Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Award-winning actress best known for her BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated role as Vera Drake and her two Olivier Award-winning stage performances.
On the island
Eight records
I just love it and I love a song with a story. I do love a story and this is a great story.
As a kid really this was the first music I I I mean there was Irish music in our house, but Elvis, you know, did it for me and uh still does actually.
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
I was in the school choir and I loved singing in the school choir. Mainly because we joined the boys' school across the road. They were also in the choir, but we did the Messiah, and I remember every note.
I was lucky enough to play [Piaf] at Nottingham Playhouse in nineteen eighty. It was a, you know, extremely dramatic role to sing and to act. And I think it moved me forward as an actor...
I'll KnowFavourite
Not only the most glorious show to be in. I mean, even being in the hot box was heaven, but also I met my husband and um you know, therefore my life was sort of began really.
Part of me wants to be Bet Middler. I don't think it's ever going to happen now, but she's just heaven and this is just glorious.
This is um my mum playing fiddle with a couple of her friends and um and you know as a kid we did have parties and there was you know I did hear this sort of music from really when I was a very small child.
The most beautiful voices, and I just love these voices...
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:22How did you research Vera Drake?
Well, you don't, you create her. And literally from the you know, we create her and vett her from the day she was born. Now the research is to do with the thirties and forties and fifties and the war and all the pr you know, all the things about the time. But for me it felt like he had a canvas. And it in some way I think he knew the picture he wanted to make. And then we are the colour and the shape, and he sort of puts us on to that canvas.
Presenter asks
6:06Did the rest of the cast, your family [in the film], know that [Vera was an abortionist]?
Well, yeah, that's all everyone we just thought. Yeah. You know, I mean I was in part of my rehearsals was going off and improvising with the women that I had to deal with. But Mike creates a situation. We rehearse in a disused hospital where people are rehearsing one end and and no one meets. You know um I had no idea there were any actors playing police. I had no idea there were ever going to be any police.
Presenter asks
16:07What does working hard mean in terms of being an actor?
Taking it seriously. I think. Take it seriously and and I do a lot of preparation, although I hope I'm very open. I don't want to wing it and yet I don't want to be set in my ways. But I want to put the work in and not just think, Oh, this is I can do this standing on my head.
The keepsakes
The book
I thought, hopefully, there'll be some good stars to look at, and I don't really know much about them, so I think a wonderful book on astronomy, so I can find out what they're saying to me, would be rather good.
The luxury
some clay and um some tools to make to do some bit of pottery. ... I've done it once. I did a tiny, tiny little head, and I just loved it so much.
Presenter asks
19:25Why suddenly, when [your ambition] starts to be fulfilled, are you getting coy [about taking over the lead role in Guys and Dolls]?
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is, I don't think I have I mean, I think my ambition is so quiet, I sometimes could hardly hear it. I think um when Richard asked me to do that, because Julia was so extraordinary in the part, I thought I cannot follow that and a bit of me didn't want to follow, I wanted to create something for myself.
Presenter asks
24:46What form did [your postnatal depression] take?
I don't know, just not feeling adequate in any way and um just not knowing how to do it, not knowing how to be a mum and but physically I'd been unwell as well, so that didn't help. Um, 'cause I got taken back to hospital and, you know, it was just a mess, really. It was a bit of a car accident as opposed to a lovely having a baby, which of course is the most wonderful thing in the world.
“I think I do empathize with those people who maybe have sadness in their life or are just those hard working people... those people who just get on with their life and actually don't really moan about it.”
“I was so frightened. I was so genuinely frightened and as as we all were. And it was extraordinary. And we carried on for another four hours. I was taken away. I was interrogated. That's when the actors play my family found out what she did.”
“I think my ambition is so quiet, I sometimes could hardly hear it.”
“I actually it didn't take that form at all. I just rejected myself. No, all positive energy went towards the baby. All actually. And but just on my own. Um, desperate.”