Celebrity interview W O M N E A N I ’ L S A W R SYDNEY E T E S K U NSW L A Y • E T H “Women Elizabeth M CGOVERN don’t just curl up and die after 40” Elizabeth McGovern is in her prime. She’s Downton’s lady of the manor, an accidental rock singer, mother of two and now the star of a movie she made happen. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing, she tells Juliet Rieden. t’s Elizabeth McGovern’s first time my age are out in the world and like to women aged between 40 and 100, who in Australia. The American-born see themselves reflected in the stories are frankly tired of being ignored. London-based actress is fighting they see, because we don’t just curl up In the case of The Chaperone, jetlag, but itching to explore, while and die after the age of 30 or 40. Elizabeth’s argument is also very much also frantic to do everything she can “I yearn for it as an audience member. part of the film’s narrative. On the face Ito alert the world to her latest movie, I don’t want to see every woman my of it, her character Norma should be a The Chaperone. At 57, Elizabeth is the age just as the supportive wife or the cipher, a dowdy lady in the background star of the show, which shouldn’t be a embittered singleton. I don’t want these of the soon-to-be-famous and thing, but in an industry that extols clichés over and over again. I want to precociously vivacious Louise Brooks. fresh young faces and regularly shelves see people making discoveries, growing, Although the piece is fictional, its women over 40 to character roles, she’s learning and I feel, if I have an appetite screenplay drawn from the best-selling right to feel empowered. for it, why wouldn’t other women? We US novel of the same name by Laura “I do feel there is a dearth of women deserve to be represented.” Moriarty, it focuses on the real Louise my age represented in any field, in TV, Elizabeth is right, of course, and the Brooks, the rebellious 1920s dancer, film movies and music,” Elizabeth says as tide is slowly turning, with beauty star and flapper icon, with her razor- she settles down to have her hair and companies, advertising agencies and sharp bob and Jazz-Age glamour. PHOTOGRAPHY by CORRIE BOND make-up done in preparation for The television networks all finally catching And yes, Louise – played by Haley STYLING by MATTIE CRONAN Weekly’s exclusive photo shoot. “People on and embracing women of substance, Lu Richardson – is a big part ➝ MAY 2019 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 93 never really in control. Spotted by a talent scout while acting in a school production at 17, going on 18, she was almost immediately cast in one of the biggest films of the 1980s, Robert Redford’s directorial debut, Ordinary People. The film won four Oscars and, before she knew it, Elizabeth McGovern had arrived. Elizabeth was born in Illinois in the US Midwest and moved to Los Angeles when she was 10. Her father was a university professor and her mother a teacher. “My family is as far from the film business as you can possibly Clockwise, from parents. She married comfortably and be,” she laughs. “I really like far left: With too young and always longed to find her Elizabeth had just completed a year actor Timothy birth mother. That meeting of mother at the famous Juilliard School for the shaking it Hutton and and daughter is a turning point in the performing arts in New York, when, Robert Redford film, not just emotionally because it bang, she was a star. “It was amazing,” up a bit.” on the set of inspires Norma to grab hold of her life says Elizabeth. “Robert Redford is Ordinary People; chatting with – and specifically her sex life – in a one of the most extraordinary people. Julian Fellowes; surprising and quite shocking way. I didn’t understand how lucky I was. with then-beau The movie is very much Elizabeth’s What a person to learn from! He was Sean Penn. baby or “my fixation”, as she calls it. gentle, charming and thoughtful, and She discovered the book when she was created a wonderful atmosphere, in of the film. But it is her chaperone, the hired to voice its audio release and was which one felt very comfortable and not quietly revolutionary Norma, played smitten. She hastily took it to the best intimidated – which is so important for by Elizabeth, who leads, and the result screenwriter she knew, Julian Fellowes, any performer to find their sweet spot.” is utterly fascinating. creator of Downton Abbey, and he was That “sweet spot” continued for “It has that thing that you look for impressed and got to work. Elizabeth close to a decade. Elizabeth was in the kind of movie I like, which is worked with Julian for six seasons Oscar-nominated for her performance wonderful characters set against an of the hit series and again recently in Ragtime and a string of high-profile interesting period in history in which on the upcoming Downton Abbey roles followed, including one opposite the characters are impacting history and movie, but this latest collaboration Hollywood hottie Sean Penn. history is impacting them in a way that was very different. They dated on and off for two years has gravitas,” explains Elizabeth. “But it On Downton, Elizabeth had very and even got engaged. “I remember it also touches on things that I felt were little input beyond speaking her lines. being a combination of ecstatic and relevant today about women and what She received her lines and waited for the the opposite,” she says enigmatically, we have to give to one another and our “action” command. On The Chaperone, agreeing that it was never going to relationship to our own sexuality.” she was not only the leading lady but work. “We were a couple of kids. We Beneath her demure exterior, Norma also a producer and very much part were both 22 and 23, so I think it was turns out to be pretty ballsy and, while of the creative process. “I loved it,” she just wonderfully dramatic and I still the period costumes draw comparisons beams. “Just to be a grown up at the feel really a lot of affection for him, with the character Elizabeth is known table having the discussions meant the but I haven’t seen him in ages.” best for – Lady Cora in Downton world to me. I don’t know how it’s After Elizabeth, Sean famously took Abbey – the two are worlds apart. going to feel when I go back to just once up with Madonna, who became his “She doesn’t seem like a very again sitting in the make-up chair and wife. When asked if she remembers extraordinary person on the surface, getting dressed and being told what to being upset losing Sean to the diva, but the world is changed by people like say and do ... But for me, the whole Elizabeth laughs. “When they met, she Norma, who, under the radar, make experience has been a bit like how wasn’t the Madonna that we think of things work for themselves in a way Norma felt. I feel very empowered now. She was just on the rise and that seems to affect only those closest by creating my own career.” I was busy doing my thing and it felt to them, but also slowly changes our For someone who found immediate right. There was no part of me that felt, culture,” says Elizabeth. fame with her first job, this sounds ‘Oh, he is the one’. No, never.” HAIR AND MAKE-UP BY MICHAEL BRENNAN. PREVIOUS PAGE: ELIZABETH WEARS MAX MARA SUIT AND MAJE SINGLET, SINGLET, MAJE AND SUIT MARA MAX WEARS ELIZABETH PAGE: PREVIOUS BRENNAN. MICHAEL BY MAKE-UP AND HAIR CARLA BLOUSE, SPENDER BIANCA WEARS ELIZABETH PAGE: OPPOSITE THROUGHOUT. WORN RING, AND EARRINGS LOGAN JAN STUDIOCANAL. IMAGES. GETTY ALAMY. JEWELS. LOGAN JAN AND HEELS MELLER EDWARD PANTS, ZAMPATTI Norma was raised first by nuns in rather incongruous, but Elizabeth Elizabeth found her soulmate, British PICTURE CREDITS TO GO HERE PLEASE HERE GO TO CREDITS PICTURE an orphanage and then by adoptive confesses at the beginning she was film director Simon Curtis, some ➝ 94 The Australian Women’s Weekly | MAY 2019 MAY 2019 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 95 Celebrity interview years later. They were working The guys were all very laid-back together in England on a TV play and shy, so I thought I’d give them and the attraction was instant. “I felt a stage persona also and I called absolutely at home with him, right them the Hotheads. So we became from the start. We were just natural Sadie and the Hotheads. We great friends. [Marrying Simon] was started performing these songs the best decision I ever made.” at open mikes and pubs, and it They married in 1992 and was really good for fun.” Elizabeth fell pregnant pretty quickly Elizabeth says she was terrified with their first daughter Matilda. at first, but slowly found her “Since he had this permanent job voice. At the same time, her acting and I couldn’t work anyway because career was back on the front foot I was pregnant, our lives began [and with Downton Abbey.