Exclusive interview CELIA IMRIE “I am very lucky to be She’s one of Britain’s ust imagine the scene. Celia swears “the ship is big enough You’re cruising on the for you to get lost in,” but also admits most in-demand aliveglorious Queen Mary 2. she’s frequently recognised. “It means actresses, a bestselling You decide to throw caution that you have to be very” polite and author and doting to the wind and join the say hello to people but I never mind Jfencing class and after a frenetic that actually. It doesn’t cost anything single mum, and clash of swords you lift your mask to say hello and smile.” following a perilously to discover that the rather balletic, Celia Imrie is exactly as I had close brush with death, energetic lady you have been lunging imagined she would be – warm, Celia Imrie is more at is none other than Celia Imrie, the thoughtful, a bit naughty and dripping plummy-voiced star of the Marigold with refined English courtesy. But determined than ever Hotel films, Calendar Girls, Bridget there’s also a sense of determined to seize every day, she Jones’s Diary and bestselling novelist urgency about her. Even though she tells Juliet Rieden. to boot. It could happen, really. hates to be defined by age, at 65 she’s Celia regularly hops from acutely aware that she must grab life Southampton to New York on the by the throat to make each day count. liner and always throws herself into The cruise is pertinent. Her new the on-board activities. “I’ve probably novel, the witty romp Sail Away about done the journey about seven times sixty-something actress Suzy, whose now. I’m mad about the sea,” she play is cancelled and has to take a explains excitedly. “I go line dancing. job on a liner to work her way back I do the quiz. And, you know, in the home, is inspired by Celia’s ocean middle of the ocean doing a fencing jaunts. The setting is a deliberate class is rather an extraordinary departure from the sunny Belleville- PAUL STUART/CAMERA PRESS/AUSTRAL. STUART/CAMERA PAUL experience and wonderful.” sur-Mer backdrop to her first two ➝ 88 The Australian Women’s Weekly | APRIL 2018 APRIL 2018 | The Australian Women’s Weekly 89 Exclusive interview best-selling novels. These were inspired I put my mother, by Celia’s second home in Nice, where father, Nanny, she escapes chilly London to write in brothers and sisters the beautiful apartment she purchased through. But you can overlooking the Mediterranean. But conquer it and I am that idyll was shattered 20 months here to tell the tale.” ago when a man in a 19-tonne cargo truck drove into crowds of people Battling celebrating Bastille Day on the convention Promenade des Anglais, murdering 86 Celia’s father was and injuring 458 others. Celia was in not happy with his the middle of this terrorist attack, daughter’s choice running for her life. of profession, while “I have imagined all these years that her mother “never Nice gives me a special firework stopped us from doing display for my birthday because on WITNESSING THE what we wanted to do the 14th of July – Bastille Day – there NIGHT OF TERROR IN NICE in terms of our life choices. But I also Above: Celia and Imelda is a display over the sea which is Staunton play contrasting think that she had quite a difficult Celia was part of the throng celebrating doubly beautiful because it is reflected sisters in the newly released time with her possibly disapproving Bastille Day on The Promenade des in the water. And very often I have a film Finding Your Feet. friends, with this daughter who Anglais in Nice in 2016. But it all turned Left: Celia with Judi Dench decided to go on the stage. In those party because my birthday is the next to horror when a man in a huge truck in The Best Exotic Marigold day,” Celia tells me. (right) mowed people down on a 2km days it wasn’t really done.” Hotel. “Therefore, I was there down on the rampage, killing 86. Fortunately, it didn’t stop Celia and Promenade enjoying the fireworks “too big boned” to make she’s never been out of work. Today with friends. I realised something was it. At that moment Celia she’s part of a fearless, hugely talented wrong when a rather handsome young everything had changed. “When the instilled Celia with an infectious lust stopped eating – a rather group of Britain’s most in-demand couple came running towards me. She attack happened, I felt it was too for living to the full which is reflected simplistic attempt to actresses – all of a certain age – was running in very, very high-heeled difficult to be light-hearted, which I’m in the devil-may-care literary heroines make herself smaller – and including Dames Judi Dench, Maggie shoes and it was very, very fast and trying to be in my writing, the place she has penned and galvanised her fell victim to what then Smith, Helen Mirren, Imelda I remember thinking ‘blimey’. But was in such shock and in respect to into action in her own life. “Without was a very new and Staunton, Joanna Lumley and whatever they had seen was coming everybody there who had to digest being dramatic, I think I’m very lucky misunderstood disease, Penelope Wilton. Her portfolio of towards me. I was with a friend and the trauma of it all.” actually and it just pulls you up and anorexia nervosa. work ranges from Shakespeare, to trying to work out what on earth was And while she remains truly makes you feel grateful for what Following a stint in Chekhov to Nanny McPhee, but it going on and luckily she very cleverly committed to her French life, Celia you’ve got and celebrate every day, she [mum Diana] was too busy giving hospital in London she seemed to was the movie Calendar Girls, in said ‘Celia, for God’s sake, let’s run’. did actually sail away, both in reality which is what I try to do. I know I’m parties and riding her bike and betting be getting better, but then at 14 the which Celia posed naked with a pair I didn’t know what I was running on the Queen Mary 2 for work in sort of slightly running out of time.” on the horses,” Celia explains. “That illness returned and Celia ended up of large iced buns protecting her from but it was terrifying, it was with the US, and in fiction with a new sounds as if she didn’t care about us, being given electro-convulsive therapy modesty, which brought her global seconds to spare that I ran up a side cast of characters who meet on an Marrying nureyev she absolutely did, but she just knew coupled with anti-psychotic drugs and adulation. street and had I not, God knows. ocean-going liner. Celia was born in the heart of that she wasn’t domesticated. She was insulin. Today such treatment would Getting naked was a tough call for “I was in the path of the truck. Following a health scare in 2005, England’s green and pleasant land, very hot on manners and would like be considered barbaric and it certainly Celia. “It could be a kickback from It was ghastly. When I got back when doctors discovered Celia had stockbroker-belt Guildford in Surrey. me to have married a god-fearing earl left its mark on Celia. anorexia, but I don’t like taking my home there were dead bodies outside two pulmonary embolisms – blood She was the fourth of five children, with plenty of money.” “It’s very weird. I mean I can clothes off in front of myself, let alone my flat. I didn’t know what was clots on the lung – the actress avoids and her radiologist father David Imrie In the Imrie household Celia had remember seeing it happening to the everybody else. However, there were happening. You heard gun shots flying whenever she can and has was 60 when she was born. “He was to fight to be heard. “I was number woman in the same room as me but only a few parts going in that film and things. The not knowing was developed a personal passion for the a Scot and he went from red hair to four out of five so I wasn’t really the you don’t know what is going on and so when I was thrilled enough to horrifying and I am very lucky to be gentilities of sea travel. “People say white, but I only ever remember him eldest, the youngest, the only boy, half the time because they give you land the part I thought, well I cannot alive and that’s the truth. I don’t have ‘How long does that take?’ as if it’s with white hair. the Nanny’s favourite, and so that’s so many drugs. Mostly I shudder now make a fuss.” enough horrifying words to tell you the most awful experience in the “We five were a bit of a noise why I think I’ve spent my whole life when I think of it,” says Celia. Celia’s character is the first to pose how awful it was, but the French have world, but it’s probably about six because he used to have patients to showing off really,” she chuckles.