Woman interview child and they’re going thatt we lived, there was to have it their way. a garden growing at the AN I was in every single backb of our toilet, so WOMM day with my son, and SueS probably thought, SIVE! I loved it. Being older ‘Why‘W be tidy in this EXCLU meant we understood environment?’’e we should enjoy it, as you know that time ‘I‘I don’t have a goes so quickly. But you TwitterT account – just can’t help that little althougha I do go voice that says, ‘You Nicola (right) with ono it sometimes to need to get back to husband Barnaby and sees what my friends ‘I fangirled work.’ I was definitely actress pal Julie Graham area doing. When concerned that I should I haven’t been able to get back to work, and I getget holdh ld off SueS or Sarah for a while and look back now and think, ‘You idiot!’ they’re not answering my calls, I go on It felt like such a big deal and, actually, Twitter and think, ‘Where are they?!... OVER it really wasn’t.’ Oh, Sue’s in the Himalayas and Sarah’s in LA – that might be why I haven’t ‘Have I ever been star-struck? When heard from them!’’ I was on Broadway it happened quite a lot! People came by after the show to ‘The idea of a bucket list frightens me – say hello. Susan Sarandon and Frances you’re lining up things that you won’t SUSAN McDormand were two that I couldn’t achieve! Sometimes I say to Barnaby really form words around! I think I just that we should go on a sand-dune ride hugged and clung on to them both. They in Morocco, or that we should camp weren’t there on the same night, though somewhere, but when he says, ‘Let’s do it!’ EX R – I think I would have exploded! It’s I backtrack. But our holidays are usually SARANDON!’ strange because if I was working with adventurous in that we spend a lot of time those women, it would be easy– it’s your on the coast of the UK doing stupid things Actress Nicola Walker has her own set of loyal fans job and you can set aside the fact that in the sea and jumping off of rocks!’ ETTY, CONTOUR, CONTOUR, ETTY, G you’ve been watching them on screen for – but that doesn’t stop her from getting star-struck years. But when you meet people in real ‘I tend not to make New Year’s life, you become a fangirl – and it turns resolutions – well, not ones out loud. UARDIAN, UARDIAN, here are some stars who I went to see Anne Reid doing a cabaret G out that my inner fangirl is mute and I will usually just make gentle reminders HE you meet that you could night when I was in America and within T frighteningly smiley!’ to myself to take my family somewhere sit talking to for hours 20 minutes, I was sobbing – she’s nice, or to visit a different European city. REGOR/ G – step forward Nicola a phenomenal performer. And when I C ‘On my first day at the Cambridge But that won’t happen! It will come to Walker. Despite starring in watched Happy Valley, I had to send a text M University, I met Sue Perkins. She was next year and me and my husband will IKE Tsome of TV’s biggest shows, including to Sarah Lancashire, saying, ‘I’m standing M my college mother, so she was meant find ourselves with the week off and we’ll Last Tango In Halifax and returning ITV up and clapping at the television. I’m to look after me! And TV writer Sarah be driving back to the Cornish coast. We drama Unforgotten, the actress, 46, literally giving you a standing ovation!’ Phelps and I were on the same English like to spend New Year’s in Cornwall is refreshingly down to earth. SON. PHOTOS: She is absolutely flying. It’s brilliant.’ I course. When we left university, the three because, for me, there’s just something When we meet, Nicola may be of us moved to London together and lived about being by the sea as the year rolls IANNE nervous – she’s the first to admit she ‘It was hard being away from my family R there for years and years. Sue was really over. It feels really nice.’ isn’t particularly keen on talking about when I was working on A View From untidy yet the irony is her flat is now very ✱ Unforgotten returns on Thursday herself – but she soon relaxes, and it’s The Bridge on Broadway. It was only WORDS: tidy. But back then, in one of the places 5 January at 9pm on ITV not long before we’re chatting about for five months, and they came out for everything from uni pal Sue Perkins to a while, but before I did it, I thought, meeting her Hollywood idols. The star ‘I don’t understand how this can work. is married to fellow actor Barnaby Kay How can I be away from my family for so NICOLA’S BEST MOMEMENTS IN FILMF AND TV and mum to Harry, 10… long?’ But we made it work. When I met other British actors and actresses at the occasional party or in a bar, we’d end up ‘I’m not a squeamish person. But on talking about how much we missed our the first day on set of the new series of husbands, wives and children.’ Unforgotten, we had to shoot a scene where my character Cassie finds a body in ‘I had my son relatively late, when I was a suitcase, and it looked so realistic that 36. The women in my family had children I had people saying to me, ‘It’s not real, much earlier, and I absolutely felt that I Nicola!’ The director said, ‘Could you look didn’t want to do that. You tend to break less like you’re going to pass out?’’ from what the women in your family have done before you. Also, it happens when it Four Weddings And A Funeral Spooks (2003): Nicola Last Tango In Halifax Heading Out (2013): She ‘The Last Tango In Halifax cast is like a happens. Aged 36, you’re pretty used to (2012): Unforgotten (2017): Nicola (1994): She played a folk played Ruth Evershed in She’s become good friends little family. We text each other when it’s your life – you’ve had it your own way for reunited with uni pal Sue and Sanjeev Bhaskar are singer in her first role the BBC spy series until 2011 been too long and support each other. quite a long time, and then you have a with co-star Sarah Lancashire Perkins for the sitcom back for a second series 12 WOMANMAGAZINE.CO.UK WOMANMAGAZINE.CO.UK 13 BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 93WMN16052106.pgs 15.12.2016 15:20 .