Downton Joanne’s new co-stars? Eight cats — all called Bob!
JOANNE FROGGATT, loved as Anna the lady’s maid on Downton Abbey, chooses her words carefully when describing her new co-stars because, frankly, they can be a little catty.
The actress has just finished shooting scenes for A Street Cat Named Bob (or ‘A Streetcar Named Bob’, as both of us keep calling it), based on best-selling books by James Bowen, an exdrug addict who kicked his habit with the help of a stray ginger Tom he named Bob.
Joanne plays Val, Bowen’s key counsellor, who guides him through methadone treatment.
‘I like cats and dogs!’ says Joanne, who grew up on a farm — which is just as well, as eight different cats were used to play Bob in the movie, which was developed by producer Adam Rolston, who snapped up screen rights to the Bob books. But the real Bob was used as much as possible, because, says director Roger Spottiswoode, the camera loved him — as did Luke Treadaway, who plays Bowen.
Joanne says that four of those eight moggies ‘fell by the wayside’. ‘There’s a reason why “like herding cats” is an expression,’ she says. ‘The cats have been great but, well, they’re cats.’
Joanne’s character, Val, is an amalgam of several people who helped Bowen get off the streets. ‘Val’s nice, but tough,’ Joanne says.
Key consultants in these situations have often had to deal with addiction in their own lives, the actress added, ‘whether themselves, or a close family member’. The story of James and Bob is ‘incredibly sweet’ she told me, ‘but this isn’t a fairy tale. It deals with some dark issues’ — such as what drove Bowen to class-A drugs.
Bowen’s books, written with author Garry Jenkins, have enjoyed phenomenal sales in the UK and across Europe.
Joanne’s involvement in the film is proof of her determination to seek new challenges.
In her first post-Downton project, two-part ITV drama Dark Angel, she plays mass murderer Mary Ann Cotton.
Today, she starts work on another movie, Starfish, based on a true story, in which she and Tom Riley play husband and wife Tom and Nicola Ray.
In real life, Tom initially thought he had food poisoning but in fact had a life-threatening disease called Pneumococcal Septicaemia, related to meningitis. ‘He woke up in hospital and found his limbs had been amputated, and much of his face was gone,’ says Joanne. ‘While he was having those operations, Nicola was in hospital giving birth to their second child.’
It sounds unbearably sad, but she insists the film, written and directed by Bill Clark, ‘is the most beautiful love story’.
After that, Joanne and her husband James Cannon move to LA for several months. ‘We’re going to hang out there for a while. We’ll have a nice bit of sunshine. If something happens, great. If it doesn’t, then that’s OK, too.’