The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Gender-flipped affair reveals family secrets
Julia Ormond, 54, makes her British television debut in Gold Digger, a brand-new drama about a woman falling in love with a much younger man, and the impact it has on her family. With second chances, family and betrayal at the fore, Gemma Dunn finds out m
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT GOLD DIGGER?
Gold Digger is the story of a dysfunctional family and the events that happen when Julia Day, my character, meets a much younger man, Benjamin (Ben Barnes), and starts a relationship with him.
It is about how all the people who are close to her have an opinion about it and how that really pushes them and challenges them as a family to confront their demons and their relationship to Julia, their 60-year-old mum, who really, to them, is somewhat invisible.
HOW ARE VIEWERS INTRODUCED TO JULIA?
When we first encounter Julia, she’s really quite wounded and bruised from the falling apart of her marriage.
Her ex-husband, Ted (Alex Jennings), has left her for her best friend and two out of three of her children have left home and moved on in life, so she’s somewhat lost and struggling with low self-esteem.
The story kicks off with Julia’s 60th birthday and each one of her children successively either forget it or can’t turn up, so she takes herself to the British Museum where she used to work and she runs into Benjamin, who shows an interest in her.
THIS ROLE MARKS YOUR BRITISH TV DEBUT. WHAT APPEALED?
It’s provocative and it challenges us in terms of how we see women who have devoted their life to motherhood – what do they do when that phase is sort of coming to an end?
To Julia’s children, there is a sense that Benjamin is a threat to their inheritance and a feeling that there is something off about him, but it’s founded in this disbelief that he could genuinely love her. So each episode unpacks this, looking at the preconceived ideas about how women should be with men.
Despite the fact that we’re very used to seeing older men with much younger women, to see the reverse throws into sharp relief our societal expectations of women. One would think it should not be that inconceivable but, at the same time, something does feel off.
THE CHARACTERS ARE EACH DEALING WITH SUPPRESSED TRAUMA. HOW DOES THAT COME INTO PLAY?
As you progress through the episodes, you understand why it is, for each family member, that Julia’s new relationship personally challenges them.
It goes beyond just selfishness; it taps into a family secret and a trauma that’s been dealt with in a way that’s not necessarily healthy.
With the use of momentary flashbacks, you are privy to how that trauma has changed them or left them with baggage that they’re still acting out in their current lives.
YOU SHOT A LOT OF THE DRAMA IN DEVON. HOW WAS THAT?
We were on this promontory with cliffs dropping on either side and I was a bit anxious about it, because I have found that all sorts of things that didn’t concern me before in life, for some reason, since becoming a mum, have started to! So they had all sorts of protective equipment and we had stunt guys attached to all of these cables.
A portion of the story also occurs in London, so there’s a section of it that we got to shoot in extraordinary locations. We had an amazing day at the British Museum, where we turned up early when no-one else was there – it was definitely one of those rather jammy moments that you have as an actor.
HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARISE THE SIX-PART SERIES?
This drama has been described as a domestic noir, which I thought was very accurate.
There is a grittiness to the tone, mixed with moments that feel quite pedestrian and normal, very English – there are lots of cups of tea! – but it also becomes quite searing. It doesn’t shy away from the darker things people are dealing with as individuals.
At the same time, there’s this beautiful kind of dance that they’re all doing as a family, in terms of what they’re withholding from each other and the private agonies that are going on within.
AND FINALLY, IS THERE A TAKEAWAY MESSAGE FOR AUDIENCES?
This story is beautifully revealing of how we pigeonhole people, how we write them off and how we close off certain aspects of their life because we see them as fitting a specific role. We decide what someone means to us, what they give to and provide for us, and we want them to stay there, perpetually frozen in that role and not have other avenues of their life explored.
There is also something quite extraordinary about the way Marnie (Dickens) has written the impact of trauma on this family. There is something about trauma and how people deal with it in their lives that has a long-term effect and impact on their ability to love, love themselves and love someone else.
● Gold Digger starts on BBC One on Tuesday November 12.
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