Spotlight

War & Peace actress Chloe Pirrie is taking on the Brontë sisters this Christmas. By Laura Silverman

WHO? Period drama fans will know Chloe from the lavish BBC series War & Peace, on screens earlier this year, in which she played the heiress who married Boris Drubetskoy. Now she returns to TV as the reclusive and enigmatic Emily Brontë in To Walk Invisible, a one-off drama about the tragic lives of the ambitious literary family. BIG BREAK A school trip to see Look Back in Anger at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh sparked Chloe’s interest in acting – and not just because it starred David Tennant. A year after graduating from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she made her stage debut in Josie Rourke’s acclaimed production of Men Should Weep at the National Theatre. She next ventured into film, winning Most Promising Newcomer at the 2013 British Independent Film Awards and earning a nomination for Best British Newcomer at the BFI London Film Festival Awards, both for indie feature Shell. THE BIG IDEA? To Walk Invisible is written and directed by Sally Wainwright, of Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax fame. It tells the story of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë – and their brother Branwell, an alcoholic and drug addict. To prepare, Chloe read Emily’s poetry and her only novel Wuthering Heights. ‘There’s a real wildness and violence to the story that I had never noticed as a teenager,’ says Chloe, 29. WHAT’S NEXT? Catch Chloe as Eileen Parker, wife of the private secretary to the Duke of Edinburgh, in the second series of The Crown, on Netflix next year.

To Walk Invisible will air this Christmas on BBC One