I won’t strip off on screen again says Keeley, 41
SHE has filmed some fairly racy scenes in her time.
But Keeley Hawes has vowed never to appear nude on screen again – claiming that viewers would be distracted from the plot by the sight of her breasts now she is 41.
The mother-of-three, who returns for the second series of ITV drama The Durrells this week, appeared naked in the 2000 film Complicity and topless in 2002 BBC lesbian drama
Tipping The Velvet. But she said in an interview: ‘I’m never going nude again.
‘I think I’ve just gone past the stage where it’s doable, because now it would be, “That’s what a 41-year-old’s boobs really look like?” as opposed to anything to do with the plot.
‘And there would be comparisons with things I did in my 20s, which I really don’t need in my life.’ The star, who has appeared in several popular BBC dramas recently including Line of Duty and The Missing, praised the fact women are better represented on TV nowadays.
She told the Daily Telegraph’s Stella magazine: ‘The TV schedules are full of brilliant women: they’re heading up series and films. It feels like the industry listened when people said it needed to stop being ageist.’
However, the actress said women still do not enjoy equal pay in TV, and that her husband Matthew Macfadyen, whom she met on the set of BBC spy drama Spooks and married in 2004, still earns more than her.
She said: ‘I know what men are being paid, because I’m married to one who is on the same level as I am in TV-land – and there is still a disparity.’
When asked how big the difference was, she said: ‘Big enough that you have to fight. To hold out.’
‘Comparisons with my 20s’