Keep moving

After near back-to-back West End shows and a new film, Imelda Staunton is turning down work to regroup. Her new screen role shows a woman learning to take the chances life offers, whatever your age. ‘I do an extraordinary job, therefore I want to do ordin

Imelda Staunton talks to Janet Christie about working with old pals Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie in Finding Your Feet

Imelda Staunton has been baking soda bread, lots of it. And binge watching Peaky Blinders .Havinga rest. And this is an actor for whom ‘resting’ is not just a euphemism for in between jobs. She really does need a rest. At 62, with a new film, Finding Your Feet, out this week, a storming performance in a sixmonth run of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at the National Theatre behind her, London-born Staunton is enjoying some downtime.

“I’m having a little break for a while,” she says, although even now she’s phoning as part of a day-long junket promoting the film. “I’ve done a lot of theatre recently and I want to stop for a while because I want to have a life,” she says, sounding much younger than her Aunt Lucy Paddington voice, and more sweary. “Bloody hells” and “Christs!” cut through the well modulated RP, reminding you that working class London is as much part of her DNA as RADA.

Finding Your Feet was made back in 2016 then it was straight onto a year of live performance.

“The second half of last year I did Follies and the first half I did three months of Who’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf? in the West End and that nearly bloody killed me! When I’m doing theatre I do not have a life, and that’s what I’m doing now. It’s really nice to recognise that I want to be at home and do the things I want to do, and not have to every day think about my voice, or my body or what I’m eating, or that I’ve got to rest before a performance – all that,” she says then her voice rises in excitement, “Oh great, I can go out!

“In my job I’m really lucky because I play all these different people and have many lives, but it’s also important to say OK, I need my life now, and I’m gonna really, really enjoy it. It doesn’t take much to make me happy, just a good walk with the dog, a nice holiday with my husband… I do an extraordinary job, therefore I want to do ordinary stuff.”

Which is where the soda bread comes in.

“I’ve made three soda breads in the last week. It’s an Irish recipe and my grandmother used to make it. I’ve never made it before, but now I can’t stop... and more importantly I can’t stop eating the whole bloody thing.

“And because I’ve done so much theatre I haven’t watched anything on TV, so I’ve just binge watched Peaky Blinders which I love, oh my god I love it! I haven’t watched TV for literally years, so it’s very nice to watch some stuff. I don’t find it coals to Newcastle at all. I’m very happy to watch other people work.” She laughs.

Best known as the saccharine sadist Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films, illegal abortionist Vera Drake in Mike Leigh’s award winning film and stage mum to upstage all others in Gypsy, the Gypsy Rose Lee musical, she’s certainly earned a little feetup downtime. With a four decade long career that has seen her made an OBE (2006) and CBE (2016) for services to drama, receive an Oscar nod and a BAFTA for Vera Drake ,and a Laurence Olivier Award for Gypsy, she has nothing to prove. From Nanny Mcphee to Pride, Shakespeare to Sondheim, Staunton has done them all. She’s even worked with children and animals. And not any children