That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Harriet Walter

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

On this week's Reasons To Be Joyful, Gaby is joined by the brilliantly, funny, joyous and talented actor, Dame Harriet Walter.Harriet has had such an amazing career, and continues to appear in some of the most popular shows on TV (Succession, Ted Lasso, Killing Eve, The Crown)They discuss her various roles, her favourite child from Succession, her love of Shakespeare, the roles for women in theatre and on screen and what makes her belly laugh. Harriet also explains why she is learning Russian, and why she thinks everyone should try to learn a language.She really is so much fun - and we hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we did making it!**This episode was recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You just been doing your duolingo. Is this true that you're learning Russian on duolingo? If so, how long is your streak? Okay, I've long ago sort of given up on streaks. But when I do compete, I'm quite high up there, you know. I don't know, I'm sort of number eight or something out of 25 or, you know, I'm doing okay. Okay, I'm in class. But, you know, the difference is getting it all right on duolingo and having a conversation with a real live Russian.

which I'm not sort of in a position to do at the moment, as you can imagine. Have you got any Russian friends who are here that you could talk to? The very sad truth is I started learning this when I was doing a Chekhov play in London. And I went to Russia because I wanted to sort of soak up the atmosphere. It was an excuse to travel, really. And I started learning then. And that was ages ago. I mean, I should be very fluent by now if I'd kept it up.

But I asked to meet a Russian teacher in London. And I stayed friends with him, even though we couldn't manage lessons for very long, because of various reasons. We live in such different parts of the country. But he died this year. Oh, I'm so sorry. It wasn't unexpected, but, you know, it's like the incentive was slightly wilted. Oh, I'm sorry.

You know, this is not just in order to communicate with Russians and read Russian literature. This is to stop me getting Alzheimer's, really. Oh, you know, it's really, that's one of the things, as they say, doing all the brain training and learning a new language. And every time I try, because I love Italian and I've always wanted to be able to. I can speak it when I'm there in a restaurant, but that's it. Not actually having conversations. And I would say, you can order a Bolognese.

Yes, exactly. And to fizzy water. So rock and roll. But I just, everyone says that it's really important to learn a new language because it's good for our brains. Just keep them switched on. You think of all the different paths your brain's got to relearn. And also what I look, because I've always been a bit of a linguist.

It's been my strong suit at school and all of that. And I had languages spoken all around me as a kid, which is a big advantage. So the notion of saying what you're thinking in a completely different way was planted very early on in my brain as a growing child. And I think that's... Children who are bilingual have a huge advantage, not just because they can get on in that country, but because they know about the flexibility of the way you think,

because the way you construct a sentence is different in a different language, so you think differently. It's subtle, but it's subtle, but it's subtle. But it's huge. I'm so annoyed. My mother was a linguist. And I wish that I just kept saying, no, I don't want to.

She could speak six languages fluently. I wish I'd listened to her. You know, she's been dead many years. I wish she's up there now laughing, saying, you see, you should have listened to me. Yeah, the things we should have listened to our parents about yorn, yorn. Yes. Maybe we won't go there.

But I've got a friend who's, I've got a friend whose brother, married a French woman and they live in France but he refuses to let his children learn English and I think that's incredibly selfish Really? Why is that? I can't think why I mean

you know English is one of the most spoken languages in the world I really don't know what that's about but anyway the more you can learn when you're young I wish I'd learnt Russian when I was young and my brain didn't keep interfering saying why the hell does it go like that and what a stupid word and how am I

supposed to learn that. You know, it's so interesting. I wasn't going to start talking about this, but I think we should because you're talking about learning. And the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation that we have spoken about before, it's learning at a young age, something like languages, like Shakespeare,

is vital and just the idea of bringing Shakespeare into schools. I just think it's so important. When we spoke about it before, I went home and I discussed it with my kids and they just said, and they were lucky enough to have been taught Shakespeare, very young. And they just said they love it. And to hear young people saying that is fantastic.

I completely agree. And I know the RSC are doing all sorts of outreach programs with schools teaming up in schools all over the country. They've got a program with their education department. They showed me a little video the other day and the kids are going, I just love having kids. something a bit difficult to learn.

And, you know, the thing is, when we're kids, it's absolutely taken us read that we're going to spend a lot of our days learning new stuff. That's what we do in school. That's what we do. That's what the human brain does from the minutes it's born. It tries to absorb information and understand what's going on around it. And when we get older, we start to question those things.

We start to sort of be picky about what we, you know, associations, we attach with things. We go, Shakespeare's for posh people. We're not going to do that. You know, when you're young, you just go, this is an exciting story. The words are a bit quirky and odd, but I'll get to learn them. And, you know, I can have a go. That's what the Shakespeare School Festival and the RSC now and lots of places now

saying, you know, don't sit them down in a classroom with an iPad, get them up and running and saying the words themselves. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. When were you first introduced to Shakespeare then? Well, having said that, I'm a total latecomer. I think we've read it round the country. class when I was sort of eight or nine. We read Macbeth or Julius Caesar or one of those things. And we sort of read them around the class. And of course, you're listening to your neighbor who's

also eight years old or nine years old and can't read it properly. And so you don't understand it. And you sound just as bad as they do. And it moves on around the class and you haven't a clue what it's about. I quite like Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble because it sounded good. But, you know, otherwise, I don't think I came away with very much. So that's down to the teaching and the sort of classic in my age group way of teaching was to sit you down in the classroom, which then it becomes literature. And Shakespeare wrote plays.

He didn't write literature. So I didn't come to it until I started to long to act. And at drama school, I remember this teacher going on and on and on, at this one speech I had to do in Shakespeare. We only did Shakespeare for one term. But she went on and on and on. The other kids in the class were going, oh, I'm going off to get a cup of tea.

and I was going, give me more, give me more, give me more, yes, and I've got to do that, and I've got to do that, oh, I see, and then I've got to keep the rhythm going, oh, and I've got to imagine I'm that, oh yeah, okay, and I've got to pronounce the, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I just loved all the challenges that it brought, and I thought, this is what I'm a challenge, but everyone else was going, no, I'd rather do, you know, East Enders, whatever, I'm slightly putting them down, it's not quite true, but I remember just looking back, I thought, oh, this is great stuff. you said that when you longed to be an actor. So when did that longing start? Well, I think very early on actually I decided I wanted to act like about nine or ten. There's very formative years, aren't there? I keep mentioning one and ten. But yeah, it was, you know, I'm sure I could go on a psychiatrist's couch and figure out why. I mean, my sister had just gone to boarding school. I was on my own. I did a lot of sort of long walks playing on my own and making stories up and and then there was Haley Mills. For my generation, Haley Mills was a sort of huge factor because here was a child who was famous. Here was a child who got to be in all sorts of

adventures and, you know, and take on the grown-ups and be as important if not more important than the grown-ups. So I think it was just, at the early stages, it was about that. It was about escaping and getting into adventures and other stories. And also being important, being the centre of the story. That makes total sense. And it's very interesting, though, that all the interviews that I've read and in my research and before chatting to you before as well, that everybody tries to link it to your

uncle and I love that you always say no he was an actor but it was about something I felt and it's weird how people want to always if you do whatever you do they always want to go oh I know there's everybody tries to be a sort of you know sit there

and take you through a be a psychologist I know the reason but I love your reason it's nothing to do with any of that this is because you were out there picturing yourself as Haley Mills and imagining that fabulous world that you could see on film and on TV.

I mean, it made a difference in that I've actually just finished reading my uncle's autobiography because I had to do an interview about him not so long ago and I thought I'd better bone up on his life, you know. And I found a lot in common, but it was sort of in retrospect and sadly he's gone. So, I mean, we did have lots of conversations in later life about, you know, fellow actors and jobs we liked and jobs we didn't like and things like. But when I was growing up and young, he was off, you know, making films all around the world and I didn't see that much of him. When we did see him, he was a very exotic figure.

But I think what comes over when I read the book is how, first of all, the elements in the family that I was fighting and he was fighting, which were to do with a certain sort of, I don't know, sort of narrow upper middle class social, social, world that we were both trying to sort of, I suppose, break out of. And secondly, you know, so any snobbery about him going into that profession had been worked through by him and it paved the way for me. It meant my grandmother didn't have a heart attack when I said I wanted to act because she'd already had one when her son said he wanted to act.

I think that helped a bit. And no, that interested me to read all that and sort of realize how. much we had in common in a funny way. The big difference was that he'd been through the war as a very young man. So he, you know, every time he was pretending to, you know, there was blood and guts, he thought, I've seen the real thing and this is make-believe. Whereas I tend to take my work very seriously. He didn't take it that seriously.

He thought this is a great way of life. I'm seeing the world. I'm meeting loads of people. I'm getting to play golf, which is all I really want to do. You know, I've taken it much more seriously in a way and gone into the theatre and done Shakespeare and the classics and all that. Which he once told me, he rather envied me because he came to see me at the RSC when I was about 30 and he stood on the stage and he said, oh my God, I wish I'd done this, you know. Really? Yeah, yeah.

That's fascinating. I'm sort of quite, I can't imagine what it must be like to read the autobiography of your uncle and to learn things about. him now as an adult, that that must be quite extraordinary, things that you didn't know. It really was. Yeah, and I just wished I'd talked to him about those things when he was alive. Although the funny thing is that the other thing about that sort of, I mean, I'm painting my background is very stiff and horrible. It wasn't.

It's just that what you absolutely did not do was look inside your head. You did not introspect. and you also rarely emoted. So of course those two things, you know, if you've got that temperament, which he obviously did and I have, you just, you feel very repressed. And so I kind of wanted to make that link with him,

but because he's a man of a certain age and grew up in that world, whether or not he liked it, he also wouldn't dream of going into some psychological death. Yes. You know, he wouldn't have wanted to do that. So we kept chat nice and easy And we just didn't go there

But when I'm thinking about it now I just wish I could have said Hey do you think because your mother My grandmother was blah blah That's fascinating But you're I mean The areas that you've gone into You know Hammer House

I suppose that's what he's most famous for But you though And we started talking about Shakespeare And I've seen you on stage in Shakespeare I remember seeing you Where it was the role reversal And that Oh, that was incredible,

playing the women playing the men's roles. Was that about 15 years ago? It was 2012 to 2017. Five years between 2012 and 2017. Just incredible. And it didn't play with my mind at all. It absolutely made sense. And it was very liberating.

I took my elder daughter, who's studied things. theatre. She's 21, so she was very young and I took her to it. And she found it incredible. I'm still to this day. And I've seen you as so many things. We'll talk about other things. But that one, I don't know, it played on my mind in a most beautiful way. I can't think of another way of putting it. Well, that's so good to hear. And of course, it went down incredibly well, even though there was a lot of prejudice before we did it, when people came and saw it,

they kind of dropped some of their objections, which was great to see that. And, you know, the first barrier when we first did it in 2012 or 2013, we did Julius Caesar. That's what I saw. Yes. Yeah, okay. Well, you know, we got such good reactions from that

that we felt inclined to do more. And we did two other plays and made it a trilogy. But I remember sort of, before we started, there was so much male paranoia about, you know, where we're going to steal their jobs. And it was even written in the papers, you know, poor men, they're going to...

Oh! And you thought, wait a minute, you know, we'd have to do this many, many, many times over to equalize, you know, it's not going to happen. Don't worry, your jobs are safe. But it was, what was great was that, I think, in all

same-sex versions, so you're all female or all male, the audience does start to pretty quickly forget the gender of the actor and just thinks of the gender of the character. If you mix them within the play, I think you've got to have very good reasons for doing that because I think the audience gets a bit muddled. You know, if you have a male Juliet and a female nurse

and a male friar and a female cap here, you know, it's sort of odd. So I think that the, one of the purposes of all female, apart from balancing up the, you know, the gender balance of actors was, you know, to make people hear the play properly and not worry about what was getting in the way.

Well, I absolutely loved it. I remember studying Julius Caesar for my, they weren't called GCSEs in my day, but for GCSE. And always wanting to be, I wanted to be Brutus and there it was happening it was fantastic

it was fantastic so if we may let's talk about the most recent stuff and two of the biggest shows that everybody's talking about actually and the Crown as well and so many other things but Ted Lassow that we spoke about before

and Succession the finale the penultimate and the finale of Succession I was screaming at the screen and you told me I would and I did. Ted Lassau, I cried. So let's talk about succession first.

Just beautiful, the writing, the direction, the characters. It was, oh, wow. It was superb. Did you feel that when you were in it? It's such a strange thing because obviously when I came back into different seasons, I knew that it was a big hit and I knew that it was wonderful because I'd watched it myself as a viewer.

So, yes, I was aware that it was a great thing. But I think right from the very beginning, I got sent the pilot, which they'd completed, just episode one of season one, and that was all they'd filmed. And I watched it and I thought, and I said, actually, I said to my husband, why can't we Brits write like that?

Because I thought it was Americans. And then I found out all the writers were Brits. So it wasn't so much about the talent of the writers. I mean, it is, but it's also the time that's dedicated to the writers and the whole system of a writer's room and all that, which now the Brits have adopted much more. You know, it is the way these long, ongoing seasons happen. But, you know, it's just wonderful to have that time and that investment

in the writing because it's always the case, any actor will tell you that, you know, the writing is the whole thing, you know. I mean, even if you improvise within it, you know, it's there and it's the structure and it's the whole, it gives you everything. Oh, it's just, and it became, I think as a family, we became incredibly invested in that series.

And I miss it. It's extraordinary how I can miss a TV show, but we do. We actually think, oh no, is it really over? No. Team Roman all the way. Sorry, team Roman. Yeah. He's adorable.

He's probably my favourite child. Don't tell anybody. I love that. But I love them all and I love them mix. And I think if you had non-stop Roman or non-stop Kendall or non-stop shiv and in their own show, you know, it would be different. It's the fact that there are these three different chemistries when they clash, when they come together,

when they split apart, when they team up two against one. All those dynamics are what make it so fascinating. And God knows why we feel some kind of pathos for them. I know. But it's very Shakespearean. The way it's all done, it was very Shakespeare. If I may then go to Ted Lassau. Just that, I can't believe we, I'm properly cried.

It was, it's beautiful. The whole philosophy behind it, the whole thing about it. And it's made such a star of lovely Hannah, who I know, your daughter in the show. And I've known Hannah for many years. And what, that's just a lot. It was the sort of antithesis to Succession in many ways. Succession was about bad and Ted Lassau was about good. I know it's not quite as simple as that,

but Ted Lassau is just joyful. I think it's happy endings versus sad endings, isn't it? I mean, I think, you know, it's very brave of Jason Stakesh and team to write something with happy endings at this time of history. because we need that though. They could ease that we'd need it, but there are a lot of people out there are going to go, yeah, yeah, doesn't happen like that.

You know, but what he's doing is saying, well, why not? You know, why not? Maybe I could reconnect with my wife. Maybe I could, maybe the team could win. Maybe there could be reconciliation between, there's always got to be somebody like Rupert, you know, there's always got to be somebody who takes on the sort of the badass.

Yeah, good. You can't tie everything up. No. And, you know, getting back to Shakespeare, 12th night, there's always Malvolio who's still a baddie. Everybody's happy ending, but he still, you know, goes off rather unhappily. That's the crux of everything. Always take it back to Shakespeare and you know it's going to work perfectly.

But you've done, I mean, some extraordinary things. Also, killing Eve. I mean, we're talking, and the crown, as I mentioned. massive worldwide TV hits. But I've read that you felt that that was never going to happen because other people were handling their careers differently than you were. But surely it was always going to happen for you. I don't know.

I think everybody's individual career is different and also a mystery to them themselves actually. Unless you're terribly, you know, unless you're Tom Cruise, and you've got real clout and you can say, I want to do this, I want to do that, I'm going to do the other. And to get to that place, you've got to have bags of talent,

but also you've got to have a certain business acumen. You've got to have a certain sort of clued upness about the profession. And I've never had that latter quality. I've never really been clued up. So I depend hugely on agents and hearsay and other people's opinions. And I just go, oh, I've got this number.

job, let's do it. So, I mean, there are various things that all actors will tell you which are difficult to negotiate. For women, there's the difficulty of age. Yeah. That, you know, that you get, it's quite hard to move from age group to age group as you get older and there are fewer parts and or less rounded parts. And so to keep in the game as a woman is harder than for a man.

and the other thing that's hard to negotiate is the balance of film and TV versus theatre because if you're doing a lot of theatre you're not free to do film and TV and if you're doing a lot of film and TV you're not free to do theatre so it's very hard to combine the two things and you have to be a bit strategic about it and say well look I really want to do some films so I'm going to have to turn down every theatre off I get for the next year and then maybe nothing shows up So I did keep getting wonderful things in the theatre and I don't regret that at all

because it certainly, you know, grew me up, made me more confident and also saw me through those 40s and 50s. You know, I was playing Shakespearean heroines who were supposed to be 30 when I was 50 because it doesn't really matter on stage that, you know, if you've got a few lines. But then suddenly I thought,

actually I've done so much in the theatre where do I go now and I have always intermittently done TV you know and there have been times even when I was younger when I do a whole series and take the lead but it hadn't happened for a while and I thought maybe I want to do that

and then suddenly all this really great work came my way and I don't know if it came my way partly because I built a reputation in the theatre or just because I was available suddenly but whatever happened it was great I think it's more to just the fact you were available Harry I really do I think there's more to it but if we can go back on ageism

I don't want to talk about it too much because I feel that it becomes the sort of the headline of everything for us women and every time anyone interviews me they always talk to me about my age and they never talk to a man about their age ever exactly

you've made your point. But I think the fact that we're in my job, you know, if I was a painter, I could paint at any age. If I was a pianist, I could play, you know, sportsmen and athletes and dancers, people like that, you know, they have a real age limit on their careers,

which I would hate, but at least you know it from the beginning. We don't really have an age limit on our career. I mean, the uncle was working until he was 93. So, you know, you have that ahead of you, At the same time, I think what I feel for a woman is more that the roles are always, or pretty much always, based around a man. So you're a wife, a mother, a daughter, or a girlfriend.

Yeah. You know, you're in relation to a man. So the man, this is historical. We're hoping things are changing, but there is still this going on. So that the man can be whatever age he is. And then you'll go up for the job to play his wife, and they'll say, you're a bit old for his wife or a bit young for his wife. Do you see what I mean?

Rather than you're right for the part. You know, so it's irritating, more than irritating. Yeah. And let's just leave it at that because then we don't get too obsessive. We won't get into it. Yeah, exactly. This is a very strange question, but I want to ask it about finding out that you were going to be a dame. How did, what happened?

Did you get a letter that said, dear Harriet, you will forever more. Be now a dame, did you have to accept it? How did it go? But was it an easy thing? Did you think, I'm going to be, I just sort of want that. Looking at it through a little girl's eyes, what was that moment like? Well, I'd already got a CBE, which is a sort of step down from that. So I got over the shock of who me, you know, I'd got over that.

And I also slightly knew the routine, which is they write you a letter saying it's come to unnoticed that. we would like to, do you object, would you accept it? Because what they don't want is for you to turn it down the night before the ceremony, or the night before the announcement. So they give you sort of two or three months to think about it. And CBE was absolutely no-brainer. Yeah, sure, great. My mother was alive.

You know, she'd be so proud. Some of my fellow actors were getting them. And I thought, yeah, you know, extraordinary as it seems that we've become that generation. okay lovely it's a recognition Dame is different because it actually changes your title and I thought oh God it's a bit it's a bit you know and I was quite nervous about it so what happened again I got the letter in fact I got a call for my agent saying

they'd received the letter and I was driving along the country road you know and so I got out went for a walk I was with a friend and it's a bit surreal and I'd had a few people saying well you know if you're a CBE the next step up is a day and that'll happen. And I was going, no, no, no, no. But so the idea had slightly been planted. It wasn't a complete out of the blue.

But at the same time, I'd rehearse turning it down because I thought that was the noble thing to do. I thought, you know, I don't like, you know, here am I, somebody who preaches equality and, you know, I shouldn't sort of accept this, you know. And so I thought about that. And then I thought, sorry to get. get back to the women question again, but I thought, look, every actor of my generation, or a bit older,

has accepted a knighthood. And there are very few who'd accepted a damehood at that point. There are more now. And I thought, do you know what? The reason there aren't so many dames is they don't have such long careers. And that's all wrong. So I should take it and get out there. And I did. And I'm pleased to see that lots of other people have become dames since. And also, yeah, I mean, it's not something I can swing about or use on a daily basis. That's exactly what I wanted to know. Do you go to a restaurant, do you book in the name of, oh, you don't?

Well, very occasionally, I'll tell you what, if it's a charity or a letter to the government or, I don't know, something that might need that clout, I will always. use it. It's on one of my bank cards and not the other. Because I think, I think if people think that I'm a dame, you know, people don't really know what a dame is and they say things like, are you in the House of Lords? And I go, no, no, that's a baroness. But so, so I've got one card that says it in case, you know, if somebody think,

oh, she must be rich if she's a dame. And you go, no, hang on. So that, but also it causes all sorts of nightmares on, on, on, most websites because, you know, they have a drop-down menu saying, what's your title? And they practically never have Dame on there. I love that. Yeah. And if you sometimes, so I go, okay, if I want people to know I'm a Dame, like, as I said,

if it's a letter to the government or something like that, it'll say first name and I'll put Dame Harriet. Oh, fantastic. And then you go to the airport. They say, you're not here. I said, look under D. Oh, that's what, and does your husband, I mean, you know, I hope he calls, you know, you know, while he helps you around the house,

I think that might have been him doing your microphone. Do you know, does he say, see you later, Dame Harriet? Please say that your husband walks around doing that. People call him Sir Guy. Because they think it's unfair that I should have a joke. He will forever be Sir Guy then to us as well. That's good, good. Harriet, it's just so joyful to speak to you.

What I get, another thing that I read is that you like to just, you escape to your house. You don't like entertaining too much. You like to just be quiet. You don't like small talk. And I love people like that. You just get on with it. And were you always like that?

I can imagine you always being like that as a child. Will you like that? Well, there's a correction here. I do like small talk. Oh, you do? Yeah. I'm a sort of curious mixture because I'm very gregarious.

I'm very phomo. And I think because I get such energy out there, I need to pull the door shut and go in and keep up. I don't think I sort of hate company and therefore go home. It's the opposite. Oh, I get that, yeah. I can run myself down, running around, going to everything that I'm asked to, and yabbering.

You know, I can talk for England. And I love small talk because I find people who don't do small talk very difficult. You know, if you can't sort of grease the social wheels with a bit of silly chit-chat, I get completely, oh God, this person not to talk about Proust. So, yeah, no. But what I mean is, yes, I'm not very good. I am quite private.

I'm a sort of mixture of very gregarious, but also I love privacy. That makes that complete sense to me. I absolutely get it. Thank you so much for joining me on this. Each time I've now spoken to you, I come away smiling and you do do that. And I love your acting.

I mean, that's what I mean. about coming away smiling. I'm a fan. So there we go. I'm just being honest. I am a fan. Thank you, Gabby. And now on this podcast, I always ask what makes people belly laugh. And you do have that glint.

Look, you're doing it now. People can't see it. You have that glint and I can just see you thinking. What makes you properly belly laugh? So much. I love that. That's the best answer. I don't know. I'm just, I am quite a giggler, really, and a laugher. A physical comedy makes me belly laugh. People falling over then? Is you talking about slapstick?

Yeah, that makes me laugh, but not, I don't like that thing where people send in videos of their cat being caught in a trap or, you know, a kid falling into a swimming pool. I hate those because I think they're a bit, you know, they're a bit violent. but I love ridiculous things. I've got a very silly sense of humour, I think. Are you naughty on set? Yes, absolutely. I spend a lot of time laughing, actually. As ever, you know, I've just talked about the contrast

between being social and being private. I can be very serious and very head-up, but I also can be extremely serious. all within the space of 10 minutes. So what makes me belly laugh? What would make me belly laugh as if I suddenly fell off this chair? That would make me laugh a lot as well,

so please don't do it because I couldn't say anything else. Harriet Walter, thank you very, very much. An absolute pleasure to speak to you again. Thank you.