When your mom is Diana Rigg, you go for it
LOS ANGELES — For actor Rachael Stirling, dispensing advice isn’t a family tradition.
Stirling, the daughter of Diana Rigg of Game of Thrones and The Avengers fame, says the only career counsel her mom gave was “‘Go for it.’ She was supportive and kind, and it is a joy to have the commonality of our work.”
Stirling, who’s reprising a character she played on PBS’s The Bletchley Circle in a new Britbox streaming series, is now a mom herself. She and her musician-husband, Guy Garvey, welcomed son Jack in April 2017.
When the boy is heard vocalizing unhappily in the background during a phone interview, Stirling offers context.
“He’s being taken by his dad to have a bath, and he doth protest. … There are so many dramas in the course of a day of a little person, it’s a great Greek tragedy,” she said. “It’s so much for a little person to go through.”
Do such poetic observations suggest a parenting book ahead?
“I’m not lecturing anyone about anything anytime soon,” she replied.
Stirling filmed The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco in Vancouver, which she delights in calling “San Vancouver.” The original series followed four women who, after working as Second World War codebreakers at England’s Bletchley Park compound, put their undervalued skills to work solving crimes.
In the new season, Stirling’s Millie and Julie Graham’s Jean head to San Francisco to investigate a friend’s murder. Joining them are Iris and Hailey (newcomers Crystal Balint and Chanelle Peloso), American codebreakers whose gifts also are being slighted post-war.
There are four episodes, each two parts, in the first original series for BritBox, a subscription service from BBC Studios and ITV.
Stirling said she was delighted to revisit the 2012-14 Bletchley Circle in a new setting with more diverse characters, and to play what she and her castmates took to calling “superheroes with handbags.”
Her only concern was time away from Jack, but that was solved by bringing both baby and husband with her to Vancouver. Garvey was willing to temporarily shelve his music, Stirling said, but the solo artist and frontman for the band Elbow found a creative outlet in a popular neighbourhood.
“Guy had a studio in Gastown which he went to every day to write,” she said, producing some “unbelievably brilliant” work. “We had a brilliant and rewarding time.”
Stirling was planning another trip abroad, to New York to celebrate Rigg’s 80th birthday this month and to see her onstage in the Lincoln Center revival of My Fair Lady, for which she received a Tony nomination.
Rigg also is a nominee for this September’s Emmy Awards, her fourth nod for her role as Lady Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones.
“She’s absolutely extraordinary,” Stirling said. “She’s just done 100 performances on Broadway, just been nominated for another Emmy. The woman is on fire, burning bright. And I just couldn’t be prouder.”