Keeley Hawes
Keeley Hawes, who stars in Sky Cinema’s poignant new film ToOlivia, talks about the tragic true story behind it…
She’s everywhere you look right now, and in her latest incarnation, Keeley Hawes takes on the role of Patricia Neal, wife of children’s author Roald Dahl ( DowntonAbbey’s Hugh Bonneville) in the film, ToOlivia. It’s 1962, and Hollywood movie star Patricia and her husband have moved to the English countryside to raise their young family – but their lives are turned upsidedown, not only by a series of strokes Patricia suffers, but by the devastating loss of their daughter, Olivia, aged just seven [of encephalitis, due to measles]. Keeley, a mumof-three herself (to Maggie, 16, Myles, 20, and Ralph, 14), married to fellow actor Matthew Macfadyen, talks about the wonderful time she had filming and the joys of regularly going make-up free for it…
Keeley, are you a fan of Roald Dahl’s work?
All my life. I grew up with his books, my children grew up with them too. I think anybody who can have such a positive impact on children’s reading habits can only be a positive thing in itself. His stories are wonderful and played a huge part in my children’s childhoods. They have a vocabulary of their own!
Did you know anything about Patricia and her marriage to Roald, before this role?
No, I didn’t know her at all! If you’re going to play the Queen or Margaret Thatcher, there’s so much footage of them being themselves… with Patricia there’s very little of that. And I didn’t know the half of what had gone on in their life together. Their lives were so full of drama and tragedy. There is their extraordinary 30-year marriage, her strokes… We just cover this period that centres on the horrific loss of their daughter, Roald’s inability to deal with it and how that impacts their marriage.
How did you prepare yourself to play her?
I read As I Am, her autobiography, and whatever else I could! For a Hollywood star to end up living in the countryside in the UK is extraordinary. And then
the public eye, and she’s in bed reading a script, you feel like you’re seeing behind the curtain. The fight scenes are tricky but very satisfying. Roald’s early work wasn’t very successful; James and the Giant Peach was a flop, at first. He was a struggling writer and she wanted to go back to work. Anybody having a baby and wanting to go back to work can relate to that, because it’s hard.
to throw in her rehabilitation from her strokes… There’s footage of her presenting an award at the Oscars having learned to speak again. Then the affair with Gary Cooper, the love of her life. She was quite a woman. But it was right to concentrate on what she described as one of the most beautiful periods of her life. They were in love and loved their family life – they were just hit by tragedy.
How did the death of their daughter, Olivia, affect their marriage?
Roald was unable to accept it, but Patricia had to carry on because of the other children in a way, which perhaps wasn’t a burden that felt equally shared. I can’t imagine anything worse than losing your child and then feeling you’re also losing your husband. But she showed an amazing strength. Men’s mental health is taken very seriously now, and rightly so, but at the time it was very much a ‘stiff British upper lip’ thing. It was difficult enough to unpack her own grief but then to also deal with the way Roald was dealing with it must have been hard.
What was it like, filming those big rows they have?
They’re the fun bits, really! I love those scenes. When their masks are off, and they’re away from
Let’s talk about your American accent…
I was a bit worried, at first. Only in that she lived in England for a long time, she was born in Kentucky, and spent a lot of time in LA, so just getting it in the right place was always going to be tricky. I wanted people just to clock it, then concentrate on the story. I’ve never been asked to do an American accent before, so I loved doing it.
Have you ever had to smoke so much for a role before?!
Never! Patricia was a very heavy smoker and I felt awful because I had to smoke in the scenes with children, although obviously they were herbal cigarettes and their parents were happy. It just felt wrong! But it did help with the character. My voice is quite low anyway, but the cigarettes did help get it more like Patricia’s.
They say never work with children. How was it for you?
It can be tricky, especially with little ones, but it can also be the making of a thing. And these kids were phenomenal. We all raised our game to match them! We spent a couple of days rehearsing and getting to know them. They didn’t want to go home! We got along beautifully.
To Olivia, a Sky Original film, is available on Sky Cinema now.