National Theatre Talks
by National Theatre | YouTube | September 14, 2016
Categories Interviews The Deep Blue Sea Video
Category: Interviews
Categories Interviews Print Media The Deep Blue Sea
5 minutes with Helen McCrory: ‘We’ve become too reverent with Rattigan’
The Deep Blue Sea actress discusses working with director Carrie Cracknell again and why they are taking an ‘unusual’ stance to Rattigan’s work
I moved all around the world as a child because my father was in the foreign office. I used to do ballet quite seriously but stopped because we moved to east Africa and there wasn’t a ballet teacher there. When I moved to England I had a very influential teacher at my school – like most people who go into the job [acting] do. He was fantastic, he took us to see the theatre and spoke to us about it a lot. I then went off to study at the Drama Centre.
Richard Eyre saw me in a production when I was getting my Equity card and he gave me a lead on the main house at the National. He then went on to give me another seven leads over four years and really, that was my third training.
Helly [Helena Bonham Carter] and I used to spend hours looking at all the props, sets and costumes on Harry Potter. It was great fun because there were so many interesting people in it and we had so much time off, I mean, we spent a long time chatting to each other, and everybody in each department was extraordinary. It was a very happy shoot, it was great fun and David Yates [director] was lovely.
I think Rattigan is a brilliant writer and I feel if he were alive now, how frustrated he might be that everybody does his plays the same way. I’d seen Rattigan performed beautifully but often quite similarly and there seemed to be a house style that had been agreed. With The Deep Blue Sea, I was really interested to see if it was possible to play Hester in a slightly different way and actually approach it as you would for instance with a Shakespeare – you don’t necessarily get up in your doublet and hose and come on with your ruff. We’re very irreverent with the classics but suddenly we’ve become very reverent with Terence Rattigan so ours is a very irreverent production with quite an irreverent Hester. I think that you don’t give true justice as an artist unless you really try and reinvent productions each time you do them. I’m very nervous to see how it will be received because it’s unusual.
It’s really interesting working with Carrie [Cracknell] again because we worked in a very different way on Medea. Ben Power, who did the adaptation, was in the room as well as a chorus of 13 women and a choreographer. We also had Alison Goldfrapp writing the music. Carrie would spend a lot of time managing the production as well as trying to look at the script itself. We often disagreed quite vehemently about things but always got on very well and on this production, I think that that sort of shorthand honesty has led to a trust in the rehearsal room that has been very liberating. It’s a very calm rehearsal room actually and we work hard. There’s not a lot of sitting around talking about anecdotes and going out partying, it’s everybody arrives on the front foot and is ready for work and gets their head down. I find that really interesting and I’ve loved working with her again.
The Deep Blue Sea runs at the Lyttelton Theatre until 21 September.
Categories Interviews Print Media The Deep Blue Sea
Helen McCrory, who has been awarded an OBE, on why she’s never wanted people to see her as ‘sexy’
Helen McCrory is known for playing strong women. She’s the gunslinging matriarch in period gangster drama Peaky Blinders and her CV is full of meaty stage roles, including a heartbreakingly defiant Medea at the National in 2014, and big-screen appearances, notably as an intransigent Cherie Blair in The Queen. So it’s strange to see her sitting down and eating very daintily, pushing the food to one side of her mouth.
“Look at me, I resemble a little gerbil,” she says.
Personally, if I had to compare her to an animal, it would be a cat. She has a feline sensuality and a formidable emotional intelligence which have marked her out as one of the most compelling actresses of her generation. These qualities are being put to good use in her latest stage role as Hester Collyer, the tragic wife at the heart of Terence Rattigan’s smouldering 1952 master-piece The Deep Blue Sea. The unhinged, sexually infatuated Hester has abandoned her High Court judge husband and Eaton Square home for a chaotic, all-consuming affair with boozy, former RAF pilot Freddie.
Categories Charity Damian Lewis Interviews Peaky Blinders Print Media Sir Hubert Von Herkomer Arts Foundation The Deep Blue Sea
Peaky Blinders star Helen McCrory: ‘Actors are just people who can’t write their own words’
Helen McCrory Talks Peaky Blinders, Deep Blue Sea and Her Charity
by Imogen Blake | May 26, 2016 | Islington Gazette
Helen McCrory & husband Damian Lewis pictured with Debbi Clark, chief executive of the charity.
What does 1920s Birmingham gangster drama Peaky Blinders and an American western have in common?
More than you might think, according to Tufnell Park actress Helen McCrory, who’s back on our screens as the hard-as-nails Aunt Polly in the third series of the hit BBC show.
“Something that the Americans have understood is that they have mythologised their people.
“A bunch of cow herders going across the west are turned by John Wayne into a western. The gangster by [Martin] Scorsese has been turned into the hero.
A Life in the Day: Helen McCrory, actress
The TV and stage actress on being married to Damian Lewis, saving on grocery bills and age
by Caroline Scott | May 1, 2016 | The Sunday Times
Helen McCrory
The daughter of a Scottish diplomat and a Welsh physiotherapist, McCrory, 47, went to Queenswood boarding school in Hertfordshire and the Drama Centre in London. She lives in north London with her husband, the actor Damian Lewis, and their children, Manon, 9, and Gulliver, 8.
I get up at about 6.30, then wake the kids and get breakfast ready either with the nanny or my other nanny — Damian. He’s just back from his other job, acting, and once we find a uniform that suits him, he’s going to adapt quite well.
I tend to put on whatever isn’t too crumpled on the floor, and like to pop a hat on because I do look like Janis Joplin left overnight in the tumble dryer. Breakfast is an apple and any yoghurt the kids have left in the bottom of the bowl. I’ve tried to be more organised; I’ve even gone through phases of setting the table the night before, like some strange B&B. But I’ll still have to run up and down the stairs shouting: “Have you got your tie? Have you cleaned your teeth? Oh well, eat a mint!”
Acting work is feast or famine, and right now Damian and I are both at home, which is lovely. We’ve just done our house up. Well, we’ve put in new plumbing and electrics before we burn the street down. We’ve been here for 10 years and there are still lightbulbs hanging from wires. But I’m so uninterested. I spent three weeks emailing paint and wallpaper samples to Damian on set and it left me brain-numb. I have patience in bounds when it comes to family and work, but care less about the house.