Hannah turns up the heat
Restaurant film Boiling Point is back as a TV series, and its breakout star, actor/producer HANNAH WALTERS, tells Rosamund Dean why, at 49, she’s only just getting started
Hannah Walters bursts into the brasserie of a West London members’ club, encircles me with her arms (‘I’m a hugger!’), makes a joke about perimenopause, charms the waiter and orders a tea with the relaxed warmth of an old friend in your local caff. Grinning, glowing and dressed in actorly black, the East Midlands-born 49-year-old tells me right away that, although she and her husband, the actor Stephen Graham, are renting a house in London while they work on Disney+ series
A Thousand Blows, the Walters-Graham family base is back in Leicestershire. ‘Much as I love London, I’m a countryside girl,’ she says. ‘I feel suffocated if I’m in the city too long.’
A Thousand Blows (a 12-part drama about the underworld of illegal boxing and female gangs in Victorian London, starring Small Axe’s Malachi Kirby and The Crown’s Erin Doherty) is the second project they’ve worked on together through their company Matriarch Productions, founded in 2019. The first was the drama Boiling Point, now a four-part series on BBC One. The original film, shown on Netflix and in cinemas last year, was shot in one choreographed 90-minute take to amp up the frenzied chaos of one blistering evening in a restaurant kitchen. Before
The Bear there was Boiling Point.
If you never caught the film or need a recap: tempers fray, fists fly and a guest suffers a severe allergic reaction as Graham’s chef Andy drinks vodka and snorts cocaine before collapsing. The Irish Mail on Sunday’s
Matthew Bond called it ‘a masterclass of meticulous preparation, intense concentration and remarkable conviction… highly recommended for those in search of something home-grown and different’.
Walters says the new series has the same ‘sweaty palm’ energy. Emily – the pastry chef she plays – is the ‘mother hen’ of the kitchen. The cast underwent training so that they could act convincingly like chefs, but Walters admits she’s still ‘not much of a baker
although, in lockdown, me and my daughter Grace claimed that we were bakers because we made a loaf of bread and some scones’.
Emily’s storyline in Boiling Point betrays a darkness under her cheery demeanour. ‘She would do anything for anybody, sometimes to her detriment,’ says Walters. ‘It masks her pain.’ The devastating narrative arc should earn a Bafta for the family mantelpiece.
Walters has always read her husband’s scripts first because Graham is dyslexic. Over time she began having wider conversations around casting, direction and logistics, but it wasn’t until the kids were older that she formalised her producing skills. ‘Grace is 18 now, and Alfie’s 17, so it felt like the right time to put my heart and soul into something,’ she says. ‘I could allow myself and not feel guilty about going away for three days in a week.’ After nearly 20 years of juggling her work
‘WE DON’T WORK TOGETHER OFTEN. IT’S A BIT ICKY TO SEE REAL COUPLES ON SCREEN’
around her family and her husband’s career, running a company comes naturally to her.
Graham’s career took off just as the children were born. ‘I was at home while Stephen’s work took him here, there and everywhere,’ she says. ‘It was a conscious decision to step back and be Mum. That was my job.’ But, as any woman who has been out of the workplace to look after kids knows, there is an impact on your career. Visibility is particularly important for actors since casting decisions are often influenced by public profile. ‘I missed out on years of jobs, getting down to the last two and being told, “the producers need a name”. It’s heartbreaking,’ she says, ‘and a Catch-22 situation because you’ve got to give somebody a chance in order for them to become recognisable.’
She founded Matriarch to break this cycle; to give opportunities to underrepresented people whose backgrounds might make it harder for them to get a foot in the door. Walters grew up in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a little Leicestershire town best known for manufacturing Hula Hoops. She changed barrels in a pub when she was 15 and later worked in a stilton cheese factory.
Her dad died when she was five, so her mother raised Walters and her elder brother alone. Neither she nor Graham come from privilege. A storied life is part of what makes her such a powerful screen presence. Even her company’s name is steeped in meaning, not just because of Matriarch’s nurturing ethos. ‘Stephen and I had strong role models in our mothers,’ she says. ‘We wanted to pay homage.’ Graham lost his mother last year; Walters was 33 when her mum died at 58.
‘It was particularly hard because Grace was three and Alfie was one and a half. Then Stephen got Boardwalk Empire [the HBO period crime drama, shot in the US], so he was away a lot for five years.’ The grief and being on her own with the kids ‘was all-consuming’ but, having got through that time, she knows her mum would be proud. ‘I can hear her saying, “Go on darling, you’ve got this.”’
Walters has appeared on screen with her husband several times, acting in Pirates of the Caribbean and This is England as well as playing his on-screen wife in the Bafta-winning prison drama Time. ‘We don’t do it too often, though, because it can be a bit icky to see a real couple on screen.’
Even after 30 years with Graham, she’s as giddy as a newlywed when she talks about him. ‘He’s my best friend, my soulmate,’ she says. They met at drama school. She was sitting on the grass in the sunshine when she spotted him messing around with friends.
‘I saw him lift up a girl and run across the grass with her. As he went past, he winked and smiled, and something went funny in my soul. I thought my heart was going to come out of my mouth. He came over and asked for a ciggie…’
She pauses, smiling. ‘We were friends with benefits for a while. We were young, and you have to try a few cakes in the shop! But we kept gravitating to each other.
‘And then,’ she lowers her voice, ‘I was going to move to Spain with a gentleman called Paco. Before I was due to leave Stephen said, “You can’t go.” I was like, “Give me one good reason.” And he said “I love you.” She shakes her head and cackles: ‘The thought of losing me to Paco was too much!’
Their love story is so perfect, the kids must feel any future romantic relationship has a lot to live up to. ‘Grace said the same thing,’ she replies, laughing. ‘Don’t get me wrong, there are times we want to throttle each other, same as anyone, but it never lasts long.’
She was very happy to be Mum while the children were growing up. Now she realises that rebuilding her career is going to take a conscious effort: ‘Stephen’s been saying for years I should do it, and the kids have been really encouraging. They told me how proud they are. That means more than anything.’
As she approaches 50, Walters has the motivation and enthusiasm of someone at the start of her career. ‘It’s the right time,’ she says with a smile. ‘This is my next chapter.’
Boiling Point is on BBC One, Sundays at 9pm,