Jessica Raine: ‘If I’d been born in Tudor times I’d have married a blacksmith’
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Version 0 of 1. Your career started with you playing a series of bolshie teenagers. Are you pleased to have grown out of these roles, and what has coming of age on stage been like? I’m pleased to leave them behind but I also miss them because, God, they were so much fun to play. The breakout for me was Cleo Singer, a girl in her early 20s with a New York accent, in Clifford Odets’s Rocket to the Moon at the National [in 2011] – an amazing part. From that moment onwards it was goodbye to teenagers. You were born in Herefordshire, a farmer’s daughter. Can you give me a snapshot of your childhood? I grew up on the Welsh borders. I remember walks on my own, playing by streams and a rubbish dump full of those Victorian green poison bottles… I remember digging up stuff… and an old car overgrown with ivy. It was a magical upbringing, although quite bleak at times. Boredom was important to me because it’s through boredom that you have to imagine. What made you want to be an actor? It’s still a mystery. I was really shy and quite neurotic. I did Bugsy Malone at school. Everyone was shocked when I got the part of Tallulah at 13. But I’ve always felt comfortable and safe within a story – I can play within the parameters of a role. Why would you feel safer in a story? That’s difficult, it’s very personal. Things can go terribly wrong, and acting can be an escape from things that are terrifying as a kid. Also, acting involved being able to say things when, as a shy kid, you couldn’t speak. So is acting an escape or does it make you more yourself? Both. It’s an escape when it’s going really well, you lose yourself when you’re in it. It’s like a blanking out. You went to Rada after all the drama colleges had turned you down on your first try. What did you learn there? I learned to be more open. It taught me a lot about voice – an ongoing thing. It’s about breathing and emotion, and connecting the two. Tell me about the character you play in the forthcoming BBC2 adaptation of Wolf Hall... Jane Rochford is unhappily married to George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s brother – an arranged marriage. She has no children. In Hilary Mantel’s books, she is accused of being barren. It was brilliant going to the books – invaluable. Apparently, on their wedding night, George Boleyn looked at Jane’s breasts and said: “Oh, they are pathetic…” What would it have been like to be a Tudor woman, and how would you have coped with it? It was a terrible time to be a woman. Your virginity was all, and once it was gone you were tainted. God forbid you couldn’t have children. One thing I’ve never understood is why everyone was so desperate to be in the court because everyone gets beheaded. If I were born in that period, I’d marry a blacksmith, hope to have some children and keep out of court. What was it like working on Wolf Hall? I gather much of it was shot by candlelight? I was thrilled when I got the offer. I really liked working with Peter Kosminsky. And I loved the candlelight. I always associate acting with darkness and being lit and not being able to see the audience, this was a similar experience in many ways. It helps fire up your imagination. What is Damian Lewis’s Henry VIII like? Damian’s Henry is a little more vulnerable (and a lot less portly) than one’s standard image of Henry VIII. He desperately wants an heir, behaves appallingly but at the same time is besotted with Anne Boleyn, and it is this messed-up relationship where she holds him off. Which part so far has come closest to your own character? Parts rub off on you. The woman I’m playing now [Tuppence, one half of Agatha Christie’s detective couple in Partners in Crime, another forthcoming BBC series] has fantastic energy. Normally I’m a bit of a hermit when working but with this part I want to go out and have fun. In my dreams, I’m like Tuppence. The script is such fun, so light. Wolf Hall is a fantastic project but very dark. What has been your favourite and most transforming costume? Jane Rochford’s with the square neckline – you are firmly corseted beneath. One of my dresses had fur pelts hanging from both sleeves that weighed a ton. I had a wig and “gables” on either side. The costume made me feel pinched and mean, which was good – all black, purply and spidery. Yet it was also sensual. The costume helped me feel I could insinuate my way into the part. It was cockroachy – we did actually call my character “Roachy”. You are also about to be in Fortitude [a new thriller for Sky TV] as the mother of a desperately ill son. Was that gruelling? I had been hankering after the part but found it harrowing. We shot the exteriors in Iceland and the interiors in a hangar in Hayes. It was such a bleak character to play – you could not go home happy. And how about new year. Will you be making any resolutions? No. It’s pointless because I’m not sure that humans change by saying they will do something. And I’ve never been a person of extremes. I’ve never dieted, for instance. What do you like to do when not acting? I love exploring. I want to go to Stockholm and Copenhagen. They are so civilised. Sofie Gråbøl [of The Killing fame, acting in Fortitude alongside Raine] was surprised we work 14-15 hour days filming. She asked: “What do you do if you have children?!” What are you doing next? Do you know? I’m happy not to know, though I may be tearing my hair out on 2 January . Wolf Hall is on BBC2 in January. Fortitude starts on Sky Atlantic on 26 January |