She's done Shakespeare on stage and vampires on TV. Now Annabel Scholey is playing a home-wrecking, lingerie-wearing femme fatale. She tells Maddy Costa why 29 is a difficult age
Every now and then, Annabel Scholey is struck by the realisation that her job is ridiculous. It happened again a few days ago, when she was standing on stage in front of a well-heeled audience at the Richmond theatre in London, clad in black silk lingerie and suspenders. "I did slightly think, 'Oh my God, what the hell am I doing?'" she laughs. "I wanted to be a barrister at one point: why am I not in a courtroom? How have I ended up here?"
Yet as we talk in the basement cafe behind the theatre, Scholey radiates contentment. She's happy with her CV, which balances a stack of Shakespeares (two years ago, she was Queen Anne to Kevin Spacey's Richard III), with a stint as a vampire in the cult BBC series Being Human. And for the next three months, following previews in Richmond, she gets to be an object of desire on a West End stage, playing a femme fatale who can destroy a marriage with a single kiss.
This is Kate in Peter Nichols' Passion Play, a searing portrait of a seemingly happy marriage stultified by routine and corroded by adultery. Kate, a serial mistress, is described by the other characters as a vamp and a tramp, but Scholey wants her to be more than that: "She has to be someone you could fall in love with – and not just on a sexual level. Otherwise, what's the point?"
During the first preview, an audience member was heard to mutter "the bitch is back" at one of Kate's appearances – which startled Scholey, who admires the character for her boldness. "She's just trying to live her life and be brave. But she also has a thirst for love, and a vulnerability that makes her needy." It's this contradiction that makes Kate such a satisfying character to play.
For Scholey, the part has come at the perfect time. "I feel comfortable in myself in a way that I didn't a few years ago. And it's brilliant to be able to play a woman who is so uninhibited physically after lots of corseted classical stuff." She turned 29 earlier this year, an "in-between" age for an actress: "I'm not the woman and I'm not the girl." She's already played most of the "young juvenile" roles, such as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Ophelia in Hamlet – but directors tend to think slightly older when casting the likes of Hedda Gabler. "I've got a lot of friends who are actresses, and this year they're all saying, 'There are no parts.'"
She gets angry when theatres programme work that primarily features men. "Directors need to look at the responsibility that they have," she says. Nor does she believe that the gender-blind casting of women in male roles provides an answer. "There are a lot of plays with great female roles that just don't get done. I'd sooner address it that way than doing an all-female version of Shakespeare. And why not write more female roles?" A fan of Borgen and Spiral, TV dramas in which strong female characters take the lead, she can't understand why there are so few comparable roles for women on British TV.
This is partly why she loves sharing a stage with older women: Zoë Wanamaker in Passion Play, Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream. "They forged their way through," says Scholey. "I realised working with Judi Dench that she played Hermia when she was 26 – and I was 26 at the time." She finds watching them inspirational: "They're so hard-working and dedicated and neurotic. They're all crazy, but I think that's what makes a brilliant actress."
It was discovering Shakespeare as a teenager – particularly on a school trip to see The Merchant of Venice in Stratford-upon-Avon when she was 14 – that got Scholey hooked on acting. She grew up in Wakefield, although you wouldn't know it from her posh-Londoner voice: "I've got my flat 'a', but otherwise the accent has been trained out of me. I'm not proud of that." A hyperactive child, she was taken to ballet and dance lessons by her parents, who "didn't know what to do with me. I used to get cross with the teacher for telling me what to do." Even now, she likes to be in control: one of the hardest things to get used to in acting, she says, is not knowing what jobs are coming up.
Her family all work in the public sector: her father is a retired fireman, her mother a nurse, her younger sister a teacher. As far as Scholey's concerned, art is a public service, too. "I think it's vital," she says. "It's escapism and therapy, in a way. Sometimes you need a different perspective – and a play can give you clarity." Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
Every now and then, Annabel Scholey is struck by the realisation that her job is ridiculous. It happened again a few days ago, when she was standing on stage in front of a well-heeled audience at the Richmond theatre in London, clad in black silk lingerie and suspenders. "I did slightly think, 'Oh my God, what the hell am I doing?'" she laughs. "I wanted to be a barrister at one point: why am I not in a courtroom? How have I ended up here?"
Yet as we talk in the basement cafe behind the theatre, Scholey radiates contentment. She's happy with her CV, which balances a stack of Shakespeares (two years ago, she was Queen Anne to Kevin Spacey's Richard III), with a stint as a vampire in the cult BBC series Being Human. And for the next three months, following previews in Richmond, she gets to be an object of desire on a West End stage, playing a femme fatale who can destroy a marriage with a single kiss.
This is Kate in Peter Nichols' Passion Play, a searing portrait of a seemingly happy marriage stultified by routine and corroded by adultery. Kate, a serial mistress, is described by the other characters as a vamp and a tramp, but Scholey wants her to be more than that: "She has to be someone you could fall in love with – and not just on a sexual level. Otherwise, what's the point?"
During the first preview, an audience member was heard to mutter "the bitch is back" at one of Kate's appearances – which startled Scholey, who admires the character for her boldness. "She's just trying to live her life and be brave. But she also has a thirst for love, and a vulnerability that makes her needy." It's this contradiction that makes Kate such a satisfying character to play.
For Scholey, the part has come at the perfect time. "I feel comfortable in myself in a way that I didn't a few years ago. And it's brilliant to be able to play a woman who is so uninhibited physically after lots of corseted classical stuff." She turned 29 earlier this year, an "in-between" age for an actress: "I'm not the woman and I'm not the girl." She's already played most of the "young juvenile" roles, such as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Ophelia in Hamlet – but directors tend to think slightly older when casting the likes of Hedda Gabler. "I've got a lot of friends who are actresses, and this year they're all saying, 'There are no parts.'"
She gets angry when theatres programme work that primarily features men. "Directors need to look at the responsibility that they have," she says. Nor does she believe that the gender-blind casting of women in male roles provides an answer. "There are a lot of plays with great female roles that just don't get done. I'd sooner address it that way than doing an all-female version of Shakespeare. And why not write more female roles?" A fan of Borgen and Spiral, TV dramas in which strong female characters take the lead, she can't understand why there are so few comparable roles for women on British TV.
This is partly why she loves sharing a stage with older women: Zoë Wanamaker in Passion Play, Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream. "They forged their way through," says Scholey. "I realised working with Judi Dench that she played Hermia when she was 26 – and I was 26 at the time." She finds watching them inspirational: "They're so hard-working and dedicated and neurotic. They're all crazy, but I think that's what makes a brilliant actress."
It was discovering Shakespeare as a teenager – particularly on a school trip to see The Merchant of Venice in Stratford-upon-Avon when she was 14 – that got Scholey hooked on acting. She grew up in Wakefield, although you wouldn't know it from her posh-Londoner voice: "I've got my flat 'a', but otherwise the accent has been trained out of me. I'm not proud of that." A hyperactive child, she was taken to ballet and dance lessons by her parents, who "didn't know what to do with me. I used to get cross with the teacher for telling me what to do." Even now, she likes to be in control: one of the hardest things to get used to in acting, she says, is not knowing what jobs are coming up.
Her family all work in the public sector: her father is a retired fireman, her mother a nurse, her younger sister a teacher. As far as Scholey's concerned, art is a public service, too. "I think it's vital," she says. "It's escapism and therapy, in a way. Sometimes you need a different perspective – and a play can give you clarity." Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.