Inside the Head of… Helen McCrory
She grew up a ‘feral, compulsive liar’… perfect training for an actress. She’s at her most relaxed either asleep backstage during the interval or talking to strangers – which is why husband Damian Lewis has to remind her: ‘You’re not the Queen!’
What is your earliest memory?
Walking along a path near our home in Cameroon with my mum and my brother and my labrador Jasper. I am looking down at my knees, which were very dark at the time because they were covered in dust. I lived in Africa until I was six or seven, in Cameroon and Tanzania. It was absolutely beautiful, a great place to grow up.
What sort of child were you?
A feral, compulsive liar. Every country we went to, I would make up these fantastical stories about who I was and what my parents did, and just pray to God that my father’s posting would come around quickly before I was rumbled in the playground. I would say things like, ‘My father works for the Queen,’ which was based in truth as he worked for the Foreign Office, but I was just such a liar. I suppose in the end it was good practice for being an actress.
