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Home , Julie Walters, Victoria Wood

Celebrity interview DAME Smelling

In athe candid interview from herroses UK farmhouse, British star Julie Walters tells Juliet Rieden about starring in a magical new movie adaptation of The Secret Garden, how the story resonated with her own childhood, and the health scare during filming that made her reassess her life. ince bestselling British “ read the book as a child, so knew Dixie Egerickx), living in India as author Frances Hodgson it well and loved it. The themes of loss Partition ravages the nation. Then, Burnett first wrote The and friendship, and then regeneration a cholera epidemic hits and she Secret Garden in 1911, it and light at the end of the tunnel, is orphaned and shipped to has been adapted into four I think will always resonate. It’s Misselthwaite Manor on England’s STV series, four films, a bunch of pertinent now because in the film Yorkshire Moors to live with her plays and a Broadway musical, so they’re coming out of a particularly uncle, Archibald Craven (played by it’s fair to say this is a story with dark period, showing that there’s hope Academy Award-winner ). a universal message. and light, and I think hopefully we The spooky mansion is itself For Dame Julie Walters, co-star will be [coming out of a dark period] recovering from the shadow of war of the latest version – a mesmerising too,” says Julie, who during filming when it was requisitioned for a adaptation combining eye-candy went through some challenging times hospital for soldiers, and when Mary effects conjuring a magical realism of her own – more on that later. arrives she finds the house not just in of blooming flowers and verdant The original setting of the book disarray, but shrouded in a curious butterfly-filled woodlands with filming has shifted forward in this film, from atmosphere of grief. She discovers she in some of Britain’s most beguiling Edwardian times to just after World has a cousin, who is suffering from gardens – the film couldn’t have War II in 1947, with our protagonist, a mystery illness, locked away in a

AUSTRALSCOPE/CAMERA PRESS/NICKY JOHNSTON. PRESS/NICKY AUSTRALSCOPE/CAMERA come at a more appropriate time. 10-year-old Mary Lennox (played by room. And her uncle, distant and →

OCTOBER 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 59 Celebrity interview clearly distraught, hands Mary them all the way through, of her reputation. It was a wonderful start.” People who have it down the other over to the care of gruff trying to deal with the little person Julie’s impressive career is testament end, by their bottoms, have loads of housekeeper Mrs Medlock, and her wild ways.” to the fact she had made the right symptoms – they pass blood – but played by Julie. Julie’s Mrs Medlock, while a choice. To date, she has been awarded I didn’t have anything like that.” The combination of stern taskmaster, is not a cartoon baddie. seven BAFTAs, two Emmys, a Golden Two tumours were removed and Mrs Medlock and haughty, “She’s written as pretty unredeeming Globe and a for roles the operation was followed by overprivileged Mary provides in the book,” says, ranging from Rita opposite Michael chemotherapy. As soon as she came its own tension as both move “but I thought Julie could bring a Caine in the seminal ; round after the operation, Julie was towards a brighter future. vulnerability and oddness and humour the hilarious Mrs Overall in the Acorn told they had managed to remove all “There’s a lot of loss and a lot to it, which were things you could Antiques TV and theatre shows with the cancer. “I knew that it was all of darkness about restrictions see beneath the mask.” best friend the late ; gone,” she says, with obvious relief. right now, just as there would “At first, I did see her as a stern, the ballet teacher in ; In a recent interview with a UK have been in wartime and in cross person,” Julie adds, “but I tried widow Annie Clark in , newspaper, Julie said she now sees Partition, so I think this film is to put in other stuff, so she wasn’t ’s dancing bestie, Rosie, the experience as “a gift” and I ask very relevant to current times,” that two-dimensional and angry all in Mamma Mia!; Mrs Weasley in the her what she meant. “Something as posits Julie. the time. I wanted her to have more Harry Potter films and much more. life-changing as that makes you COVID-19 means we’re talking bemusement with the kids – trying to But, in a recent BBC interview, reassess your life and I think that’s via Zoom, rather than in person. understand them a bit, but not being Julie raised the possibility that The always a gift,” she explains. Julie is ensconced in the massively successful until the end.” Secret Garden could be her final film, The result for Julie, whose acting farmhouse she shares with her An inspiration for the portrayal while also revealing her battle of the career has always been frenetic, has husband, Grant Roffey, in the were the nuns who ran the Catholic past two years. During the making been a decision to stop and smell → English countryside, where she primary school Julie’s mother sent of the movie, Julie had to quit filming has been for months. But while her to. “It was an awful school and when she was diagnosed with the virus has impacted everyday I spent a lot of my days being scared stage-three bowel cancer. life in the UK, Julie confesses by the nuns – that sternness and a set She had first seen her doctor a year she’s loving the quality time it has of rigid rules,” she explains. before with twinges in her stomach, delivered – especially now, with Ironically, it was one of the nuns but never suspected cancer. Those Julie as a summer heatwave making who set Julie thinking about her pains returned while making the Mrs Weasley future career when she said “you’d be film and, following tests, Julie found in Harry Potter good on the stage”. As a little girl, herself sitting in front of her doctor, and (right) with “I’m fortunate to live she was always putting on plays and hearing the words: “I think it’s sketches to amuse her family and cancer”. When she told her husband in 1983 film out in the countryside schoolmates. “Making people laugh Grant, who was waiting in the car, Educating Rita. made me feel good,” she says. his eyes filled Nevertheless, Julie trained first as with tears. on a farm, so I can a nurse – something her postal clerk Julie mother, Mary, had guided her immediately get out and walk.” towards. “I did it because I thought it moved into England “utterly glorious”. was what I should do,” Julie says. practical mode, “I’m 70, so it’s a bit different She ended up working at the Queen but tells me she for me and, guiltily, I’ve kind of Elizabeth Hospital in , was quaking, Left: Mamma Mia! stars enjoyed it because there have been but quit after 18 months to study too. “Of course, Christine Baranski, Meryl no pressures to do anything,” she theatre at Manchester Polytechnic. yes, because you Streep and Julie. Below: explains. “I’m very fortunate to “My mother didn’t approve and don’t know what Julie in The Secret live out in the countryside on a my dad did,” Julie says. “My mother the future holds, Garden with Dixie farm, so I can get out and walk, The Secret Garden probably connects on 26” with the skills of an adult – like most parents – was scared. It but it was all Egerickx and Colin Firth. and obviously it’s not affected the with everyone’s childhood somewhere actor but “a childlike nature”. was a world she didn’t know about so fast. It all countryside as badly as it has cities. – living in your imagination and “She’s wonderful,” Julie says. “She’s and it was precarious. It wasn’t a happened so I feel for people there, I really do …” making your own fun,” Julie says. incredibly bright apart from anything reliable thing like nursing, so she quickly that I didn’t have time to build The theme of the healing power of “In the ’50s when I grew up, we didn’t else, but she is a really good actress. was frightened.” up [fear] – I just wanted it taken out nature is at the heart of The Secret have telly, we didn’t have computers It was not like working with a child … But Julie knew she had found her and that’s what happened.” Garden as we see Mary blossom in and phones to play with. You had to we could have proper chats.” calling, and her first job in the 1970s The cancer had been growing for the pastures, streams and ultimately use your imagination and find other Mrs Medlock’s relationship with was with ’s acclaimed four years and the most alarming the secret garden she discovers in the ways to take up the summer holidays, Mary is “very interesting”, Julie Everyman Theatre. “I loved all of thing was that Julie had no clue. grounds of Misselthwaite. and that’s what Mary does.” remarks. “She is completely and it – the experience of being in a “I had very, very slight discomfort, There’s a sense of joy in Mary’s Julie was hugely impressed by utterly bewildered by her, the way she groundbreaking theatre was exciting, but the scary thing is there were very special world; a paradise beyond the young actress Dixie, who director speaks and the way she sees things. working with fantastic actors, and few symptoms because it was at the

reach of adult intervention. “I think Marc Munden describes as “12 going So, there’s a bit of a battle between JOHNSTON. PRESS/NICKY AUSTRALSCOPE/CAMERA also in a theatre that had a great top end, near the small intestine.

60 The Australian Women’s Weekly | OCTOBER 2020 OCTOBER 2020 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 61 Celebrity interview

Left: Co-stars Julie and Victoria Wood in . Below: Julie, Grant, their daughter, Maisie, and Julie’s mum, Mary, in 2003.

“Acting has never been my whole life, I never wanted that.” Julie wouldn’t have Victoria Wood, she says, because “Vic’s so recently gone” and is still very much with her. As for food and libation, “I don’t drink and I’d get in a caterer,” Julie says, laughing. “I do cook, but I’m not somebody who just adores the roses. She realised that she can and home … it’s quite full, really.” throwing meals together. A dinner should “get off the merry-go-round … In the interests of social distancing, party makes me think, ‘Oh Christ!’. and that’s what I did in terms of work. I ask Julie to conjure up a fantasy I’d be all anxious. Somebody else Work was not what I needed.” dinner party and she warms to the can do that, so we can all talk.” Another realisation for Julie was task. “I’d invite my dad because he In February, Julie celebrated her that while her friend, comedienne died when I was 21,” she says. 70th birthday, which she saw as Victoria Wood, battled cancer, she Thomas Walters was a builder and “a year older than 69 … it wasn’t also had the pernicious disease herself. decorator and hated confrontation, a massive thing. I quite like being “I would have had it when I was leaving the disciplining of Julie and 70 because I’ve reached it. I’m still sitting by her bedside, but I didn’t her brothers to her mum. “I adored here and there’s no pressure to be know …” Victoria died in April 2016. him,” Julie says. “I’d ask him loads in the rat-race”. “I don’t know what the future holds of questions I wouldn’t have thought Looking back at her career, would for acting. At the moment [with the of asking as a young person. I was she have done anything differently? pandemic], there’s nothing going on. close to my dad, we got on great. “No, I don’t believe in that sort of But I’m not missing it all. Acting has “Then, I’d have Bette Davis – she thing,” Julie muses. “I believe it’s all never been my whole life, I never was so interesting at the time of her meant the way it was. I’m not saying wanted that. Maybe when I was in acting … she wasn’t like any of the they were all the best decisions, but my 30s, possibly, but not later.” others and I just loved her. I know my I’m not one for regretting things. Julie says her days are filled with dad did, too, so I’d have her there. I think things happen for a reason working on the farm and enjoying I’d have [who starred and it’s been a great ride.” AWW the countryside. “I grow vegetables in Chariots of Fire and died in 1990]. and I walk with friends. I do charity He was a dear friend and that was The Secret Garden is in cinemas on

stuff and record voice-overs from a terrible loss. And I’d have my mum.” September 17. JOHNSTON. PRESS/NICKY AUSTRALSCOPE/CAMERA IMAGES. GETTY

62 The Australian Women’s Weekly | OCTOBER 2020