"Haven't I met you somewhere before?"
On being ushered into Miranda Richardson's salon for her
last appointment of the day, the first question from
anyone's lips is, somewhat disconcertingly fired by the
actress in the direction of your correspondent. Eschewing
the obvious opportunity for a joke about opening gambits,
I mumble something about a meeting in the bar of the
National Theatre purposely neglecting to tell Richardson
that yours truly was attired in button-down white shirt
an green bow tie, and our tete-a'-tete involved the
passing of liquid refreshment from one side of the
counter to the other. Miranda Richardson certainly has a
memory for faces. Either that or she likes to get her
inquisitor on the back foot tout de suite.
In the latest in a string of remarkable performances, as
Vivienne Haigh Wood in director Brian Gilbert's British
period film Tom & Viv, Miranda
Richardson displays yet again why, at the age of 36, she
is one of the most acclaimed and sought after actresses
on both sides of the Atlantic.
"It's a great part, agrees Richardson. "I find
it very funny, irritating sympathetic... victim and
victor. She's a well-rounded character, and I thought it
was a story that should be told."
The woman who has fashioned startling successes out of
such divergent roles as the smouldering murderess Ruth
Ellis in Dance with A Stranger; the
lethally schizoid IRA hitwoman in The Crying Game
and the Oscar-nomi-nated wronged wife in Louis Malle's
otherwise pedestrian Damage now stars
alongside chisel-faced American Willem Dafoe - who
impersonates T.S. Eliot right down to imitating the
Anglophile poet's strange speech patterns ("I didn't
have a problem with it at all. I thought it was, and I
know this will be misconstrued, a brave decision") -
as the literary legend's star-crossed first wife. A
vivacious, free-spirited socialite, Viv was accused of
"moral insanity" by her doctors and eventually
committed to an asylum in 1938 with the complicity of
both her brother and her husband.
In reality Vivienne suffered from a chronic hormonal
imbalance result-ing in a wildly irregular menstrual
cycle that led to stomach cramps, headaches and mental
disturbance, a condition only exacerbated by an
ill-prescribed cocktail of intoxicating medication.
Richardson sees a resonance for contemporary women in
Vivienne's tragic fate; "To a certain extent what is
wrong with her, she feels, is a failure in herself. It is
her body that let her down. It is her fault. I think an
awful lot of women can still relate to that. It's like
taking the blame first on themselves: 'It must be me.' I
think women still do that today very easily."
Though Richardson has now almost cornered the market in
strong yet flawed women close to the edge, and in
conversation conveys an impres-sion of intelligent
seriousness, comedy has also played a very important part
in the success of her career to date. Her portrayal of
Elizabeth I in Blackadder as a dotty and
wilful schoolgirl with a penchant for lopping off heads
on a whim provided a superlative comic foil to Rowan
Atkinson's world-weary cynicism in the title role. More
recently she made a welcome return to small-screen comedy
in an episode of the hugely popular Absolutely
Fabulous. She confides that her approach to her
celebrated characterisations is rather prosaic, avoiding
the kind of esoteric introspection or hysterical angst
that one has come to expect from the "actor as
artist".
"It's text-based, dawn from all kinds of
sources," explains Richardson "I haven't
explored the Method. I don't work like that. I don't have
difficulty shedding a character. In fact, I'm the one who
doesn't actually believe I'm in it when I'm on set."
Richardson's replies are all carefully weighed and
politely delivered a voice retaining only the faintest
traces of her Lancashire lass origins, while her pale but
exquisite features - framed by the boyish hairstyle she
currently sports - rarely break into any animated
emotional display, save for the occasional wrinkling of
her brow in moments of concentration. In fact, perhaps
the most telling expressions to emanate from Miranda
Richardson are the small sighs which occasionally preface
her responses, though whether they are born of fatigue,
ennui or the effort of studied consideration, its hard to
say.
For someone not given to verbosity, however, Richardson
shows a gen-erous lack of reticence when it comes to
offering the names of other actors she admires. The list
includes Ellen Barkin, Holly Hunter, Tom Hanks Robert
Duvall, Bruno Ganz and, of course, Willem Dafoe. Mostly
American actors, though she maintains that she will not
follow the recent trend of the younger crop of British
stars and set up shop in Hollywood or New York: "I
don't know who they are," she insists.
In fact, the Forest Hill-based actress conveys a great
sense of level-headed realism. Her delight in last year's
Oscar nomination - which, along with the phenomenal
success of The Crying Game, has left her
a force to be reckoned with on the international stage -
is tempered by a healthy dose of British scepticism.
"You have to keep your feet on the ground. It's a
wonderful buzz and a great game. I'm not against it, but
you have to have a sense of what it's about also. You
have to be your own best critic and hang on to what you
like, your own taste, really."
Even so, she is pragmatically aware of the positive
aspects of the media circus that is the Oscars, and
relishes the idea of future nominations and awards to
come.
"It would be a buzz, it would be a tremendous kudos
thing, and good for the continuance of a film career,
feeling like OK, you've got to that point - what does
that mean? A reassessment kind of point."
This kind of success puts Richardson in a luxurious
position enjoyed by few actors of being able to remain
choosy about her projects, though the much quoted story
about her turning down the role in Fatal
Attraction that eventually went to Glenn Close
may be just a little apocryphal.
"Listen, I can't even remember if it was an
offer," sighs Richardson. "I know I read the
script and I know I didn't want to do it. If it was an
offer - me and whose army, you know? Now it's very
fashionable to say, 'Of course, I was offered that ten
years ago.' Well, however this comes across, I've always
felt that I have had choice. So I'm trying to hang on to
that."
Questions of choice may loom large in the immediate
future career of Miranda Richardson, but a recent Sunday
paper feature intimating that her next personal choice
might be one of marriage is vehemently refuted. "Oh
it was appalling, it was absolute crap," she fumes.
"It made me look like a half-wit, and I couldn't
make head nor tail of any of the quotes, quite
frankly."
So what is her real position with regard to matters
matrirnonial? For the first time in the afternoon,
Miranda Richardson assumes a distant, dreamy manner,
offering a tangentially cryptic reply which precludes any
further ventures down this avenue: "Oh I'm not
engaged. No, I'm not engaged..."
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Created by Clive
Sarney
e-mail to sarneyc@senet.com.au
This page created November
6th, 2001; last modified November 6th, 2001
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