if I am in another building he will find me and we will dance to this.
Don't You Worry 'bout a ThingFavourite
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. But worrying about it too much, it's just bad for you.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:45Acting 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. I wonder who's been most like you that you've played so far?
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. 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.
Presenter asks
6:29You've said you owe everything to [your father]. What was it that he gave you?
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.
Presenter asks
13:43After school in 1985 you applied to the Drama Centre in North London. How did you get on there?
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
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.
The luxury
Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A)
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.
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… Have you ever been in love?' And I went, 'No.' … 'Well, are you a virgin?' … 'Yes.' … 'Well, why the hell did you choose that piece then? … 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 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. … I wrote letters … 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, 'I'll see you in September.' And that was it. I was in. I was on my way.
Presenter asks
18:16Your 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?
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. Nor did I seek it really. I think when it comes to my own life, and my own experiences of unhappiness, it makes you fight more for the positive. I don't think I ever went on stage without being sick for about 10 years. And I was very frightened of going on stage, but I wanted it more than I was scared of it. And I think that it makes you want life more than you're scared of it.
Presenter asks
18:58You said that acting isn't therapy. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean.
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, 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. I've paid to see that character, not Helen McCrory. And I think that that's why it must never be a therapy.
Presenter asks
23:13Is it still fun even when you're playing a character that is incredibly difficult to empathise with? I mean, I'm thinking of Medea. … Medea kills her children. … Is that still fun?
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. … I would just pretend. Because I had two children and I couldn't get my head … I couldn't engage with it.
Presenter asks
29:32You and Damien are co-founders of the Feed the NHS campaign. … On a more personal level, how have you coped with lockdown?
I haven't taught myself any languages. I haven't read any book of any worth. I've never had so long to sit and think, that's been strange for Damien and I. … I'd no idea he was an American till about a week ago.
“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.”
“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. I could be an interpreter. That felt so good not being me. I'm Mozart, I'm going to continue being Mozart.”
“I don't think I ever went on stage without being sick for about 10 years. And I was very frightened of going on stage, but I wanted it more than I was scared of it. And I think that it makes you want life more than you're scared of it.”
“It makes you want life more than you're scared of it.”
“It's the fun of telling stories, but apparently the imagination and the memory are very closely linked. 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.”