An act of defiance - Miranda
Richardson interview
Scotland on Sunday - Published Date: 20
July 2008
By Chitra Ramaswamy
MIRANDA Richardson has played betrayed wives and
infantile queens, terrorists and terrorised women. She
had long, claw-like nails bonded on to her fingers to
become Rita Skeeter in the fourth Harry Potter film, and
morphed into Vanessa Bell for Stephen Frears' The Hours,
though if there were any justice she would have played
Virginia Woolf and wouldn't have needed Nicole Kidman's
prosthetic nose to nail it either. As film and theatre
director Richard Eyre once pointed out: "She has a
capacity being possessed by a character. Even her
features change."
There is something about Richardson's uncanny ability to
make a mini masterpiece out of just a few lines, a smile
or a withering look. She can do English rose, repressed
schoolmarm or psychotic shrew. And she is ageless, too,
with those high cheekbones, piercing eyes and mouth that
can appear full or pinched depending on what's required.
Stephen Poliakoff has described her as having the
sensuality of Helen Mirren and the formidable quality of
Bette Davis, while David Cronenberg claimed she is
under-appreciated in America, though "that's part of
her being a real actress".
In terms of the breadth of her range – think of
Blackadder's Queenie and then the middle-class wife and
mother who loses everything in Louise Malle's Damage
– she is closest to Meryl Streep, or perhaps Maggie
Smith. Even in supporting roles, which is sadly too often
where Richardson can be found, she can steal a film.
Yet, for all this, the twice Oscar-nominated actress
doesn't much like talking about her craft. "It's a
difficult subject to articulate. What people often don't
realise is that it can be very boring, very frustrating,
and all the things that a day job can be," she says
in that unmistakable clipped voice, before firmly adding,
"and I don't need any sympathy." I wasn't
offering it, but Richardson often pre-empts responses. Or
downright disagrees with them.
I'm fascinated by her lukewarm attitude to her profession
considering her remarkable on-screen rigour. She seems to
show more passion when talking about her love of animals.
She has a home full of cats and dogs, and fish in her
garden pond; she practises falconry, and when she was
growing up in Lancashire wanted to be a vet.
Yes, Richardson is something of an odd fish but this is
precisely why she makes such a compelling actress. She
does impenetrable unbelievably well (on screen, as well
as off), and finds people's obsession with wanting to
know everything irritating, alarming even. This is why
she dislikes interviews so much, because "we are
obsessed with the minutiae of people's lives and
destroying any kind of mystery. People are essentially
mysterious and I don't think there is anything wrong with
that". It is "this notion that we're
special" that she finds so distasteful about her
profession, which explains her reticence discussing it.
Richardson is a guarded and sometimes defensive
interviewee, though she is also a consummate
professional. Her directness is refreshing, sometimes
intimidating and sometimes very funny. I joke that
spending the day talking to the press is probably not her
ideal way of passing an afternoon and get a stern,
two-word response: "Crack on." She gets
exasperated with me as though she is the teacher and I'm
the foolish pupil. Asking her who she would pick to play
opposite her in a romantic comedy, she moans: "I
don't bloody know! You cast it."
She can also seem quite skittish and unsure of herself
then, all of a sudden, switches to pull-your-socks-up
pragmatism. "What people are looking for is someone
who can get to an emotional point," she says of her
acting. "Not everyone can do that, or it takes them
longer to get there. As far as I'm concerned it's just
acting. Some people make more of a song and dance about
it than others."
Her latest film is Puffball, the first in 10 years from
Nicolas Don't Look Now Roeg. Adapted from a Fay Weldon
novel, in many ways it's a companion piece to his most
famous film. Following an architect (Kelly Reilly) going
to rural Northern Ireland to rebuild an old house, Don't
Look Now's star Donald Sutherland even pops up, and there
is as much weird sex and bizarre supernatural imagery as
you would expect, unfortunately coupled with a complete
dearth of atmosphere. Overall it's a mess and, not for
the first time, Richardson's performance is by far the
best thing in it.
She plays a local farmer's wife who is desperate to get
pregnant but has been told she is too old to conceive.
"I don't know that she is that troubled, that
intense," she says of her character. "I love
Nick's work. He's also my neighbour and we've talked
about working together on a number of occasions. This was
one of the possibilities that came good."
She has a lot of interesting work coming up. "Have
I?" she demands. "Tell me." I mention
Caitlin, another biopic of Dylan Thomas's relationship
with his wife (following The Edge Of Love) in which
Richardson has the titular role, with Michael Sheen
rumoured to be playing the Welsh poet. "No, it's not
going to happen," she says. "I assume it's
because another one was being made at the same time.
Difficult to get money for both." That must be
frustrating? "Not necessarily. Depends how good the
script is." She is, however, playing the Duchess of
Kent in The Young Victoria, alongside Mark Strong and Jim
Broadbent, and recently provided the narration for a
touring dance theatre piece.
Richardson has always made interesting, often
unconventional choices. Most famously, she turned down
Glenn Close's role in Fatal Attraction, pronouncing it
"crap" and "regressive in its
attitudes". She is sick of this subject, however,
and wishes the press would just let it go. "I'm
bored, I'm bored!" she sighs. "I think there
probably are opportunities that could have been... but I
probably don't even know what they are. It's bad enough
that after Dance With A Stranger (her first film, in
which she played Ruth Ellis, the last woman in Britain to
be hanged] suddenly all you were offered was knife
wielders and gun wielders. It's just very
narrow-minded."
She would love to do a romantic comedy but says it's not
likely to happen. "Nobody is writing stonking
romantic comedies," she says. "Nothing that
isn't Hollywood requiring another 22-year-old."
She is now 50 and is as up for playing varied roles as
she ever was. Richardson is an actor with genuine
integrity, someone who takes minor roles if they interest
her enough, avoids stereotypes "like the
plague" and only takes a job if she believes in the
script. This has meant that her best work has tended to
be outside the mainstream.
"It (Hollywood] is very formulaic," she says.
"I think ultimately you find it frustrating. As you
get older you maybe get better at challenging it, but
there are so many pen pushers who want their two-penny
worth. It doesn't really have a great deal to do with an
individual's integrity."
Richardson now lives in London full-time, having sold a
second country property because she wasn't using it
enough. She likes reading, watching superhero action
movies and westerns, and walking around the capital.
She lives on her own, notwithstanding the dogs, cats and
fish. "Often your schedule is early, or late, or
just all over the place," she says, matter of
factly, as I try not to make sympathetic noises.
"It's quite difficult to organise constantly being
with somebody along those lines. They have to be very
understanding." So, what's the best part of living
alone? "You make your own agenda," she says.
Which would do just as well as a maxim for Miranda
Richardson the actress.
Return to Articles index
Return to Main Page
Created by Clive
Sarney
e-mail to webmaster
This page created July
30th, 2003; last modified July 23, 2008
|