Halcyon days ahead for Williams
She has a Hollywood pedigree, but it’s her role in the ‘new Downton’ that will make Olivia Williams a household name, says Daphne Lockyer.
In another life – and with, perhaps, a different set of choices – Olivia Williams might have been a lot more famous. After she played Bruce Willis’ wife in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, she came dangerously close to Hollywood superstardom herself.
‘‘The fact that, 20 years on, I don’t happen to be a well-known celebrity in every home strikes me as a bullet dodged,’’ she says. ‘‘It may have cost me professionally but, on the plus side, I can take my kids out without putting a bag on their heads to protect their identity. I wouldn’t want to be as famous as you’d need to be to get some of the jobs that I’ve missed out on.’’
Now aged 48, this witty, toweringly elegant, crystalvowelled, Cambridge-educated actress is doing perfectly fine, thanks. She may not command the US$20 million payouts once demanded by her Hollywood costars, but she works consistently, on both sides of the Atlantic and in every medium – stage, TV and movies.
She was also, by the way, a judge in last year’s Man Booker awards. Looks and brains combined.
Williams will soon be seen supplying an aristocratic element to The Halcyon, ITV’S sparkling new eight-part period drama set in a swanky five-star hotel at the heart of Blitz-torn London society. Think Downton, with bellboys on.
She plays Lady Priscilla Hamilton, the hotel’s reluctant proprietress, who is chilly but, beneath the surface, wounded, and, when we meet, she’s in full regalia – silk pyjamas and dressing gown, topped off with a velvet turban.
‘‘We’re filming an air-raid scene where everyone has to troop through reception and into the bunker, and this is how Lady Hamilton dresses for bed,’’ she laughs. ‘‘Just as well it isn’t me: I’d probably be wearing a slightly too short T-shirt that was a freebie from the gym and nothing else. And that would be embarrassing.’’
Laughter – hers and other people’s – matters to Williams. ‘‘Perhaps it’s because I came from a family who thought that what I did and said was entertaining. Trying to get a laugh for everything, whether it’s funny or not, is now a default position.’’
Just as Lady Hamilton is a product of both her class and her era, so too is Williams, who was born in 1968 and brought up by two ‘‘pinko Lefties living an unostentatious life’’ –barristers Anna Worrall and the late QC Graeme Williams.
‘‘Really, they were examples of a benevolent London socialism, as am I – when I’m not drinking cocktails and playing aristocrats. I am aware of that hypocrisy,’’ she adds, ruefully.
Williams is married to the actor, comedian and writer Rhashan Stone, the Americanborn, Uk-raised son of black singer Joanne Stone, one half of the 70s duo R&J Stone, whose hits included We Do It.
‘‘My husband was born in New Jersey but raised in provincial England, so I can’t claim any massive Rainbow Nation thing going on in our kitchen,’’ she laughs. ‘‘But one of the striking advantages of where we live is that the colour of my children’s skin is commonplace, and the fact that they are mixed race is not an issue.
‘‘We are very lucky that they have grown up largely unaware that there are places in the UK where it doesn’t feel so inclusive, especially now.’’
She’s fiercely defensive of her husband – quite rightly. Until they finally got together (and they’d known each other for eight years beforehand), Williams had had a chequered love life.
She was once engaged to her drama school sweetheart, Jonathan Cake, but the engagement ended three weeks before the wedding. However, Williams remembers the ‘‘Cake years’’ with good humour. More than can be said for some of the unsuitable beaus of the ‘‘wilderness years’’ that followed.
‘‘Before Rhashan, my experience had been along the lines of the Zoe Wanamaker series, Love Hurts. I thought that, unless something was painful and dramatic, it couldn’t be love. But with Rhashan it was instantly, ‘I like you very much and I’ll be calling you next week’. That was a sea change. I finally learnt to be happy about being happy.’’
The couple married in doublequick time and swiftly had two daughters, Esme, now 12, and Roxana, 9.
‘‘When my daughters were born, it felt to me that the midwife was handing me my liver or my heart, an exterior vital organ. It was mind-blowing to think that we were now responsible for how this new life would turn out.
‘‘Eventually, of course, they stop being entirely dependent on you and they start being smart and hilarious in ways that have nothing to do with either of their parents. And, at that point, you realise you need them around just as much as they need you. My life has been so enriched by my children. I can’t conceive of not knowing them.’’
Williams’ continuing success has meant that she and her husband split the parenting 50-50. It’s a marriage, she says, not unlike that of her own parents. Her mother, Anna, was perhaps the more ambitious one – ‘‘women at the Bar had to be, to succeed. But the parenting was shared and both were incredible mentors and supporters.
‘‘If you have amazing parents, you look for them again in other people that you love. It’s not very rock’n’roll, but I am prepared to accept that much of what I fell for in Rhashan is what I admired in my father.’’
We’ll be seeing more of Williams in the coming weeks, not only in The Halcyon, but also in Stephen Frears’ film Victoria and Abdul. The ensemble cast includes veterans Sir Michael Gambon and Tim Pigott Smith, with Dame Judi Dench as the Queen who befriends a young Indian clerk.
She has never had a game plan when it comes to work: ‘‘Offer me an interesting role and I’ll snatch it up and deal with the consequences later.’’
Her only unresolved ambition would be for Strictly Come Dancing to call. ‘‘I’m the mother of two daughters who couldn’t be less interested in what I do, but if I said Strictly to them, they might look up from their e-readers.’’
In the meantime, if Lady Hamilton were to loosen up a little, she might get to lindyhop as others do in the hotel club.
‘‘Not sure if she’s ready to shake a tail feather yet,’’ Williams laughs. ‘‘Maybe series two?’’
– Telegraph Group The Halcyon
8.30pm, Thursdays from July 27, Prime.