British actress Penelope Wilton has worked extensively in theatre, film and TV, with leading roles in Ever Decreasing Circles, The Borrowers, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Downton Abbey, the hit TV show in which she plays Isobel Crowley. She discusses the effects the success of the televesion series has had on her career, the importance of actors listening to each other and why dressing up for premieres is her idea of hell.
Q: What first drew you to acting?
A: It’s difficult to know: there was none in my childhood, but I was always fascinated by the theatre. I saw the original production of West Side Story when Iwas about 10, and felt like I was stepping into a whole other world.
Q: What was your big breakthrough?
A: Meeting the director Stuart Burge: he gave me my first job, at Nottingham Playhouse. I’d been writing to agents and theatres for a year after drama school and never had any replies. Then Stuart gave me a job on a children’s theatre tour. After that, my life in the theatre built up gradually.
Q: Stage or screen: which is more challenging?
Theatre for an actor, because you are more in command. With film, the director is in charge because he tells the audience where to look, you’re more of a cog in a wheel.
Q; Have you been taken aback by the success of Downton Abbey?
I have. That sounds rather rude to Julian, because he writes very good scripts; but no one could have predicted it would be so popular. One can see why the show requires its audience to follow 18 characters. It’s like a small theatre company, really. It has changed things for me, too. I’m not getting huge offers from Hollywood, but success on a large scale, rather than with the smaller demographic you get in the theatre, is a very nice thing.
Q: Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?
A: Relationships are difficult when you’re working. They haven’t been the most successful part of my life.
Q: What’s the biggest myth about being an actor?
A: That it’s glamorous. Having to get dressed up for premieres is my idea of hell. But I suppose some people like it.
Q: What advice would you give a young actor?
A: Never stop listening to fellow actors. Acting is a communal thing: you must make sure you don’t act in a bubble.
Q: What song would be the soundtrack to your life?
A: I have a daughter called Alice, and when she was a little girl she was very small – she was 2lb 9oz when she was born. There was a lovely song out at the time called Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder. She’s been the best thing that’s happened to me.
Q: What’s the worst thing anyone ever said about you?
A: A critic once said to my face: “You’re not as good as you think you are.” As I’d spent most of my life not thinking I was that great, it was a terrible shock.
Q: What are you most proud of?
A: Keeping going.
Q: Is there anything about your career you regret?
A: No. When I was younger, I regretted doing certain plays that I instinctively felt weren’t right for me. I won’t name them because it would be unkind. But as you get a bit older, you think: “Well, the bad and the good have all made up who I am now.”
*Downton Abbey airs every Thursday in the UAE on OSN First HD
