I’M AT PEACE WITH MY IRISH NAME
Sonya’s life – has returned from the war. Sonya and her cousin Natasha [played in the series by Lily James] are loitering outside the door, waiting to greet him, and she’s so excited that she spins round and round and her skirt mushrooms out around her. The gesture is so uninhibited and full of joy and I thought, ‘Oh yes, I know that feeling.’
‘Sonya loves her cousin Nikolai with complete and utter devotion – and the possibility that he’ll marry her in the end drives her.
‘Unlike modern women, she doesn’t want to have it all. She doesn’t want to be the funniest person in the room or the nicest dressed or the most accomplished. She just wants Nikolai to love her.
NIKOLAI blows hot and cold. And when it’s the former, it’s the best thing in the world to Sonya. She’s ecstatically happy with even the smallest token of his affection. The crumbs from his table will do in ways that wouldn’t suit me.
‘Sonya needs to be seen within the context of the day. She’s an orphaned relation who’s thrown herself on the mercy of the Rostovs, so she’s pivoting from an extremely low base and has almost zero expectations. She isn’t a great marriage prospect, either.
‘But you do have to admire the stoicism of someone who still believes, in the end, she’ll get the grand prize and live happily ever after. I don’t want to spoil the story, but let’s not hold our breath here.’
Aisling believes War And Peace to be a very sexually charged novel. ‘Andrew Davies has captured that – and everything else – beautifully. Sonya maybe less sexually driven than most of the other characters, but even she has her moment when Nikolai follows her into the barn.
‘We’re not exactly sure what happens because the camera cuts away, but let’s say they’re both glowing afterwards. She’s going to need to dine out on the moment for decades!
‘I’m philosophical about love scenes. If they serve the story then it’s okay. But if I’m kissing someone who’s not my boyfriend, I do tend to feel quite detached. It helps that Jacob’s an actor too, so he gets it. I never feel the need to go home and say: ‘‘Guess who I’ve been kissing today.’’ It doesn’t bleed into our life together.
‘My scenes with Jack Lowden [Nikolai] were exhilarating. He’s a brilliant actor who won the Ian Charleson award for the Ibsen play Ghosts and his performance here is so edgy and unpredictable. It was always, ‘Gosh, how is this going to play out?’ It felt like jousting. ‘Sonya’s costumes reflect both her status and her personality. Everything she wears looks as though it’s been put through the wash a few too many times. Adrian Edmondson [who plays Count Rostov] always commented on them. He’d say, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting outfit, Aisling.’ And then he’d get the giggles. And I’d be thinking ‘What? I actually thought I looked quite nice today!’
‘As a cast we definitely bonded – although there was a slight feeling on set of us being in separate family camps. So the Rostovs would hang out together and ditto the Bolkonskys, et cetera. In the evenings, though, we’d all go out en masse. Before War And Peace I thought vodka was a necessary evil. How wrong I was! Now it’s my favourite drink.
AISLING particularly enjoyed playing alongside Lily James. ‘We had a lot of scenes together because the characters are so linked in the story. At the beginning, they’re like two little kittens – they spend their days wondering, with fluttering hearts, how it will feel to be women in love. But, later, massive differences appear. Sonya’s not exactly Cinderella but nor is she the indulged, beloved daughter who adores herself almost as much as everyone else in the room does.
‘Words can’t express how much I like Lily. She was doing publicity for the movie Cinderella during breaks in filming and you’d have thought that all the glitz and glamour might have gone to her head. But there was no arrogance about her at all.
‘We were already friends from filming Pride And Prejudice And Zombies. It’s a weird and wonderful movie which takes the characters from the original Jane Austen novel and puts them in the context of a world where zombies stalk the earth. Lily stars as Elizabeth Bennet but I have a small part as her neighbour Charlotte Lucas.
‘Agnes in Mr Selfridge was far more modern than Sonya. The odds were stacked against her, too. She’d come from a dirt-poor background with an abusive drunken father but, unlike Sonya, she always took life by the horns. She was a feminist in the true sense of the word.
‘I hope that I’m a feminist in my own life. Men and women may have obvious differences but, as far as I’m concerned, all human beings should have the same opportunities and that applies whether they’re living in London or Riyadh.
‘I’m not very thick-skinned. But, then, it’s back-to-front thinking to say that actors need to be. If you ask me, it’s the absolute reverse. Unless you’re thin-skinned, how can you possibly absorb all the experiences you’ll need to draw on to tell the stories that people can relate to?’
Aisling clearly has more stories still to tell and before long you suspect the whole world will know just what to call her. ÷War And Peace is on BBC One tomorrow at 9pm.
AISLING LOFTUS plays the giddy, besotted Sonya in War and Peace... but in real life this daughter of two Irish parents is a driven woman whose mission is to break Hollywood under her own steam and without changing anything about herself... like Saoirse Ronan