Imelda Staunton says she is happy to sacrifice glamour to play dowdy and downtrodden women — because they make for more interesting characters.
The Bafta-winning actress is currently starring in Good People, a play by American writer David Lindsay-Abaire. She plays Margaret, a desperate jobless mother of a disabled daughter from the wrong side of the tracks.
Staunton, 58, said: “Their lives are rich and difficult and it’s a much richer vein to try to tap into.”
The play transferred from a sell-out run at the Hampstead Theatre to the Noël Coward in the West End last night. Staunton said the audience responded strongly to the twists in the plot.
“The reaction is remarkable,” she said. “I’ve never done a play where people are gasping so much. It is moving.”
Good People examines the notion that everyone is responsible for their lives through the choices they make. Staunton, star of Harry Potter and Vera Drake, said it was very “true” in suggesting “not everyone has the choices that people think”.
She added: “Politically it’s so on the nose about not everyone can be a president —and particularly in America where they keep banging on about ‘We can do whatever we want’ and live the dream. And we can’t actually. That’s the reality.” Her 65-year-old husband Jim Carter, who plays butler Mr Carson in Downton Abbey, was in the audience for the opening night.
Staunton said she was pleased about the West End run. “I want people to see a play that is highly entertaining with very serious points to make.”
Her co-star Lloyd Owen plays Mike, Margaret’s teenage sweetheart who goes on to become a successful doctor. He compared his character to Thatcherite self-made millionaires and said the play was pertinent in Britain where “we’ve got a bunch of old Etonians telling us to work harder”.
He said the gasps from the audience fuelled the show: “The best theatre is created by a combination of the actor and the audience.”
