Hello Tara! Loved you in Hear My Song and Frenchmen’s Creek. Were there anything resembling intimacy coordinators for nude scenes back in the 90s? repoman71 No is the short answer. Everyone was very “respectful”. That word was used a lot: we’ll all be very “respectful”. I used to slightly dread those days on set. People poised with towels and dressing gowns is what I remember the most. Has your attitude to nudity changed? Splutterer I think it probably has. I’m older, so people don’t ask me to take my clothes off any more. I would look at some of the scripts I read in my 20s in terms of how much nudity there was, and what would be called for. I was always aware of this imbalance: I was the girl, I seemed to be nude, and the guy I was with didn’t seem to be. I was always very conscious of that. Was that your stockinged foot on Hugh’s groin when you play trouser billiards with Hugh Grant in the train carriage in Sirens? SurlyRed I think it probably was! It was quite a small carriage, I can remember that! Hugh had done Bitter Moon with Polanski, Four Weddings, and he was doing Sirens, both of which came out more or less at the same time, which jettisoned him into superstardom. When I went back to work with him on The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill, he arrived at the small inn we were staying at with boxes of scripts. I said: “Are these all scripts? It looks like you’re moving house!” I saw you in 1992 in Our Song with Peter O’Toole at London’s Apollo – your first major stage role – and common consensus was that you absolutely nailed it. What was it like? KevinBeattie I loved working with him. He’d done a lot of Pygmalion and treated me a bit like his Galatea and really looked after me. He taught me a lot about being on stage because it was my first appearance and I was terrified. He used to take the piss out of me, which was good for me on stage. He said: “Do you know, when you’re being really serious, you scrunch up your face, like you really earnestly mean something? Well, if you do it on stage, I’m going to do it back to you.” He was such a craftsman. He could do things without the audience realising. How he worked that space was magic. On balance, what usually drives you to take a role – the story or the character? twocentsworth101 So, with [new film] Kindling, I saw [director] Connor O’Hara’s short film, which Kindling then was taken from, and was really impressed. We had a conversation, and I was really impressed by his honesty. That’s what I find the most moving - when people are very honest, because it makes life so much easier. He’s very direct, and knew what he wanted to achieve, and I felt safe with that. The fact it was based on his own experiences [following a group of young men who return to their hometown to turn their friend’s final days into a celebration of life and friendship] had a lot of meaning, so I knew he was writing from somewhere authentic. Would you rather be Polly from The Camomile Lawn or Helen from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Vikkimarshamarsh Helen had a very difficult time. Polly had a lot more fun. Helen is an oppressed Brontë woman in Victorian England, married to a dissolute man, who falls in love with a much more honourable working farmer from the gentry. It was controversial because it’s really a novel about a woman getting out of an abusive marriage. Polly, Mary Wesley wrote in her 60s, based on her experiences of the war, and the people that she knew who were quite sexually progressive and decided to live life to the full on the proviso you didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. What do you remember of your great-aunt and celebrated actor Geraldine Fitzgerald? hardatwork Geraldine said to me: be careful about saying no, because she had said no to The Maltese Falcon! She had a little jewellery box full of semi-precious things she let her grandchildren have. I remember they held up a ring. She said: “You can take that. That’s the ring Bette gave to me.” Bette Davis – because they did a film together (Dark Victory) and they were mates. I remember seeing her in Wuthering Heights and she plays Dudley Moore’s eccentric grandmother in Arthur. She came to see me when I did Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes in Broadway in the 90s, so I was quite chuffed about that. What’s the strangest thing you’ve been asked to advertise because of your trademark husky voice? TopTramp It usually gets vetted, so maybe I don’t know the worst thing I’ve been offered. When I was a kid, I was teased that I should be a boy because of my voice. I was very interested in playing the boys in theatre. We did a school play about [Haitian general] Toussaint Louverture and I played Napoleon Bonaparte. Even now on the phone, people can assume I’m male. I think about iconic adverts from when I was a kid, like [does low voice] Seiko Watches: someday all watches will be made this way. Or: Hello, Mr Rabbit, from Cadbury’s Caramel. I did want to be the Cadbury Bunny. What is so special about the flugelhorn [which she played in Brassed Off]? Gobsheisse It’s so lovely to be associated with it. I really bonded with my instrument. I loved old movies, and it would really bother me when actors clearly weren’t playing the instruments they were supposed to be a genius at. I worked very hard on getting the fingering right, even though I couldn’t produce a note. Although my neighbours would argue that I did produce several notes for several nights – not necessarily in the right order. You were terrific with Maureen Beattie in Tom Kempinski’s Duet for One. How do you unwind after such an intense performance? Simon12 and VerulamiumParkRanger She’s a violinist. It’s a great play and the audience seemed to enjoy having this live violinist as a symbol of my character’s loss. It was just the two of us, Maureen Beattie is brilliant, so we had this very special experience. How did I unwind? I used to get the tube home. I like to get the tube and decompress back into being with people, so it feels more like a job. Are you a spiritual person? AnnaAR I would say: yes, I’m spiritual. I do believe in something else. I don’t quite know what they are, but I don’t believe this is just it. I’d much rather be imaginative about it. I don’t think I’m particularly religious, although I’m a fan of a good story. It’s extraordinary what stories can inspire people to do. That’s something I believe in, obviously, because I’m an actor. Have you ever lost out on a role as you were deemed too glamorous or beautiful? TooMuchSpareTime Sometimes when I used to read scripts that said she’s very good looking or beautiful, I would think: “I’m not sure I can go in for that.” So I don’t know if I’ve ever lost out. I remember when I played Marian in The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins’ description of Marian is that she’s “comely but not that comely” and she had a moustache. I met Diana Quick who had played her in a BBC adaptation, and I think there had also been a discussion about the moustache: do we or don’t we? My concession was that I didn’t wear any makeup, because I don’t think they wanted to go with the moustache. I hope I’m not vain enough to go with whatever is needed for the character. How did you make such a hideous character as Queen Selyse in Game of Thrones so watchable? flickor It’s easy if you’re lucky enough to have good writing. At times it felt like we were in a Beckett play, in that it had that theatricality, bite and wisdom. I was lucky enough to have this character that was so mean but so understandable. Through one prism, she’s a zealot, through another, she’s someone who passionately believes what she lives and had taken away. I was moved by her plight, and thought it was interesting that she’s sort of forgotten about. How do you manage to stay looking so gorgeous? Big fan. Don’t tell the wife. fergusq I’ve started drinking a lot of tea again. I think there’s something in that. Good Bewley’s Irish Afternoon loose tea.