Author: helenistic

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Helen McCrory Was a Star of Screen as Well as Stage

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There Was Vastly More Depth and Breadth in Her Screen Work than The Queen and Skyfall

by Lawrence Jackson | The Guardian | April 21, 2021

Actor Helen McCrory
Actor Helen McCrory. ‘I liked her immediately’, writes Lawrence Jackson. Photograph: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

In 2002, I had the luck to direct Helen McCrory (Obituary, 18 April) in a BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial of The Charterhouse of Parma. She was every bit as talented, funny, raucous and generous as everyone says, and more.

My first impression of her was when, upon arrival, she started to debate, with her fellow lead actor, the merits of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the film everyone was seeing at the time. The other performer was cool about it; Helen passionately defended it and said she loved it so much that she stayed in the cinema to watch it a second time.

I liked her immediately and thought: fantastic, she’s brought a real buzz to the production. But her appetite to consume a film twice in a row was also a reflection of her infectious attitude of wanting to make discoveries and take things further.

Memorials and obituaries so far have focused on her achievements on stage; but there was vastly more depth and breadth in her screen work than The Queen and Skyfall. In particular, I would suggest seeing her in Streetlife (Karl Francis, 1995), In a Land of Plenty (Hettie Macdonald, 2001), Charles II: The Power and the Passion (Joe Wright, 2003) and Inside No 9 (S1 E6, 2014).

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Queenswood Tribute to OQ Helen McCrory, ‘One of the Great Actors of Her Generation’

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Queenswood Remembers Helen

April 19, 2021 | Queenswood.org

LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 23: Helen McCrory arrives for the Gala to celebrate the Vogue 100 Festival Kensington Gardens on May 23, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)

The Queenswood community was immensely shocked and saddened at the news of Helen McCrory’s passing on Friday 16 April 2021.

Helen, who was awarded an OBE for her services to drama in 2017, discovered her passion for acting as a pupil at Queenswood in the 1980s.

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Categories Print Media Theatre Tributes

Helen McCrory: In Admiring, Awestruck Memory

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We Remember a Great Actress Taken Way Too Soon

by Matt Wolf | BroadwayWorld | April 19, 2021

This one hurt. No death of course is easy to absorb, especially one as premature and shocking as that of Helen McCrory, whose surrender to cancer late last week, age 52, came like the most brutal and sudden of thunderclaps. The announcement was made via Twitter on Friday by her husband, Damian Lewis, and I doubt I’m the only one who reacted with moist-eyed disbelief, and not only because the couple were familiar, and welcome, faces in our north London neighbourhood.

It seemed only yesterday that I had seen her in the ITV adaptation of the James Graham play Quiz, lending a peppery authority to the role of the Ingrams’ defence barrister, Sonia Woodley. Or as the prime minister, thank you very much, opposite Hugh Laurie in Roadkill: a nice promotion for an actress who had previously played a PM’s wife, Cherie Blair, in the film The Queen.

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Helen McCrory: ‘If there’s one interesting thing about acting it’s trying to lose your ego’

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Three encounters with the great actor who has died at the age of 52

by Jasper Rees | April 19, 2021 |The Arts Desk

Helena McCrory as Hester Collyer in The Deep Blue Sea at the National Theatre in 2016

Each generation is given an actress who can do everything – be intimate with the camera but also coat a back wall in honey from 100 paces. There was Judi Dench, and then there was Imelda Staunton, both loved by all. Helen McCrory – who has died at the age of 52 – was the next in line, and she was destined to be as great for as long.

Even in her late twenties, when she was barely known, she was already and obviously different. She had a face that seemed prematurely mature and wise. She didn’t look like anyone else, nor sound it. Her voice was a husky instrument that moved between romance and rage. It could seethe and seduce, conquer and coax.

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Tribute to Helen

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We welcome your tribute to the beloved Helen McCrory. If you wish to leave your condolences, please click on the ‘comments’ of this post. Then scroll to the bottom of the comment section to ‘Leave a Reply.’

If you wish to make a donation, the McCrory-Lewis family has asked that donations be made to the Sir Hubert von Herkomer Arts Foundation here.