HERMIONE NORRIS: the British actress reflects on filming Down Under
With a lead role in a new Aussie drama and a marriage that arguably had its genesis on our shores, Hermione Norris tells Jenny Brown that Australia has given her plenty to be thankful for. Hermione NORRIS
Hermione Norris gusts into a busy Bondi cafe on a blast of freezing air straight from the Antarctic. The Cold Feet favourite’s pale blonde bob is beaded with rain and her cheeks are windblown as pink as the owers embroidered on her ne grey scarf. Outside, the main road leading down to the beach is deserted, thanks to an early morning downpour.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” the softly spoken British actress starts apologising before she even sinks down into the cushioned booth. “I’ve been talking to my family in England, and you know what that can be like with the different time zones!”
Hermione spent three months in Sydney, lming the Seven Network’s new television thriller Between Two Worlds, which she headlines alongside antipodean actor Aaron Jeffery. And as we met, the homesick star was missing her husband, Simon Wheeler, and their two children – Wilf, 15, and 12-year-old Hero – more than she could safely express.
“Don’t ask me about them, I’ll start crying,” she says, tears welling in her expressive brown eyes. “It’s harder to be away from them than I thought it would be. When [the show] was rst mooted, I thought,
‘I can’t do that, it’s too far away, for too long’. But then my husband broke it down into bite-sized portions so it didn’t seem as daunting. They all came out here for a month, then I ew to England for the children’s half-term break, and they came back for another four weeks until I nished work. But I was by myself for a month in the middle, which was tough. I missed them.”
The willowy 53-year-old came to motherhood comparatively late, but views it as all the more precious for that. “My children are my absolute beginning, middle and end. They are my life’s greatest gift.”
Hermione was 35 when she met her husband-to-be, 37 when Wilf arrived, and hit 40 before Hero was born. By then, she frankly admits, “I was knackered!”
Laughing, she explains, “You just don’t have the same stamina as younger mothers. It’s physically demanding having a toddler and a baby in your 40s, and you de nitely get more tired. Sometimes I wish
I’d had my children younger, so I could have had more of them, but those things come to you when they come to you. You can’t be prescriptive about when you start your family, but it would de nitely be nice to have more energy. Being a mum can be shattering.”
Hermione confesses that marriage and children were fairly low on her agenda as a career-driven 30-something. “I loved my work, and I wasn’t yearning for anything else.” That is, until she encountered screenwriter/producer Simon at a meet-the-crew dinner when she joined the cast of British crime series Wire In The Blood .→
A jet-lagged Hermione had just own in from Sydney – her rst visit to Oz – where she had been shooting an episode of Cold Feet. She wasn’t in the mood to socialise, but felt duty bound to join in and meet the team she would be working with.
“Australia must have primed me to nd my husband! Simon told me later he knew that night he would marry me,” she marvels of her eight-years-younger spouse. “How weird is that? I liked him, but it took a little longer for me to realise he was ‘the one’.”
Not that much longer, however. Just over 12 months later, in December 2002, the couple wed in a “stunning” ceremony at the Tower of London
– a special honour granted by Simon’s father, General Sir Roger Wheeler, then ceremonial constable at the historic citadel.
So what made Hermione realise Simon was marriage material? She is cautious about her answer, having been burnt by a British tabloid that misrepresented her feelings about men, and wedded bliss, to write a hurtful headline.
“Oh God, that got me into trouble,” she groans, only half in jest. “What is true, I think, is that when you’re young and having relationships with people, you’re just having fun. But you do have to think carefully when you’re choosing the father of your children.
“You need to choose somebody who is capable of marriage and of raising a family, because that’s the issue and it requires commitment. If you choose somebody who loves to party and loves women, don’t be surprised if it all goes wrong.”
Hermione, so often cast in briskly competent “ice maiden” roles, is visibly moved describing a scenario straight from her own childhood.
Her “funny, charismatic, naughty” businessman father, Michael, left home when she was only ve, leaving health-visitor mother Helen to cope with four children aged under six.
After her parents’ separation and divorce, life became “jumbled chaos”. Helen worked full-time to make ends meet, while Hermione and her siblings – who rallied to help with housework, cooking and washing up – struggled to understand why Mum was sad and Daddy had gone.
“I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t fully capable of stepping up to the responsibility of having six children,” recalls Hermione, who also has two half-sisters from her father’s second marriage.
Simon, however, proved a very
different proposition. “He is a really amazing father, a phenomenal dad, and a really loving, kind husband,” she smiles, glowing as if the sun suddenly came out. “Some men I’ve known in the past wouldn’t have been capable of doing that.
“I’m not being judgemental at all. It’s just what you’re seeking in life, and I really did want a complete family. I think Simon and I both felt the same in that regard.”
Aiming to give their children
“a solid foundation to their lives,” the couple moved from London – Hermione’s spiritual home – to a charming country house in Somerset, where Simon stages a play every summer featuring Wilf, Hero and their school friends.
With youngsters ying around the garden on zip wires, climbing trees, or washing off murdered King Duncan’s (from Macbeth) blood in a nearby pond, it sounds like the sort of idyllic fun their mother never had.
Nonetheless, Hermione’s fractured family background wasn’t all bad – breeding, as it did, a gritty resilience and independence in all four siblings.
The future actress was only 11 when she won a scholarship to board at a prestigious ballet school, and left home. Starry-eyed, she dreamt of becoming another Margot Fonteyn
– “I thought she was just beautiful” – but drama ultimately became her major focus, thanks to an inspirational teacher and mentor.
After graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Hermione worked mainly in theatre, before her big television break in Cold Feet in 1997, which became a British institution so popular it originally ran for ve seasons and was recently revived following a 13-year hiatus.
Standout roles in hit dramas such as Wire In The Blood, Spooks, Kingdom and Luther followed, in which she was frequently cast as a strong, coolly competent, middle-class professional. Not unlike the real-life Hermione, although she is gentler and less assertive off screen.
“I have never, ever looked to anybody to provide for me,” she says with quiet pride. “Mum taught us to be self-supporting, to just get on with it. We had to look after ourselves. That’s the way it was.”
Self-suf ciency is something Hermione admires, and it’s something she relishes about the Australian cast and crew on Between Two Worlds. “Honestly, I love them and I’ve met some amazing, fantastic women,” she laughs. “I love the Australian sensibility of shooting from the hip. It blows me away.
There’s an authenticity and honesty here that I really, really appreciate.”
First, she fell in love with the script by Packed To The Rafters and A Place To Call Home creator Bevan Lee
– “I thought it was a thrilling, fantastic narrative with really great, multifaceted characters” – then with our country and its people, including co-stars Aaron, Philip Quast, Sara Wiseman, Tom Dalzell, Melanie Jarnson and Megan Hajjar.
In the taut drama, Hermione plays unhappy, complicated wife Cate Walford. Living in a gilded cage with her vicious tycoon husband, she’s trapped in a web of lies and manipulation, yet still seeks love.
“She’s all the things I enjoy in a role, but I came here not knowing anything or anyone. And that was signi cant for me, coming here at the age of 52,” Hermione con des almost shyly. “I just wanted to shake the tree, be brave, step outside my comfort zone and work somewhere very different. It’s been a big learning curve, but it’s been wonderful.
“Australia has produced some phenomenal actors … Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Nicole Kidman. I think it’s just the lack of affectation that I really like about Australians. Jacki Weaver is probably my favourite.”
Gazing at the rainswept street outside, Hermione adds, “I feel Bondi is quite a special place. I walk down here rst thing in the morning, last thing at night, in the magic hour when the light is golden. And I love seeing people of all sizes, shapes, ages and stages walking along the coastline.
I’ve met a woman in her mid-80s, swimming at Bronte, who goes to the beach every day because she loves the sea. She says it keeps her alive, and she’s probably right!”
Hermione has already sailed on Sydney Harbour, visited Taronga Zoo and experienced Uluru during her family’s all-too-brief ying visits. Is it dif cult to shake off her Between Two Worlds role and revert to being a regular mum when they’re around?
“No, as soon as I see my children, that’s where my attention lies,” she chuckles. “I think it’s really important as an actor to have some kind of grounding, who you are and what you are, because otherwise you could get into trouble playing these various characters. It’s important to be centred in who you are, on every level, because it can be quite a heady game.”
Yet another reason to appreciate the “huge privilege” of her down-toearth Australian stay? “Yes,” she agrees. “It’s an amazing way of life here: great climate, amazing health care, good education. My daughter loves it. It’s safe, you know, and the people … there’s a generosity and openness which probably re ects all of those wonderful things.
“When I came here, I didn’t know what it would be like, but that’s what I will take home from the experience.”
And will she happily come Down Under again? “Oh yes,” Hermione says cheerfully, unaware that by the time this interview is published – to coincide with the series going to air – she may have to make good on the next promise … “I will emigrate if Boris Johnson becomes British Prime Minister!” AWW
Between Two Worlds airs on Sunday nights on the Seven Network.
“I love the Australian sensibility of shooting from the hip”