A CLASS ACT
Actor Gemma Arterton on forging a new path
ACTOR. PRODUCER. ACTIVIST. CHANGEMAKER. AS GEMMA ARTERTON RETURNS TO THE SMALL SCREEN IN BBC ONE’S BLACK NARCISSUS, NATHALIE WHITTLE MEETS THE GRAVESEND-GIRL-TURNED-HOLLYWOOD-STAR WHO HAS HELPED RAISE THE BAR FOR FEMALE ACTORS EVERYWHERE
When Gemma Arterton was auditioning for roles, having completed her studies at drama school, she was told that she ‘wasn’t good enough’. That her body ‘wasn’t the right shape’. That she needed to ‘work on’ her accent, ‘otherwise you’ll only play maids’. Back then, she listened, took note. But things are different now, she explains, as she sits across from me, dressed in a cosy knit and jeans, in the reception room of the Battersea home where we are photographing her. ‘Now I think I’d just be like, “Oh f*** off. Cast someone else then!”’ she says, the bluntness of her words softened by the light-hearted chuckle that accompanies them. Today, Arterton is perfectly poised, quietly confident. The many tales she tells of her life and career are interspersed with learnings – ‘Don’t let people make you feel bad or push you around’ – that would have you believe she’s far beyond her 34 years. And yet she also appears charmingly unaware of the magnitude of her fame. ‘Gravesend is the only place I’m really famous,’ she tells the Red team with the utmost assuredness, retaining only the slightest hint of the broad Estuary accent she acquired during her childhood there. We can’t help but laugh in blatant disbelief. This is, after all, a Hollywood star talking. The woman who got her break playing Bond girl Strawberry Fields in 2008’s Quantum Of Solace and who went on to make her mark in Hollywood, starring in big-budget films, including Clash Of The Titans and Prince Of Persia. The woman who has used her platform to fight injustice, championing the Me Too and Time’s Up movements and who acted as the driving force behind a cohort of A-list stars wearing black to the 2018 BAFTAS in solidarity. I wouldn’t bet on there being many people outside Gravesend asking themselves, ‘Gemma, who?’ Lucky for us, Arterton is about to return to our screens in the BBC One remake of Black Narcissus; naturally, she plays the lead, Sister Clodagh, a nun struggling to contain her repressed desires while setting up a branch of her order in the Himalayas. She calls it a ‘career high’, a ‘special piece, which doesn’t come along often’; the last time she remembers having this feeling on a TV project was on the series Tess Of The D’urbervilles (ahem, 12 years ago). ‘Clodagh’s the head girl, this rigid control freak,’ she explains. ‘But then there’s this other side of her that’s the complete opposite – reckless, wild, free – and she’s always struggling with that. I remember reading the script and thinking, “Oh, I can identify with that,” because I was such a carefree person when I was younger, which is still in me, but then there’s this control freak in me now, who’s so responsible, and I care so much about the consequences of things.’
I’ve watched the first episode and, I must admit, I spent most of it transfixed by Arterton. Her character’s oscillation between rigorous discipline and emotional angst is so convincing, so moving, perhaps owing to the closeness Arterton felt to the character herself. If she wasn’t already a star, I have no doubt this role would make her one.
But the truth is, being a ‘star’ has never been Arterton’s intention because, well, fame just isn’t her bag. She explains that when, aged 21, news broke that the then-little-known actor had been cast as a Bond girl, she was bemused by the ‘craziness’ that surrounded her. ‘I was like, “Oh, whatever, it’s just another role,”’ she says. ‘Then my publicist called and said, “Gemma, is there anything you need to tell me? Any skeletons in the closet? You have to tell me now because they will find out.” And I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, who gives a s***? It’s me, who cares?” But that was also a really valuable moment in my life as it made me kind of guarded and careful. I’ve never wanted to court any attention.’
Her disinterest in all that, her desire not to live
‘the Hollywood life’, to be able to walk her dog in the Battersea neighbourhood she now calls home and grab a coffee without being bothered, has probably had downsides of its own, she muses. ‘I think sometimes it’s held me back, this lack of ambition that maybe people perceive in me,’ she says, ‘but it’s just that I’m not ambitious to be famous. I’m ambitious to make good work, to work with good people and to have a career. But I’m actually quite a nervous, anxious person, so it wouldn’t be good for me to be in the spotlight all the time.’
Her ambition, she explains, was borne out of a desire to perform on stage. She and her younger sister, Hannah, who is also an actor, were brought up in a ‘messy, creative’ house on a Gravesend council estate by their ‘eccentric, rock chick’ mother, who worked as a cleaner. It was full of music, art, fun. Initially, it was the prospect of meeting boys that lured her to an amateur dramatics class, only Arterton found more than boys there, she found her thing. And when, aged 16, a teacher suggested she leave school before her A levels to attend a local college that taught creative arts instead, she did exactly that.
‘It was quite controversial because I was getting really good grades,’ she explains. ‘But my mum was very supportive. She’s always been of the mindset that you should do what makes you happy, even if it’s not the most reliable job.’ With no ‘connections’ in the industry, Arterton describes auditioning for drama school two years later as ‘one of the happiest times of my life’ because ‘I didn’t expect to get in anywhere. It meant I could just enjoy the process.’ But she did get in, to RADA, one of the most prestigious drama schools in the country, no less. The late Dame Diana Rigg, who starred with Arterton in Black Narcissus (one of her final roles), Dame Joan Collins, and Ralph Fiennes are all former students.
It was here that Arterton first came up against the industry’s rules; its restraints, if you like. She was urged by her tutors to lose her strong Kent accent. ‘That was the norm at the time, that your accent should be RP (received pronunciation),’ she reflects. ‘But I remember feeling a bit like I wasn’t enough. There were a lot of students from Oxbridge and I went there not really knowing anything about books and Shakespeare and all that stuff. So when someone’s saying you need to change and there are other people in your year who are well spoken and well read, it makes you feel like you’re not good enough.’
Inevitably, Arterton’s confidence waned. After graduating, she describes feeling ‘grateful’ for each role she was offered. ‘I think that was a result of being working class,’ she reflects. ‘It was always, “Thank you very much for the work,” rather than, “Actually, I’m not going to do that job. I’m going to wait for the really good one to come in.”’ Are there roles she regrets doing then, I wonder? My question is met with a groan. ‘There’s this terrible film I did called Runner Runner,’ she admits, visibly squirming at the thought of it. Justin Timberlake starred alongside Arterton, who played the right-hand woman to a gambling tycoon (Ben Affleck).
‘To be honest, I just wanted to quit acting after that,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. The script wasn’t good; I just did it because it was this big American film and everyone was telling me it was a good idea. It was all the things I don’t enjoy when I’m on a film set and there was a lot of animosity and tension. And now it pains me that things like that are out there.’
Arterton was so disillusioned by the part that she decided it was time to take new direction, one that would help her take back control of her career. Having never worked with a female director before and frustrated by the lack of women on film sets, she launched her own female-led production company, Rebel Park Productions. ‘I will always remember feeling in my early career like I was in the minority,’ she explains. ‘I was often the only
‘I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THINGS’
woman on a film set and I just thought, “Well, that’s s*** because that’s not the life I live.” And I had a little bit of belittling, patronising, over the years, mostly by male actors, who would say, “Word of advice” and, “Take it from me.”’
While things have undoubtedly moved forward since then, Arterton says, there are frustrations that come with running a company that aims to create more opportunities for women. ‘It’s harder for female directors to get people to have confidence in them,’ she says. ‘There’s a film I’m producing at the moment and the director is brilliant; she’s been Oscar-nominated. And yet the financier is still doubting her. And I’m like, if that was a man and it was his first film, you’d hire him immediately. But you have a problem with women!’
Arterton’s desire for change within the industry is something she’s addressed within the work she’s created, too. Inspired by the Time’s Up movement, in 2018, her
company produced the short film Leading Lady Parts, which sees actors, including Gemma Chan, Florence Pugh and Emilia Clarke audition for a role, with a trio of out-of-touch casting directors making increasingly ridiculous requests of them – to lose weight, put more make-up on and ‘be more white’. ‘What’s brilliant is that it fostered this lovely bond between us all, like we all have each other’s backs now,’ says Arterton. ‘One of the issues in this industry has been that sometimes women don’t support each other because they feel threatened that someone else is going to take their job. But the heartening thing about making that film was this real support everyone gave each other.’
This is why, she tells me passionately, she needs to make more films with women. ‘There are so many actors I’ve never worked with that I should have – just because there’s usually only one part for a woman in the film. I’ve never worked with Felicity Jones, for example, but we should be playing sisters or best mates! Why is this not happening?’
Arterton’s enthusiasm is extraordinarily infectious. So infectious, in fact, that I’m beginning to think that convincing a load of actors to attend the BAFTAS wearing black outfits in solidarity with Time’s Up must have been a walk in the park for her. Quite the opposite, she says: ‘It’s a big misconception that I’m this really confident person, because I’m not,’ she admits. ‘I remember having palpitations because I had to get this email out and convince everyone to do it two days before the event. And I knew I was going to have to call these people and some of them were going to have a go at me and say, “But I already have my dress.” It sounds really trivial now, but I was really anxious about it.’
She explains that in moments like that, she has to have a word with herself. ‘When you’re going through something really challenging, you can either crumble or you can go, “Okay, right. Sort yourself out,” and that’s what I did.’ And was it worth it? ‘Absolutely,’ she smiles. ‘I remember looking around at the whole of the Royal Albert Hall and pretty much everyone was wearing black – that felt cool.’
As we discuss how the industry has changed since Me Too and Time’s Up – ‘I think you’d have to be pretty far down the road of somebody that has a problem to be going on a film set and making the wrong move now,’ she says. I ask Arterton whether she ever found herself in an uncomfortable position in Hollywood. She sighs: ‘Yes, I’ve had bad experiences. Nothing too explicit or difficult to deal with, but things that I wouldn’t tolerate now.’ But fortunately, she says, it’s now a different world from when she first started.
As the industry has undergone some major changes since Arterton entered it, it’s fair to say that so too has her personal life. In 2010, two years after landing her role in Bond, Arterton married her Italian businessman boyfriend, Stefano Catelli, but after two years, the pair separated and later divorced. ‘It was a wonderful time and I have nothing bad to say about it,’ she said at the time. She is now open about the fact that she had no desire to marry again. That is, until she met actor Rory Keenan.
‘I wasn’t really thinking about a relationship or marriage,’ she says. ‘Even though everyone said to me, “Oh, you’ll be like Elizabeth Taylor; you’re going to get married eight times.” But when I met Rory, very early on I thought, “Oh, I hope he asks me to marry him one day!”’ The pair tied the knot last year and though Arterton has previously been very private about her relationships, she has a huge grin on her face as she shares what it was about him that changed her mind.
‘He has the most beautiful soul,’ she says. ‘And I think he was raised by amazing parents and has an incredible family. He’s a really good man. I think that as you get older, that’s what you need, that’s what you want. I just want to feel like I’m with someone that is good and makes me feel good.’
Their relationship, she concedes, has none of the drama of her early ones. ‘When I was younger, my mum would say to me, “Oh, you always want the drama, but that’s not what it’s about.” And I was like, “If it’s not dramatic, it’s not romance!” Probably because I listened to too much music and read all these poems about that. But you go through these crazy love stories when you’re young where you think, “Oh my gosh, they’ve left for five minutes, I can’t deal,” and then you get older and you realise that you just don’t want that any more. You want something simple and lovely, something truer and more solid.’
So will there be children next? ‘I do see kids in my future,’ she smiles. ‘But sometimes, I think about the world we’re living in and I’m not sure how I feel about bringing a kid into it at the moment, you know?’ I can’t help but admire her honesty.
In any case, for now, Arterton is busy with other things. She talks excitedly about a film her husband has written for her to star in and their plans to produce it together. She’s also producing a comedy film, and there’s another Hollywood blockbuster, The King’s Man, which is coming out soon. It’s clear that, despite the constraints, the setbacks and the barriers she’s come up against, there’s simply no stopping Arterton. Only these days, I have learned, she does things on her terms, her way.
‘IT’S A BIG MISCONCEPTION THAT I’M REALLY CONFIDENT’
Black Narcissus airs on BBC One this December