From ‘Downton Abbey’ set to the Times bestsellers list
Catherine Steadman’s second careerwas born on an impossibly hot day in the desert. “All I could think of,” she said, “was the sea.”
Anactor best known to American audiences as insouciant heiressMabel Lane Fox on Season 5 of “Downton Abbey,” Steadmanwas filming the television series “Tutankhamun” inNamibia several years ago— in fullVictorian costume, completewith corset.
“Itwas just boiling,” she said, in a telephone interview fromher London home. “I thought about going swimming, being by the sea, a cool breeze. I starting thinking about what plot you could get around that setting, if you wanted to read a book.”
Fromthat initial spark came “Something in the Water,” Steadman’s 2018 debut novel: a psychological thriller about a couplewhomake a terrifying discovery in the sea during their tropical island honeymoon. The book became aNewYork Times bestseller and a pick for ReeseWitherspoon’s book club. Asecond novel, “Mr. Nobody” was published in early 2020, and her third, “The DisappearingAct,” will be out next spring.
For Steadman, who studied at the Oxford School ofDramaand has appeared in numerous British television shows, films and stage productions since the mid-2000s, becoming an authorwasn’t exactly planned. But storytelling through written words rather than performance had long simmered within her. “I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision to become awriter,” Steadman said. “It just seemed like another form of storytelling thatwas suddenly open tome.”
Many actors, she said, are natural writers: “You’re ingesting somany stories, digesting them fromthe characters’ point of view and fleshing out the backstory and looking for arcs and plot twists and structure. I think it’s innate, it sort of becomes habitual. A lot of actors have that kind of improvisational thing that can translate into writing reallywell.”
And writing, it turns out, is something that can coexist nicelywith acting. Film and televisionwork by necessity involves a lot of waiting around; Steadman often found herself writing in her trailer or during downtime on the set. The bulk of “Something in the Water” was written during a two-month lull between acting jobs—“I’d just get up every morning and go at it, and keep going at it until itwas dark outside.” When itwas finally finished, “the next step seemed to be to try to get people to read it,” so she did someonline research and sent the book to a fewagents. One responded quickly— and just like that, the actorwas nowa published author.
Though it’s fun to imagine Steadman tapping away on a laptop in a corner of the “Downton Abbey” set, that particular job predated her writing career. But she speaks of it fondly. “Itwas awelloiled machine by the time
I got there,” she said of the show, praising its experienced crewand “family atmosphere.” She’s quite certain that her character, who spent the season caught up in a love triangle between LadyMary and Tony Gillingham, lived happily ever after. “She’ll be fine,” said Steadman of Mabel, with a laugh, “but I don’t knowaboutTony.” (Mabel, who marriedTony after LadyMary cast him off, was “very strategic in choosing him,” Steadman said.)
Just as Steadman’s acting career has taken hermany places, her books have led her on newadventures. For “Mr. Nobody,” whichhasat its center amysteriousman whodoesn’t knowhis own name, she dove into research on dissociative amnesia and fugue states (starting with “Neuroscience for Dummies” and watching numerous documentaries). “There’s something fascinating about the idea that you could wake up one day and not rememberwho you are,” she said. “I think it catches a lot of people’s imagination.”
And her upcoming third book takes her both close to home and far away: Itsmain character is an actress in Los Angeles for pilot season— which is, Steadman says, a setting ripe for a thriller.
Though acting jobs have dried up during the pandemic, Steadman is hopeful thatwork will return. But she’s used the downtime towork on her fourth novel, and to try somethingnew: writing a television adaptation of the JessRyder novel “The Ex-Wife.”
“Itwas something I hadn’t tried before, and I wanted to give it a go and see howclose to novel writing itwould be,” she said, of screenwriting. “Twoworlds sort of colliding!”