At the end of the day…

Catherine Tyldesley

I have to go where the work takes me, but Manchester is home. When we moved into our house, everything needed doing. We did a lot of work last year – walls were knocked down and rebuilt and we needed a new roof – but for me, once you’ve got a child it’s all about clever storage. Any trace of children is hidden away. I like the old saying: ‘a tidy home means a tidy mind’.

My characters are left at the door, most of the time. But I do struggle: if I’ve been filming very emotional scenes then I find that quite hard to shake off. It might take me a couple of hours to get rid of that. But generally, I’m straight into mum mode. If I act like my character is still attached, my son Alfie, who’s six, will go, ‘Mum, what are you doing? Crack on and get the Lego out.’

I’m normally home for bath and bedtime, with stories and tickling Alfie’s back for half an hour. But once he’s down I’ll either read scripts or write or film self-taped auditions. But on the weekends I try to switch off more. Kate, my character in Viewpoint, is a challenge as she has so many layers: she’s a bit of a femme fatale, so I felt I could really get my teeth into her. I had to do quite a bit of research, but I have good friends who are psychotherapists and psychologists, so I can approach them and ask them to help me understand characters better.

I love cooking. I use it to unwind, so quite often – if I’m home in time for dinner – we cook together. My husband Tom, who’s a photographer, loves to cook, and we encourage Alfie to help as well. We’ve started growing our own vegetables and it’s such a joy to send Alfie out into the garden to get a lettuce.

Eating well and staying active is important in my family, but as an actor you also have to go where your character goes. My latest is a runner, so I’ve been practising that but I have the worst run. I’m talking Phoebe from Friends. I told the director that he might want to just film from my head up.

We try to watch a bit of something just to switch off. Bridgerton was the ultimate chocolate-box series for me. It was so needed. I loved The Serpent for its style. And we’ve just got into Your Honor. But my favourite series is This Is Us. You feel a better person for watching it. But every time I do, I end up waking Alfie up just to tell him how much I love him. It’s one of the most well-written, well-constructed series I’ve ever seen. I think actors watch things differently. When I turn to Tom and say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have played it like that,’ or, ‘Wasn’t that genius? Did you see what she did?’ I probably do spoil it a bit for him.

I’m quite avid with my beauty regime. I never used to be, but needs must:

I’ve aged about 10 years in lockdown. If

I’ve got time,

I love a bath; it really unwinds me.

A full-on bath with lavender salts and candles. Then I need my eight hours. I never understand people who say they can get by on four. But I do suffer from insomnia from time to time: I really should put my phone away at night. I’m quite big on dreams as well. I like to look them up and find the hidden meaning. But sometimes I’m just dreaming of carbs.

‘Viewpoint’ is coming to ITV in April