The only way I could protect my granny was to play her myself...
The story of Ruth Wilson’s grandparents is stranger than fiction. The actress tells LAURA HARDING why she wanted to tell that story in a new BBC drama and how she tackled the challenge of playing her own grandmother
RUTH WILSON was 15 when she learned her family had an incredible secret. After she found a photo of her grandfather, whom she had never met, in a chest of drawers, she discovered he had been a serial bigamist.
After he died suddenly of a heart attack in the 1960s, her grandmother Alison found out that she was not the only Mrs Wilson, and her two sons were not his only children.
“My granny gave my dad and my uncle a memoir she had written,” says Ruth, who is now 36.
“I think she invited them over and she asked them to read it there in front of her, in the same room, so they could all talk about it afterwards.
“They asked her a few questions, but it was just not done in those days and still lots of generations don’t really talk about these things, it’s just not asked.
“The only thing I knew about him was when I found the picture of him in my dad’s cabinet that was locked away.
“He was never on display, he wasn’t talked about, so we were encouraged not to ask questions about him.” Now the actress, best known for her roles in Luther and The Affair, is exploring the full story in new drama Mrs Wilson, in which she plays her own grandmother.
“The only way I could protect her was to play her,” Ruth says with conviction. “And protection not in the way of making her a nice woman, it was actually in a way of showing all her sides, all complexities of that woman, and not being afraid to show those.
“I think somebody who was playing my grandmother might feel a bit selfconscious, or a bit concerned about how they portray her, with me watching over their shoulder.
“I can’t imagine many actresses would like to do that. So I thought that would be the only way I could protect her and dig into the story the way I’d like to.”
Indeed the story doesn’t end there. Alison’s husband
Alec, played in the three-part series by Game Of Thrones actor Iain Glen, was also a novelist and a spy whom Alison met while working at MI6 during the war.
“I found him fascinating, and I’m a curious person anyway, so I was just like, ‘Wow, great, our family’s not boring!’ But it’s just been incredible, and the story keeps revealing itself, it hasn’t stopped yet.”
The biggest shock of all came when it turned out Alec actually had four wives, and with them a total of seven children.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a few more come out after the show airs,” Ruth says with a laugh.
“It’s amazing to have this in my family, it really is. My grandmother definitely wanted her memoir to be read.
“Whether she wanted it to be dramatised, I don’t know, but I hope
that she will be happy with it.”
Telling the story has been an emotional journey for her family to take, especially for her dad Nigel and his brother Gordon, Alec’s sons with Alison. Both of them have already seen the first episode and Ruth admits she was terrified of what they would think.
“I wasn’t sure if my uncle was furious or really upset, but they were both incredibly moved by it.
“My uncle said he’d never quite understood it from his mother’s point of view before.
“A lot of the intrigue was always about my grandfather and actually, seeing what his mother had to deal with and had to cope with and how much she had to maintain the family despite all this going on was new for him.
“There were all these revelations and her life falling apart in front of her eyes, and he never quite understood that before.”
While her family were not involved in the casting, they read all of the scripts and made sure all the details were right.
“Most of their notes were more about what uniform he was wearing, or what kind of bomb would have been dropped in that period,” she says.
“They didn’t engage in the emotional stuff so much. So they were very supportive, and just trusted me really, which was amazing of them.”
Perhaps the most unexpected part of it all is how much the family has come together in the wake of the discoveries.
“That’s the best bit of the story and you’ll see that play out in the third episode,” she says.
“From all this betrayal and hurt and lies and secrets, it became this family that united, years later, and found each other.
“It was so long ago for so many of them, it feels like they’ve found or completed a mystery that they probably all knew about in some way, or were slightly conscious of but weren’t completely aware of.”
It has also given Ruth one of the most profound experiences of her life, particularly when it came to understanding her grandmother, who died when the actress was 22.
“I’m still processing it, I think. Once it’s over and it’s out, I will probably be able to have a more clear understanding of what I mean by that, to be in the skin of a family member and to be playing their journey.
“In a way, drama can dig deeper than just a memory or a memoir, you’re actually acting out scenes that happened.
“It’s quite an odd experience anyway, let alone being a family member, and it let me understand her in a much deeper and emotional way.
“I think it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. I felt like something passed through me, and she passed through me.
“There were moments when I felt deeply for her, really was overcome with how hard it must have been for her.” And what of the grandfather she never knew?
“He had the capacity to love many, obviously. An extraordinary man, a major charmer,” she says.
“Certainly my acting comes from him because he set up acting troupes.”
And Ruth says she wished she had met him.
“I’d just love to have dinner with him and ask, ‘What were you up to?!’”