The plain truth
Downton Abbey actress doesn’t want to change accent, looks for Hollywood
How tiny she is; neat and alert as a bird. And how steely. Joanne Froggatt’s bright, expectant stare is a little unsettling. As Anna Bates in all 52 episodes of Downton Abbey, she was never just sweetly subservient. There was an obstinacy under her lady’s maid deference that gave the part its edge. “There was quite a lot of me in Anna,” she says. “Probably more than in most characters I’ve played. I am a very loyal person, and I think I’ve got a strong moral code. I’m conscientious, I work hard, but I like to have more fun than Anna. I love my work, but I’d certainly prefer to have more than half a day off every fortnight. Anna will see the best in people, but she’s not a pushover. She will stick up for herself.”
Her pale, receptive face is an invitingly blank canvas for complex emotion. As Anna Bates, she made plainness beautiful. “My work has never been based on being a great beauty,” she says. “I’m very happy with the way I look. I’ve made a pretty good career for myself playing the girl next door; the plain Jane that people don’t expect to do something, who’s always got a surprise up her sleeve. The girl people underestimate.
“I don’t have any great vanity when I’m playing a role. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest if I look horrendous or at death’s door. But would I ever leave the house looking like that? Over my dead body. I feel naked without a bit of foundation and mascara and my eyebrows on.”
You can’t imagine another actress speculating so matter-of-factly about whether her perceived plainness might have protected her from sexual misconduct that others in the industry have suffered.
“A certain kind of person presumes that if you’re playing a sexy character, that’s you,” she says. “I’ve not played characters that are deemed to be sexy. I don’t know if that’s helped. I haven’t had any personal experience with stuff I’ve been uncomfortable with in a sexual way at work. I’ve been grabbed in a bar, grabbed on a Tube, been touched where you don’t want to be touched. But, thank God, not in a working environment.” Froggatt is sure of herself, proud of her track record, but ever grateful that opportunities in film, television and theatre keep coming. Friendly, unstarry and polite, she will chat with fans, but if they overstep the mark by taking a photograph of her without asking, she asks them to delete the picture, then offers to pose with them properly. “I am not an animal in a zoo. I am approachable.”
At 16, the Yorkshire native who grew up on a sheep farm, landed the role of a teenage mother in Coronation Street and has supported herself by acting ever since. “I had to take a few jobs to pay the mortgage with no thought about whether it was a great role,” she says. “It’s been a bit touch-and-go at times. Now I’m fortunate in that I can be picky — or pickier. And I try to be.” She’s protective of her accent, eroded now to a soft, indeterminate northernness by her peripatetic life. “It happened quite naturally. I didn’t ever want to consciously change it because I still wanted to be me, the amalgamation of my own experiences and my own journey in life.” After receiving a Golden Globe for best supporting actress and three Emmy nominations, it was predictable that more Annas would be dangled in front of her. “I did stay away from working-class northerners for a little bit,” she says. “Not that I’ve got anything against them, but I didn’t want to play their character all the time. And I loved Anna. I wanted her to stand on her own.”
When the television cast disbanded in 2015 after four years, Froggatt spoke of “an element of grieving.” Then last year, the original actors were reunited to make the film.
“It’s amazing that people wanted us back to do the movie. It was so surreal. Everyone who was there at the end is there in the movie. It was like a lovely school reunion.” Sworn to secrecy, Froggatt hints at “romance, fun, surprises, sadness and intrigue. Everything people want, but elevated. Anna is in a really good place. She and Mr. Bates have a baby boy, now 18 months old. She is passionate about helping Lady Mary with the running of Downton, about keeping the legacy going.”
During Downton, Froggatt married her longtime boyfriend James Cannon, an IT boss she’d met in a bar “in the old-fashioned way.” They have jointly started a production company, Run After It. Cannon, who “always thought he had a novel in him,” writes scripts. They have five television projects in development.
Though she looks much younger, especially with her eyebrows on, Froggatt is 38 now, approaching the age when actresses start to worry about the dearth of substantial parts, and she admits that having another string to her bow may be useful. How would the two jobs fit with family life? “If a baby comes along, a baby comes along,” she says. “You just make it work, don’t you, like every other woman in the world.”
I’ve made a pretty good career for myself playing the girl next door. JoAnne froGGAtt