Critics adore her in Streetcar but Gillian Anderson admits: 'I made loads of mistakes'

 
26 June 2015
The Weekender

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Actress Gillian Anderson today said her critically acclaimed opening night as the tragic Southern belle Blanche DuBois was packed with mistakes.

Speaking after more than three hours on stage at the Young Vic in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, the former X-Files star said it was the “single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life”.

Anderson, 45, said she had “tripped up” on monologues that had gone “like clockwork” in previews as she took on a role previously played by Vivien Leigh, Glenn Close and Rachel Weisz.

She said: “It’s a joy if you get on top of it. That is what is so exquisite about his writing. If you are playing his writing and the phrases and the dashes and the instructions in parentheses, you can fly with it. Which is not necessarily what happened tonight.

“I made up more sentences tonight than I ever have in the entire run. I don’t feel good about that. But I didn’t die.

“To work on a piece of writing by someone so enormously talented is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. It is probably the single hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It is much more of a behemoth than I ever imagined it would be. It is literally like getting in a boxing ring every single night.”

But the experience made her want to do more great works. “It makes me want to embrace the extraordinary plays out there and be more discerning in what it is I spend my time on and who I spend it with.”

Playing Blanche had been an aim before she got too old but Henrik Ibsen’s famous heroine Hedda Gabler might be the next challenge — hopefully after taking Streetcar to New York: “People have always said to me to do Hedda.”

The play, seen last night by an audience including Eddie Redmayne, Ben Whishaw, Dominic Cooper, Hattie Morahan and Patricia Hodge, was “exhilarating,” she added. “I feel quite peaceful. It’s quite cathartic.”

Vanessa Kirby, who had previously worked with Anderson on the BBC’s Great Expectations and now plays her sister Stella, said the two were like real sisters — and that Anderson was nothing like her ice maiden image.

“She is one of the most playful people and kind and silly. I’ve told her my darkest secrets. We are like sisters. It’s weird. Our personalities match.”

Ben Foster, who has just shot a new Stephen Frears film in which he was 35lb lighter to play the cyclist Lance Armstrong, said he was much happier being able to eat to play the macho “baboon” Stanley Kowalski in his British stage debut.

The actor said: “This is not an easy interpretation. It’s not a romantic interpretation. It’s an aggressive assault and exploration of the language. In terms of my debut, I couldn’t have hoped for a better cast to go to war with.”

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