Helen McCrory
Actress, Mum and Philanthropist
Categories Interviews Penny Dreadful Print Media

Penny Dreadful: Helen McCrory on Playing Season 2’s Seductive Big Bad

“Evelyn Poole is not a rasping Troglodyte that comes up from the cellar. She has a voice thick with seduction and promise and temptation.”

Christina Radish | May 13, 2015 |Collider
penny-dreadful-helen-mccrory-slice
From acclaimed writer John Logan, the Showtime horror drama Penny Dreadful is back. As Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) and Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) form a deeper bond, the group, including Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and Sembene (Danny Sapani), must unite to banish the evil forces that threaten to destroy them.During this exclusive interview with Collider, actress Helen McCrory (who has returned as Evelyn Poole, aka Madame Kali, the seductive spiritualist that will pose a unique threat this season) talked about how much she was told about the character when she signed on, what a great collaborator John Logan is, what fans can expect from her motives, the fascinating research she got to do, just how much darker this season will get, and that this is the most eclectic cast she’s ever worked with. Be aware that there are some spoilers.
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Categories Audio Damian Lewis Interviews Medea Podcast

Helen McCrory in conversation with Edith Hall (KCL) on Medea (National Theatre, 2014)

Helen McCrory in Conversation at Oxford

by Helenistic | helen-mccrory.com | May 11, 2005

Edith Hall (KCL) talked to actor, Helen McCrory about her role in the critically acclaimed production of Medea at the National Theatre in 2014. Damian, featuring his American Buffalo mustache was also in the audience.

You can listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

Categories Interviews Penny Dreadful Print Media

‘Penny Dreadful’s’ Helen McCrory talks hunting the hunters in new season

In a promo for Season 2 of Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful,” Helen McCrory is shown reclining in a bathtub filled with blood, eerily singing a variation of an old English folk ballad known as “The Unquiet Grave.”

“That was at 6 o’clock in the morning in a bright studio, and it wasn’t my finest hour,” says the actress, “but apparently a cracked voice is what they wanted.”

She then jokingly adds that she floated in the tub, “So I must be a witch.”

Continue reading ‘Penny Dreadful’s’ Helen McCrory talks hunting the hunters in new season

Categories Damian Lewis Interviews Penny Dreadful Print Media

Helen McCrory: ‘I’ve successfully repressed everything I don’t want people to know about me’

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!’

'With a husband (Damian Lewis), two children and a job, I don¿t sleep and dream,' said Helen

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.

Continue reading Helen McCrory: ‘I’ve successfully repressed everything I don’t want people to know about me’

Categories Interviews Penny Dreadful Print Media

Helen McCrory enjoying her ‘golden period’

Mysterious Madame Kali in Penny Dreadful

By Luaine Lee | April 22, 2015 | Tribune News Service

Her father was a Scottish diplomat whose job sent his family to places such as Cameroon, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Paris.

“Every culture and every generation is different, and that’s fascinating to me. And I think that part of my love for acting is also the research of it. I love researching all,” she said.

Though McCrory spent most of her career on the London stage, people know her as Narcissa Malfoy from three of the “Harry Potter” films, from “Skyfall,” “Hugo” and soon from Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful,” which returns May 3.

Continue reading Helen McCrory enjoying her ‘golden period’