Helen McCrory prefers Chekhov to chick lit and enjoys a stormy marriage to Damian Lewis
You hear Helen McCrory before you see her, which I imagine is often the case, as she is very loud. Hidden behind the door of a bedroom in Claridge’s, she is peeling off a final layer of clothing for Style’s photographer. “Well, it is the end of the day, darling,” comes the boom. “Sod it.” Clever, confident and a little bit camp, McCrory, 45, is considered by many to be the finest actress of her generation — but today she is simply in the mood to hold court and show some skin. Won’t Damian Lewis, her superstar husband, mind her getting her kit off, asks a member of the crew? “No, no, no,” she says. “Damian is going, ‘F****** yes!’ ”
No doubt. McCrory’s considerable sex appeal continues to gurgle away as we head to the bar. She is only 5ft 4in and dressed like a weird music-hall gangster in a billowing dress, tuxedo jacket and trilby. Yet she is captivating, her coal-black gaze shifting from playful to stern with her mood, as a pair of insane cheekbones flex like children’s fists under her eyes. “I never wanted to be the most popular girl at school,” she announces stagily at one point, and I wonder if this sort of confidence can rub people up the wrong way. Perhaps. I suspect it is also required to be the best at what you do.
In her latest film Helen McCrory is once again playing a mature woman with a youthful lover. And why not, she asks? Though in real life, they’d have to fight off her husband, Damian Lewis, aka Brody from Homeland.