‘The industry playfulness has gone’
about a person’s humanity, not whether you’ve ‘had stuff done’ or are ageing gracefully. What the hell does that even mean? I might get Alzheimer’s or dementia and have no choice in matters of ‘grace’. So honestly I’m very pro 50s, because, above all, you get what I would describe as a surety of purpose.”
In the new year, we’ll see Richardson star alongside her mother in Julien Landais’s adaptation of Henry James’s The Aspern Papers. She’s also in a new Starz TV series, The Rook, “in which I play a fabulous character who is the complete opposite of Lila – basically Stella Rimington”. And when people try to commiserate with her over “how tough it must be getting roles when you’re older”, the actress throws it back at them. “Things have only got more interesting for me! And if I’m lucky I can keep going into my 80s, like my mum.”
She will say that because of the “revolution” that has taken place in her industry and beyond, “things have got much better for women in general”.
Jennifer Lawrence – her co-star in Red Sparrow
– “was so impressive” in making a stand for equal pay, well before #Metoo highlighted other abuses and inequalities. “I remember asking why men were being paid more years ago and being told: ‘It’s just the way it is.’ So what’s good is that rules have been set – and it has really filtered down.
“But what’s tricky in terms of the very famous cases is that that’s more of a personality disorder issue than what actually goes on in this industry,” she points out, clearly referring to the Hollywood-sized villain that is Harvey Weinstein. “And sometimes things can swing very far in one direction first.”
Ask her what she means by this and Richardson tells me that “sometimes now at work, the men are almost strait-jacketed. And there’s a level of playfulness that’s gone. Then, sometimes women are not as aware as they should be that if this exists for the men, then it means we have to behave in that way, too.”
Richardson wrestles with whether or not to say something more for a moment. “I don’t know if you feel this, but on the days when I really try, and I’ve had my hair and make-up done and nobody says ‘Oh, you look nice’, because it’s really politically incorrect now…” She shrugs: “I think that’s sad – don’t you?”
I do. But the idea that there are women like her out there – women who refuse to parrot the accepted thoughts on men and women and the “fading 50s” we’re supposed to lament; women who have been through personal tragedy but decided to enjoy life – well, that makes me happy.