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You play in the Australian medical drama The F Ward. What’s the best medical tip you’ve learned on set?
Some of the surgeries I learned and watched to take, I did not believe that the patient was alive. Half of their body was outside them; that should be inside!
We had two surgeons on maternity leave who applied for the show. One of them told me that it is a very male dominated world and it is difficult for a female surgeon to survive. I was afraid (my character Dr Gloria Wall) might look disabled – but she said, “No, she should be and we love her.”
We watched a video of all the operations, which at first made me shudder. My gag reflex is very strong and I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t” – but it’s amazing how quickly you are protected.
Dr Gloria Wall is a useless woman. Who is your favorite fictional, real or fictional woman?
The late Maggie Smith, the wonderful Judi Dench, and my mother and daughter. I met Maggie and Judi when I was doing Broadway, when I was 22 years old – I just remember him staring at me. The times I met Maggie, there was no nonsense.
What Australian experiences have you encountered while filming??
The fact that everyone goes swimming almost every day, even if your call time was 5.45am and you wrap up at 8pm. And it’s dark, both times – careless! You didn’t go swimming! “No, it’s dark!”
And genes – I don’t think I’ve ever seen more beautiful people walking down the street. A kind of beautiful people. It was something to see. And confidence – I think that, if you were to say that Australians have one personality, I would say that most of them are confident but not arrogant. Instead of “sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” the Brits.
What has been your most memorable experience with fans?
My daughter’s name is Gracie and she may or may not have been named after Gracie Fields, who was an amazing singer in World War II who went and sang for the army. A fan realized I was a Gracie Fields fan so she took every one of her notes from the 40s into this beautiful book. I thought that was one of the best things I could do, and I never forgot that.
Is it true that you learn your lines in the shower?
It’s true! Not necessarily in the hottest places, like England is right now. I blow my leaves and stick them everywhere and I can’t get out of the bathroom until I’ve studied a bit, and the next night I go back and do another load. The older you get, the harder it is to memorize. But if you have to study for an exam, brothers, a bath is a good cry.
What do you secretly know?
Turn on. I collect arts and crafts period furniture, 1880 to 1920. This is where it was Vaseline glass, and uranium, which was the ambience of the closest to lighting candles when electricity was introduced. The first thing I ever spent money on was lighting. When I walk into someone’s house and say, “You need a light over there” or “There needs more light over there” … I go everywhere with a bag full of light bulbs.
Light affects the brain – we need to have natural light… I’m always in offices or schools, dentists, so I try to do something different and make it warm and yellow. I think that has a lot to do with how a person thinks. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You won’t find me with a suitcase without a light.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I was always taught: hope for the best, expect the worst and that way you won’t be disappointed. When I grew up, I was told that “expecting the worst” meant that you were blind and looking for the worst, but it didn’t work that way for me. If you are prepared for the worst, then you will not be surprised and you will not know how to react. I don’t have an empty glass. “Hope for the best” is an old form of expression, before we had words.
Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Pushing Daisies had been cancelled?
It was way ahead of its time. Everyone talking to people will bring it to show, because he was really special to the hearts of many people. It was basically a love story with music and color and emotion. And Chuck – when do you find someone who is so rich and full of goodness?
I think there is a call for it to come back. We are almost 20 years away now – time flies. But it would be good to bring back that group of people. I think (creator) Bryan Fuller is an amazing, brilliant, brilliant guy. We need more shows like Pushing Daisies.
What book, album or movie do you keep coming back to and why?
I find movies from the 80s and early 90s very comforting. Pretty Woman, Ghost, The Goonies… I think it’s nostalgia, music, rose-colored glasses. We used to watch movies, we knew it wasn’t real life but we all thought life could be like that. It goes against my instinct to “prepare for the worst” but I like to go into nostalgia and remember how all those movies made me feel. And to be able to relive them through my son and see that they still have an effect on him.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve done in love?
I don’t know if it’s normal, maybe brave. When I first met David (Thewlis, an old friend) we were on a plane – it was a “quintessentially British” trip to Cannes. Every British actor you might know was all on the same plane; thank God it survived, there would have been many films that would not have been made! But David was on that plane. We didn’t get together at the time but he did Naked and everyone was, “Ooh, David Thewlis”. But I was like, “Oh, he’s up north like me!” So I went to him and spoke boldly. And it stuck in his mind. Two years later he said: “I loved you from that time.” We went to dinner and didn’t sleep for a year.
I feel like it is very good what he has done for love.
I’m trying to think of something new. For that first year, we bought each other a present every week. Every week we had to exchange a new gift. After a while, we started to say, “What the hell did you do? Now I missed my weekly gift!
