FRESH CHALLENGE
Zoë Wanamaker on loving life and tricky roles
As a young actor, Zoë Wanamaker obsessively tried to lose weight. Then, a few years ago, when she was in her late 60s, she realised that she had dropped two dress sizes without actually trying.
‘All that self-loathing, as far as the weight was concerned, disappeared about three years ago,’ she says. ‘I am now the weight I always wanted to be and I had nothing to do with it! I think the menopause just hit me and it all fell off. I don’t know how, but now
I can wear skinny jeans without being paranoid. I was a size 12 and I am now a size eight.
‘I wasted a whole lot of time beating myself up, running excessively, having all those treatments to get slimmer thighs… and then, I don’t know what happened, I dropped two dress sizes,’ she adds. ‘I don’t weigh myself, so the first time I noticed was when I had to buy new clothes!’
Zoë immediately bursts out laughing at the thought of all that wasted effort in the past. In fact, a lot of her conversation is punctuated by laughter. She doesn’t take herself too seriously – although she is known as being a serious actor, with many diverse roles to her name.
This summer, as the theatres open again, Zoë is returning to London’s West End in a revival of the play Constellations, about the relationship between Marianne, a cosmologist, and Roland, who is a beekeeper. It’s a two-hander, so Zoë, as Marianne, and her co-star Peter Capaldi are on stage throughout.
Written by Nick Payne, it’s a multi-layered play, taking in quantum physics and cosmology; and it’s exactly the kind of work that Zoë loves to do.
‘The play is intense, it is funny and touching, it’s all you could want in a piece of work,’ she explains. ‘It makes you think and it is human, and I was really terrified by it. When something frightens me, it is usually a sign that I should do it.’
Mirroring the play’s theme of infinite possibilities, the run will feature four different casts. As well as Zoë and Peter, there is a Black couple played by Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah, a same-sex couple played by Omari Douglas and Russell Tovey and the final pairing is Line Of Duty actor Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O’dowd.
With such great names, it is likely that some fans will book to see more than one performance
I always wanted to be an actor. It looked glamorous
and compare them with one another. ‘The fact that we have four couples doing it is terrifying – I just don’t want the others to be better!’ quips Zoë.
CATCHING THE ACTING BUG
Born in New York, Zoë is the middle daughter of actor and director Sam Wanamaker and actor Charlotte Holland. The family moved to the UK when she was a baby. She always wanted to be an actor, despite her parents trying very hard to put her off. ‘They were being protective, really,’ she says. ‘They didn’t think I had the stamina for it. In the end, they gave in – they had to. Being an actor looked glamorous and romantic. Also being the child of actors, I was privileged enough to meet actors, people whom I admired.’
Zoë seems to have inherited the same determination as her father, who famously spent years raising funds to build Shakespeare’s Globe in Southwark, yards from the site of the original theatre.
‘It was a passion of his,’ she says. ‘It took 27 years of his life to get that thing up – it
probably cost him his life. It’s a monument to one man’s incredible belief. Of course I am proud of it – the struggles to get it built, the begging he had to do! At least it elevates him from being in the ether to being alive and kicking in some way, so I celebrate that.’
Zoë has, however, never acted at the Globe herself. She has said that it would be too much pressure, but her theatre work elsewhere has earned her many awards over the years. Meanwhile, on TV she is probably best known for starring with Robert Lindsay in the hugely popular sitcom My Family, which ran for 11 series. Overnight, she had to get used to being recognised when she was out and about.
‘At first I found it irritating because we had all done other stuff,’ she laughs. ‘But I enjoyed the cast very much, we got on very well. They were family, which was great. You become very close when you work with people because you cling to one another.
It is a group effort.’
CREATING A FAMILY
Zoë was 45 when she married actor and writer Gawn Grainger, who she’d first met on the set of film The Raggedy Rawney in 1988. She was friends with him and his wife, actor Janet Key, and, after Janet died of cancer, Zoë and Gawn became closer. They married in 1994 and Zoë became stepmother to his two children.
She reveals that she left it entirely up to Gawn to make all the arrangements for their wedding: ‘I said to him, “If you organise it, then I will turn up!” He had to; it was something I had never considered doing. I had seen too many divorces and unhappiness and I thought, if that’s what came out of marriage, I don’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be in a situation where it was painful. Now, though, I am glad we did it. I enjoy being married – we have been very lucky.’
One of the reasons for getting married was for the children. ‘My daughter was 12 and my son was 14, at the time. They needed a lot of support; in a way that’s why we got married, because I felt they needed a permanency of some kind,’ she adds. ‘Their mother had died, which
I want to go out dancing, get sweaty and drink too much
was tragic and terrible, but they were such generous people. I was lucky, I only once heard: “You’re not my mother”.
‘I call them my daughter and son because that is what they are. I feel like they are mine. I spent half of their lives with them. Now they have children of their own; they have two kids each – and I am a grandmother; it’s delightful.’
Now 72, Zoë strongly objects to being judged on her age and doesn’t see any reason to change her outlook on life. ‘It is important for younger people to see that older people have not turned off a switch and become a kind of muted or non-feeling entity,’ she protests. ‘I do want to go out dancing and get sweaty and drink too much and go home at three in the morning, and I do want to have sex and I do want to dress up how I want to dress up, and I want to have a life and choose what I want to do!’
HOPES POST COVID
Zoë particularly loves meeting friends and soaking up culture together, so found the restrictions of the pandemic very hard to cope with: ‘I missed going to a museum, I missed going to see something, walking into Tate Modern or going to the National Portrait Gallery or the Royal Academy. I missed meeting people inside and having a meal, being
human and having a connection. The joy of going to the theatre and for something to eat afterwards and talking about it… All of that is important to me.’
With the lockdowns and restrictions now hopefully behind us, Zoë says she’s looking forward to having a busy diary, full of shows and exhibitions. Her immediate focus, though, is on taking to the stage again herself – and ensuring that she becomes the brightest star in Constellations.
Constellations is at the Vaudeville Theatre from 18 June to 12 September (Zoë stars opposite Peter Capaldi from 23 June to 24 July); call 0330 333 4814 or visit nimaxtheatres.com