Anne-marie Duff on friendship
Impolite, bold, passionate and sexy. This is how the actress describes her favourite stage roles – but she could just as easily be describing herself. Here, she reflects on her career, divorce, and the gloriousness of ageing
... And the paradox of ageing
It’s not the worst way to spend a Saturday afternoon: trying on beautiful dresses in a sunny garden in West Hampstead. Anne-marie Duff is surrounded by wisteria and pink roses, holding a cup of tea, cracking jokes before scampering to the next shot. “Drop down,” says the photographer to her assistant grappling with the reflector, and Duff slumps on the tree stump, much to the amusement of the crew. She looks up. “Oh, not me?” she deadpans, before chastising herself. “Not everything’s about you, Anne-marie…” As she’s preparing to lie in the grass for the next shot, one of the crew finds a moth and lets it crawl onto his finger. Duff is tickled by the ridiculously pastoral scene. “Oh God,” she laughs, “it’s like a fairy tale. Any minute now that moth’s going to start talking to us.”
After the shoot we adjourn to the sitting room. Duff reappears wearing a loose grey top, simple layered silver jewellery and pink trainers and sits wide-legged and forward, open, easy. She’s chipper, despite rehearsing all morning at the National Theatre for Common, a period piece in which Duff plays the roguish Mary, a woman »
battling for her former home as the ‘common land’ disappears during the Industrial Revolution. The lure of theatre remains strong for many successful TV and film actors, and Duff is no different – this is her seventh full-scale production at the National. “It was the theatre that I always wanted to work in when I was dreaming about becoming an actor,” she says. “And there’s something really special about the South Bank, isn’t there? It’s subsidised theatre, which means that they take more risks, they don’t have to be completely governed by commercial worries.” It’s the first time she’s played an out-and-out Machiavellian kind of character. “It’s so rare and so delicious,” she smiles.
BORN TO IRISH IMMIGRANT PARENTS IN LONDON,
Duff was a shy teenager and got into acting partly to overcome her social nerves. Her accent is pure London, with a playful lilt; she smiles constantly as she talks. “Generally, if I’m being super-polite, I’m feeling quite shy. I just try to breathe through it. Or I’ll make stupid, smutty jokes. I just try and be a bit kinder with myself, and rewrite that story in my head.” She’s tough on herself when it comes to her work, though. “I’m competitive with myself. I always want to be better than I was the last time. I try not to pay too much attention to what critics think of my work because I don’t think actors can sensibly read reviews. I think it’s a bit like reading other people’s diaries: you won’t stop until you find a criticism. It’s a very strange masochistic streak in our species.”
Her big break was as the tracksuit-wearing Fiona Gallagher in Channel 4’s early Noughties Shameless. The Manchester-set comedy was awarded Best Drama Series at the BAFTAS in 2005 and launched the careers of much of the cast, in particular Duff and James Mcavoy. The two started dating on set, married in 2006 and last year, announced their divorce in a statement that spoke of their “tremendous sadness”. They lived together for a while after the split but have sought to keep things private, mainly to protect their seven-year-old son, Brendan.
It’s a delicate subject. But I have to ask – how are things now? Have they managed to stay friends?
“Friendship is key. I think that’s the thing. It’s a very grown-up experience. Inside of it, you’ve just got to be as loving and as kind as you can be, and prioritise your kid, and try and have a sense of humour. And you know when someone’s always going to be in your life because you have a child together you have a bond that you have with nobody else. It’s sort of vital to nourish that.” While any marriage surely faces its own pressures, it’s difficult to appreciate the strain that must come from having such public profiles. “We’ve always been really consistent with keeping our heads down, and that’s paid dividends, so it hasn’t actually proved to be that difficult,” says Duff. “I also don’t undervalue the fact that people were always very respectful of us as a couple, which meant in a way they’ve become very respectful of us as a divorced couple.” My journalist streak wants me to probe further, but when Duff sits back and quietly requests that we move on I hastily ask, instead, which other actresses inspire her. She visibly relaxes. “Oh crumbs, so many people inspire me. Denise Gough. Olivia Colman, Gemma Arterton. Maxine would be in the gang, too.” She is, of course, referring to Maxine Peake, another Shameless alumni who went on to major success. They played best friends on screen and, 13 years on, they’re still buddies. In the
Shameless days, “Maxine made me laugh all the time. The first series was so spectacularly shambolic in the making of it. We were all living in this block of flats on the same floor, and all our doors sort of opened onto each other. It was wild, I’m not going to lie. It was wild and great fun. Maxine was a very good party hostess.”
Since then Duff has remained firmly in demand, from playing Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen, John Lennon’s mother in Sam Taylor-johnson’s biopic Nowhere Boy and the ballsy Violet in 2015’s Suffragette. But it’s theatre where she feels she has the most freedom. “It’s more forgiving. You’re allowed to be impolite and bold and
When you have a child together you have a BOND that you have with nobody else. It’s sort of vital to NOURISH that
passionate and sexy more often because there’s something about being in a roomful of people – live – that means you can get away with really pushing boundaries and forcing people to experience emotion.”
IT SEEMS ALMOST INESCAPABLE THESE DAYS TO INTERVIEW AN ACTRESS and not ask about a woman’s place in an industry where they are generally paid less. Yet Duff tells me she is feeling positive, especially about television, where big creative leaps are being taken: “I really feel that there is a gear change. Apple Tree Yard, House Of Cards, Big Little Lies…
they all feature incredible female characters who aren’t just the wife putting on the husband’s coat. They are an integral part of the story.” At 46, Duff describes ageing as, “annoying and brilliant. I hope to be consistent about the fact that ageing is a glorious thing. I’d hate to become someone who freezes that, or tries to manufacture a youth that isn’t there, because I think it has a psychological effect on those around you, as well as you.”
She relaxes by doing yoga, reading and baking. “Doing something physical creates much more of a meditative state because it puts me into my body and forces me out of my head,” she says. She pauses, then cackles. The voice that comes out next is pure Fiona Gallagher. “Not
out of your ’ead. You know what I mean!” I wonder whether she has any words of wisdom for her younger self. “If people aren’t interested in talking to you, don’t waste your time with them. And, creatively, be consistent and true to the faith and drive you have right now. I love Maya Angelou’s advice: always believe people when they tell you who they are. You can meet a man and he’ll tell you, ‘Sorry baby, I’m an arsehole.’ If he says he’s not going to be good to you, believe him!”
Next year will see her back at the National to play Lady Macbeth, notching up her National tally to eight; she’s starring in a new film adaptation of the Ian Mcewan novel On Chesil Beach and voicing the part of Hyzenthlay in
Watership Down. Mcavoy is also in the cast, and I ask her whether doing a children’s animation was their homage to Brendan. She tells me no, it was her own nostalgia that prompted her to take the part. “My character is a bit like Violet in Suffragette – she’s a vigilante, a real ringleader and becomes very heroic.” Being a good mum, and a working mum, is something she’s fiercely proud of. “I think it’s a great privilege that I am able to do my job and be a mum.” Brendan already has an awareness of feminist issues. “He’ll ask me why there’s only one female character in [Lego] Ninjago,” she says, proudly.
As we wrap up our chat, I ask what the more distant future holds. “I’d like to try writing. When you get inside the world of a drama, you know the beginning, the middle and an end. Life is so random, there’s something reassuring about being part of a story. And there’s something weirdly therapeutic about being a storyteller.” Here’s to her next chapter.
Common runs at the National Theatre until 5th August, from £15; Nationaltheatre.org.uk
For Anne-marie Duff’s Best Things in Life, visit REDONLINE.CO.UK
I hope to be consistent about the fact that ageing is a GLORIOUS thing. I’d hate to become someone who FREEZES that