I don’t need Hollywood. Harry Potter was only 35 minutes up the road!
IMELDA STAUNTON is famous for roles in TV’S Cranford and Harry Potter but she may soon also have a reputation as a passionate environmental campaigner.
The strong-minded 64-year-old actress, who is promoting ITV’S new drama Flesh And Blood, worries about climate change.
“Of course I bloody do! I mean, Trump is the first one we need to get rid of, and climate change is the next problem.”
In a combative mood, the Bafta-winning performer believes the Australian bushfires are a wake-up call – especially to any Aussies who disbelieve what is happening.
“They’ve been presented with something now, haven’t they? You can’t put it more plainly than that,” she says.
Just like fellow actress Emma Thompson, she is actively campaigning. “I did a bit of filming for Extinction Rebellion, we’re [husband and actor Jim Carter] members of Greenpeace, and we do voiceovers and stuff for them. I haven’t been up the side of a building yet but I’m working up to it.”
She wasn’t happy that Emma Thompson was accused of hypocrisy when the Nanny Mcphee actress flew home for an Extinction
Rebellion protest. “I thought that was very unfair,” she says. “No one is going to stop flying.you have to do just what you can and I mean that in a big way and a small way. Oh yeah, it’s not good.”
And don’t get her started on living in Hollywood either, not even with all that sunshine.
“Jesus Christ... NO! No, thanks mate. No thank you very much.”
Couldn’t an American agent change your mind? “Honest to god, no,” she insists. “Harry Potter, the biggest thing in the world, was 35 minutes up the road from where I live. Thank you! That’s it. I don’t need to go anywhere.”
Hollywood, she says, is for the next generation. “Of course young actors should think about it, and there are many more opportunities for them there. There’s also crossing back and forth across the pond with American actors coming here. It’s healthier now, of course it is.
“But where I am now in my life, I want to be at home and go to work and hope to
do some really good work and that’s that, rather than ringing up young Jim going, ‘Oh, another two weeks they think...’ I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to go.”
“Young Jim” as she calls him is noted for his charity cycling marathons.
“He’s great,” says Saunton. “He’s not doing any cycling at the moment. He’d quite like to get back on the bike but the autumn has been taken up with Downton Abbey palaver [in which she also starred].
“It was nice to do all the publicity together – if you’ve got to go to America... which of course none of us ever want to set foot in the place, it’s quite nice to go with your partner.”
Staunton has landed two brilliant, back to back roles on ITV, including her triumph alongside Martin Freeman in Obsession.
In Flesh And Blood, she plays nosey neighbour Mary who is recounting a story to the police about an incident next door.
“It’s an unusual, refreshing drama that is hugely intriguing. All of the different parts of the family story are very interesting with a mystery right from the start. It also highlights the intricacies of three grown-up children’s relationships with their partners, expartners and with their mother,” she says.
“We know from the beginning that something bad has happened to one of these characters before the story goes back in time. But you are never quite sure exactly what that is and who it involves until the end of the drama.”
Being a neighbour in a big city means something different to elsewhere in the country, she believes. “In London you can have neighbours who are best mates and others who you think, ‘I’ve only seen them twice’. I like that you don’t have to make friends with every single person on your road. And you don’t have to ignore every person in your road.”
Staunton was born in Archway, north London, to Irish parents. Her mother was a hairdresser and her father a road labourer. She went to convent school where she took elocution lessons from her drama teacher.
“She really took hold of my fate at that stage, telling me which drama school to audition for etc. She comes to all my theatre stuff, so it’s very lovely.”
Staunton’s first professional TV gig was
Dennis Potter’s extraordinary The Singing Detective as a nurse. “TV is just as creative now, but getting commissioned is another thing. In those days, writers were really nurtured, and they were allowed to do what they wanted. One producer could say, ‘Yes, go and do that’. Now, it’s a very difficult time for them – ‘That person has got to say yes, then another, and so on. Then it has to go upstairs to the 14-year-olds to say yes. Committee has ruined creativity.”
Staunton says she’s mostly recognised for her Harry Potter role as Dolores Umbridge. “That’s mainly with younger people who should have grown up by now! I think Vera Drake as well, together with the musicals. It doesn’t really matter, you know; we’ll all be gone in a minute and it won’t matter.”
Thankfully, both work and family give her much satisfaction.
“I couldn’t live without my job and I couldn’t live without my life as it is, and I’ve got it how I want it now. I’ve got my cake and I’m eating every single bit of it.”
● Flesh And Blood, ITV, Monday, February 24, 9pm