SURANNE JONES TAKES US BEHIND SCENES OF GENTLEMAN JACK I survive costume fittings on a peanut
SOMETIMES we all need a little reward to get through h the day – and Suranne e Jones would go nuts s without her nibbles.
The Gentleman Jack actress relies elies on healthy snacks to keep her at t the top of her game, especially when n she has a jam-packed schedule.
“Anything can keep you going,” ing,” she revealed. “A nut or anything g will do, just one.”
Suranne admits getting her hair and make-up done can be the most gruelling of endeavours.
She said: “You just stand there e and let people work around you.
“You are letting people play with your face, your hair, playing with you, and those are the days you go, o, ‘ ‘I I haven’t done anything today but t I’m absolutely exhausted’.”
Suranne, 41, shot to fame after landing the role of Karen Mcdonald nald in Coronation Street in 2000.
Success
Since stepping away from the ITV soap in 2004, she has starred in a string of hit productions such h as Doctor Foster, Scott & Bailey, Single ingle Father and Doctor Who.
But despite her success, Suranne anne admits that she still gets starstruck ruck in front of her acting heroes es – especially Dame Julie Walters.
Laughing, she said: “I think I’ve curtseyed to her a couple of times es at awards and stuff.”
Suranne also admits that it has taken her a while to get into her stride tride when it comes to acting.
She said: “I started when I was eight at Oldham Theatre Workshop. hop. I was auditioning really early and doing a mdrams and professional and amateur stuff. I knew I wanted to do it and I knew what I loved but I didn’t know what kind of actor I wanted to be. I don’t think it was until I did Unforgiven that I really settled into that.”
Suranne, who has a four-year-old son with her s c r eenwriter husband Laurence Akers, has won a string of awards for her work k– – including a Bafta for her role e in Doctor Foster.
But the actress admits that she e still has to battle nerves on set.
She revealed: “I think I’ve tried ed to learn how to manage anxiety because ause you can’t manage other people’s. ’s.
“It’s so important that you are in a space where you’re not plagued gued by that.
“I always get the buzz of ‘…and …and action!’ because you’re, like, ‘Ah, now it has to come’.”
Suranne recently starred as landandowner and industrialist Anne Lister in the BBC drama, Gentleman Jack.
The show, set in 19th century Yorkshire, is based on Lister’s reallife diaries, which were
It’s a real privilege to be part of the Gentleman Jack team
largely written in a secret code and documented her lesbian relationships, which would have been ruinously controversial at the time.
Suranne, who was nominated for a Bafta for the role last week, said it was a challenging production to work on – mainly because of the number of lines she had to learn. After all, Lister’s lengthy original diaries contained mmore more than four million wwords. words.
Surannee Suranne said: s a i d: “Gentlemann “Gentleman Jack is just a very different beast. I haven’t wo worked rked on anything this ttough tough before.
HAPPY: With husband sband Laurence Akers in 2019
I want to work with daring people and push things
You work Monday to Friday, you finish on Friday night, I’ll come home and spend time with my four-year-old and then on Sunday I might have breakfast then get into learning lines again for the next week.
“It’s tough. It’s a seven-and-a-half month shoot. It’s a lot.”
Suranne said that reading through Lister’s diaries for the very first time was “mind-blowing”.
She added: “I immediately wanted to do it. I auditioned a couple of times for it and got it.
“I feel like I’m really part of that team moving forward now . It’s certainly a privilege and I know that.”
In 2017 Suranne and her husband set up their own production company, Teamakers Productions Ltd.
And the star says she enjoys creating roles for women who have often been overlooked in life.
Suranne praised the work of Michaela Coel, who wrote and also starred in the recent BBC hit series, I May Destroy You. She said: “I know I want to work with daring people and I want to push things.
“I May Destroy You is amazing and the half-hours are becoming really popular because they’re stories that are just crammed at you and you can binge them if you want to.
“Things are really changing and it’s exciting.”
Suranne added: “I love producing. I think it’s something I love almost better than acting at times because it’s finding out what’s next and being in the driving seat, in a way, of how can we get to what we want. Whereas on set you’re ’re creating in a different rent way.”
Despite pite being one of f British
TV’S best-loved est-loved stars, Suranne has experienced perienced her fair r share of rejection on over the years.
And she has a few wise words of advice for other aspiring actors. She said: “Enjoy your meetings for what they are, rather than hanging everything on them all the time. “Every auditi audition is a step to someth something else or a discovery discovery.
“It’s really hard to learn that. Y You can’t just l learn that starting starti out but I thin think it’s really important impo to remember.” halina.
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PRAISE: Suranne is a big fan of Julie Walters and Michaela Coel