‘I loved acting and being in front of the camera’
JEFFREY DAVIES chats to actress Hayley Mills as she prepares for an ‘exotic’ production at Bath Theatre Royal next week
GET ready for the journey of a lifetime as the world premiere stage adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s hit story The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes to the West Country next week with a stellar cast including Hayley Mills, Paul Nicholas and Rula Lenska.
This is the feel-good tale of love and adventure that takes audiences on a journey to India with an eclectic group of British retirees as they embark on a new life. The luxury residence is far from the opulence they were promised, but as their lives begin to intertwine and they embrace the vibrancy of modern-day India, they are charmed in unexpected and lifechanging ways.
Deborah Moggach has adapted her best-selling 2004 novel These Foolish Things for the stage, after previously inspiring the Bafta and Golden Globe-nominated film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It’s described as a joyous comedy about taking risks, finding love and embracing second chances even in the most surprising of places.
Sounds uplifting to say the least, I suggested to Hayley Mills, one of this country’s best-known actresses, who plays Evelyn Greenslade in this production.
“Oh yes. I would describe The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as one of the most life-affirming experiences that you can have at the present moment in the theatre, which is why I wanted to do the play. It has been adapted by the novelist Deborah Moggach from her book, which is a good thing to do because there is so much in a book that you can’t put on a stage. She has rounded all the characters off beautifully. And she tells the story beautifully too,” Hayley told me.
“Deborah Moggach is such a wonderful writer with a wonderful sense of humour. Her writing is so truthful.
“She has drawn human beings perfectly in all their complexities. This is one of those plays that is very funny but also very heartfelt. The comedy and laughter that comes is a laughter of recognition. People coming out of the theatre will feel really buoyed up and reassured that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And hope.”
So how would Londonborn Hayley define her latest character role Evelyn Greenslade?
“Well, firstly, I must say she is such a beautifully written character. And such a lovely part to play. She’s never had a chance to be another sort of person and discover what else she might be capable of. What other abilities or talents she might have. Through the journey, through the course of the play, she discovers a whole other self. Evelyn has a real beginning, middle and an end which
happens to all the characters in different ways. They’re all influenced by something being plucked out of their familiar lives in England and suddenly finding themselves in the middle of India,” Hayley said with a smile.
Could Hayley imagine herself embarking on a real-life Marigold Hotel scenario herself?
“No, because I’m so blessed to have my family. I wouldn’t want to be so far away from my two sons and my grandchildren. I also love this country too much. But then I’m not forced by circumstance to think about that as an option either,” the actress replied, telling me that because she is quote “old and old-fashioned” she still refers to herself in the feminine gender form: actress.
“But I don’t really mind. I’ll just go with the flow,” the friendly star admitted.
Hayley is a member of one of this country’s most celebrated acting dynasties. Her father is actor Sir John Mills; her mother is novelist and playwright Mary Hayley Bell [Lady Mills] and her sister Juliet is also an actress. Was it therefore inevitable that she would follow suit and tread the boards as well?
“This is hard to answer. It’s unpredictable. A throw of the dice. Roulette, isn’t it? But where I was really lucky was that I did Tiger Bay at a time when acting was purely instinct. I was a child. Of course, being in a family of actors and having a father who was a well-known British actor did have an influence on me as well. Also many of my father’s friends were actors too, so I met and mixed with many of them,” replied the actress, who counted as her neighbours at the family home in Buckinghamshire Roger Moore, Cilla Black and Peter Noone of the pop group Herman’s Hermits.
A most versatile actress, where and how does Hayley begin the transition from being herself to becoming her latest stage incarnation? Many thespians have told me they start with the shoes.
“One of them was probably my father who said that, Jeffrey! Shoes were terribly important for him. But if you’re lucky and the play is well-written and truthful about people as this one is, the best thing for me is to read the page again and again and again. Each time you read it, you get a better sense of the character and then you begin to fill it in; her story, her background, where she lived, who she married and what are her life experiences. It’s an accumulative experience. All of that part of rehearsing is such fun. Then comes the shoes and the clothes. And the hair which I have got to get right,” Hayley stressed.
Theatre, TV, film. Does Hayley have a particular favourite area or genre of her profession that she enjoys performing in?
“I don’t. But the most challenging is the theatre without any question. But it has tremendous advantages as well. Especially comedy. The subtle differences in a delivery means you either get a laugh or you don’t. Your energy level is vital and your contact with a live audience [is] absolutely marvellous. You’ve got to feel 100 per cent. But having said that, I also love being in front of the camera as well. As a child I just knew what the camera was thinking,” Hayley replied with a warm smile.
A much-celebrated actress, Hayley made her first film, Tiger Bay, when she was 12 years old for which she won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and a Bafta Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film. Since then she has made 33 films, including Pollyanna (winning an Academy Award at the age of 13) and Whistle Down the Wind.
“I look back at those films and experiences with tremendous affection, gratitude and pride,” says Hayley. “Gratitude and pride because I was in them. But you know you are very much part of a vast team when you make films as you are when you’re in theatre. No one is a one-man band.
“When the films became successful, again I realised I was part of a film that was successful. I didn’t take it on board like it was all about me. It was something that happened to me and I was grateful.
“I loved acting and being in front of the camera as I’ve said. It was instinctive and second nature, and I realised how very, very fortunate I was to discover an ability at a very early age and to have continued acting for the rest of my life. I have been so lucky,” Hayley said modestly, before telling me about a couple of surprise visitors who turned up at a theatre in Manchester to see her perform recently.
“You mentioned Whistle Down the Wind, Jeffrey. Well, Alan Barnes and Diane Holgate, who played my brother and sister in that film, came to see me in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It was wonderful to see them again after so long.
“For me, Tiger Bay [the 1958 film in which she appeared with her father] is a highlight. It was my first film and it was a masterclass in film acting.
“But you know stardom and all that at a young age had its difficult moments too. I was on my own a lot, which is not good. That’s why I can sympathise so much with the children who were isolated during the pandemic. It’s hard enough going through adolescence without being shut up in your room as well,” Hayley answered, sensitively.
Hayley admitted that she felt blessed to have had such a successful career on stage and in TV and films.
“Absolutely. My father said to me when I was a little girl, ‘You have been blessed and never forget that you are’. And I never have,” she said.
“We’re all looking forward to coming to Bath. The Theatre Royal is such a beautiful theatre because it was built by people with a great love and understanding of the theatre and the needs of the actors on stage,” Hayley said, going on to tell me that she really doesn’t have any particular roles she would still like to play one day, or productions to appear in, and is “just happy when the good parts come along”.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from November 28 to December 3. For tickets call 01225 448844 or go online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk