I gave flirty film legend brush off
FOUR WEDDINGS STAR ANNA
ACTRESS Anna Chancellor, who found fame as Duckface in Four Weddings And A Funeral, has revealed her latest suitor – 82-year-old Hollywood star Donald Sutherland.
In an interview about their roles in new US TV series Trust, 52-year-old Anna said Donald maintained his reputation as a lothario during filming last year.
Asked whether Canadian Donald was still flirtatious, Anna told Radio Times: “Yes! I like that. I can completely take that.
“What was it he said? ‘Kissing you is so fantastic. I’ve never felt anything like this’.
“Really, Donald? You really think I’d go for that?”
Asked if he was a good kisser, she replied: “I wouldn’t even have called it a kiss. It’s ridiculous! It was a brush of the lips.
“He is crazy about women. I did think it was rather marvellous and very 1970s of him.”
While amused by Donald, who plays fabulously wealthy John Paul Getty senior in the Sky Atlantic series about John Paul Getty III’s kidnapping, Anna referred to the sex scandal over producer Harvey Weinstein, saying she had to learn to deal with “very dominant men” on set.
“I’ve always been able to look after myself,” she said.
“I was quite attractive when I was young and I took it for granted people were going to fancy me and make a few wrong passes.
“When I started working as an actress, I found everyone quite straight compared to the people I’d been hanging about with.
“I had a child, Poppy, when I was 22 with [the late poet] Jock Scot. We used to hang around with Shane MacGowan of The Pogues and the photographer Mario Testino.
“There is a vast difference between someone making a pass at you, which is slightly the game of men and women, and sexual harassment. I think the two have slightly merged.
“I haven’t experienced sexual bullying but I’ve been in countless rehearsal rooms and on film sets where I just know I’m not going to be heard because I’m a woman. Some [male] directors just can’t help it.
Tenacious
“It’s just how things have been for so long. I can’t tell you how many boring scripts I’ve read where guys take the main parts and carry the central story.”
Since being memorably jilted at the altar by Hugh Grant in Four Weddings in 1994, Anna has played capable, tenacious women in TV shows from Kavanagh QC to Pride And Prejudice and The Hour.
“I nearly always play the bitch,” she joked. “You have to stop saying, ‘I’m not somebody who would do that’. You have to be open to anything. I’m tall and dominant, quite masculine in a way, so I can play alpha female.”