Interview: Ruth Wilson, actress

Published on Sunday 6 December 2009 11:11

Ruth Wilson is still at that stage in her career where you look at her, in this case across a crowded bar at the Young Vic in London, and think two words: Jane Eyre.

The 27-year-old played Britain's most beloved governess with such strength, measure and barely contained passion two years ago in the BBC period drama that with one waggle of those perpetually arched eyebrows she made English literature's great Romantic heroine her own. Samantha Morton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joan Fontaine – Wilson was as good at becoming Jane as any of them. What's more, she was only a year out of drama school.

Today there isn't a bonnet or middle parting in sight but still I see Jane Eyre before I see Ruth Wilson. There's that pouting mouth with its pregnant overhang of upper lip that one reviewer unkindly described as Donald Duck-ish. Or what about those quizzical eyebrows taking flight up her forehead like the wings of a bird? Even though Wilson looks a bit like someone who's rolled out of bed, wriggled into some skinny jeans and charged out the door without brushing her hair (which, I learn, is pretty much the case) she is beautiful in an extreme way. Much more striking than she was as Jane Eyre. Saying that her face is full of character sounds like a back-handed compliment but it's true. Wilson has a proper actress's look: arresting, unusual, a bit lofty. As she waits for me downstairs, I get a good sneaky peek at her from the balcony. She looks supremely confident and serene sitting on her own and doesn't come across as if she's waiting for anyone. In fact she doesn't look at the door once.

Eventually I go and get her. We head back upstairs and she takes over, ordering us cappuccinos and telling me she's lived near here for four years and is looking to buy her own place. "Close to the National, which is great," she says. "It's one of the places I always wanted to work. The National and the Donmar, and now I've done both. Tick, tick." She grins with pride, not the least bit modest. Wilson's unfailing confidence is the first thing you notice about her. Apart from those eyebrows. When she tells me that getting her big break playing a clever-not-pretty heroine has had its frustrations, it's clear she isn't taking it personally. Or lying down, for that matter. "I remember someone saying to me, 'Oh you're brave doing Jane Eyre,'" she says, rolling her eyes. "You know, because of the look. It's very plain Jane. I wore hardly any make-up and my hair was disgusting. The industry is very narrow-minded and a lot of people couldn't see beyond that."

The week before our interview Wilson was in New York promoting The Prisoner, the upcoming major remake of the iconic 1970s TV series in which she stars opposite Sir Ian McKellen. She looks much more glamorous in this, she informs me, and predictably the industry has done another about-turn. "You're always fighting against people's perceptions and prejudices," she sighs. "People before were like 'she's not pretty enough'. It's so depressing. If you curled my hair and put a bit of lippy on me …" She lifts one eyebrow imperiously. "Now, because The Prisoner looks amazing suddenly casting directors who hadn't seen me for jobs are saying 'get her in'. It's so stupid and so shallow. You hope the people you work with see beyond it all. Unfortunately a lot of them don't."

Less robust actresses might have taken whatever roles were offered with a heavy heart, gone off acting, or even changed the way they look. Wilson took six months off, chose carefully, and then did something else altogether. She decided to produce her own film. "The roles I get through are all the same," she says. "Just the girl on the side with the big breasts who smiles a lot. There is no depth, no challenge. Those great parts aren't around so I'll do it myself. Sod it." Wilson has got together a stellar team of women writers, directors and actresses and the idea, cooked up with fellow actress Hayley Atwell, is to produce a feature film made up of shorts by and for women. "Seven writers and seven directors, all women," she says, reeling off names. "Some of the women who are keen to direct are Rachel Weisz, Gillian Anderson, Tara Fitzgerald. Emma Thompson is going to mentor the writers and Susanna White, who directed Jane Eyre, will work with the directors. Stephen Poliakoff wants to be involved, but he's a man."

I tell her she must be on to a good thing if she's turning down Stephen Poliakoff, who directed Wilson in the TV drama Capturing Mary. "I'm sure he can help somewhere down the line," she replies breezily.

What really bugs Wilson is the fact that actresses used to be judged on their roles rather than their looks. "The last few years have been depressingly lacking in creativity," she says, which is probably why we have yet to see Wilson's leap to the big screen. "We've gone backwards. We're back in the 1950s when women were seen for their tits and arses rather than for being strong, independent, interesting, and vivacious." Wilson's favourite actresses are the Hollywood screen legends of old, the Katharine Hepburns and Bette Davises she grew up watching with her family in suburban Middlesex. These women weren't conventionally beautiful but they were smart, sassy, and they thrummed with screen presence. In other words, they were like Wilson. "Then in the 1980s we had Meryl Streep and Glenn Close and Sigourney Weaver," she continues. "Think of her playing Alien! These women weren't models or renowned for their beauty but we wanted to watch them. These days it's no longer about character or presence or story. It's about looking good. You see it in the acting as well. It's about what angle looks best rather than what's actually happening in the scene. There is an emphasis on the Megan Foxes of the world rather than on the Emily Watsons. To me being photographed in the street in some Versace outfit is just boring. It's too much effort. Look at me. I can't be f***ed to even brush my hair."

Not that it's holding her back. We're here to talk about Wilson's upcoming role in Small Island, the BBC's ambitious two-part adaptation of Andrea Levy's Orange prize-winning novel. Set in London in the 1940s, and Jamaica during the war, the story is of the first wave of W est Indian immigrants to Britain and the vicious racism they faced in a country where landlords put up signs reading "No Irish, no coloureds, no dogs". It's a brilliant drama and a refreshing alternative to the classic Sunday night bodice-ripper. She puts in a remarkably nuanced performance as Queenie Bligh, a stoic Londoner making do in London during the Blitz. "It's a unique piece of TV that we haven't really explored yet in this country," says Wilson. "It was the start of multiculturalism in Britain. We tend to look at the war here through the eyes of the stoic Brits. The racism is never analysed."

Queenie, in some ways, is not unlike Jane Eyre. They are both strong, solitary figures, women ahead of their time who feel deeply but never allow their heads to be ruled by their hearts. "Maybe I'm a bit of a loner," Wilson says with a laugh, though I find it hard to believe from someone who talks this much. "There is something about strong women. I love that drive to survive in a world that doesn't really have a place for you. And I like playing women I admire and respect. When I watched The Prisoner in New York for the first time I thought, 'God she's on her own a lot.' My character in that is an outsider too. Maybe that's who I am deep inside. I seem to attract these parts, or they attract me."

Wilson ended up interviewing her mother when researching the role. "She didn't come to London until the 1960s but there were still comparisons with Queenie. She moved from a farm in Norfolk at the age of 17, trained as a secretary and lived in a hostel in London. There were lots of Trinidadian guys there training to be accountants and she went out with one of them. She remembers being intrigued by black people because they seemed so different. She was amazed by their music and the way they carried themselves. It was such a contrast to British men at that time. After they were kicked out of the hostel she tried to help him find a place to live but there were still signs then saying 'no blacks' and no-one would rent him a room. My mum also remembers driving through London with her family and playing a game where they would count the black people because there were so few around then. Was that racism? I don't know …" These are some of the questions that Small Island grapples with and Wilson has clearly been considering them herself. She is assiduous when it comes to research, learning to play the piano for her role in Gorky's Philistines at the National, and taking a road trip alone across the Deep South to prepare for A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar, in which she played Stella opposite Rachel Weisz.

Small Island also marks Wilson's first sex scene. There are some fairly lusty moments, for the BBC anyway, involving her and actor Ashley Walters. Wilson's attitude to getting her kit off was characteristically forthright. "It was vital to see a black and a white body together, sharing that moment of intimacy," she says. "It wasn't gratuitous, just two bodies going at it. And to make myself feel better I made the crew wear bunny outfits, ears and tails, so if I had to look stupid and exposed they would too." Wilson also made sure she had a clause written into her contract. "No nipples," she says concisely. "It's important to protect yourself so you're not suddenly told to take your top off. It's a trust issue."

She's obviously a canny negotiator. She says the most tricky part of coming out of drama school and walking into the part of a lifetime was suddenly having more choice. People were throwing scripts at her, something her teachers hadn't prepared her for, and she quickly had to learn what to turn down and what to go for. She learnt her lessons fast and young and that's obviously why she's so assured now. "It was difficult to get my head around and only now, four years out of drama school, am I feeling much more settled," she says. "That period was quite mindblowing." She seems entirely unimpressed by awards and says the best part of being nominated for a Bafta and a Golden Globe for Jane Eyre was getting the phone call rather than "the event and waiting for four hours to find out you haven't won. It's not that important."

The support of her solid middle-class family has kept her feet glued to the ground. Her parents would take Wilson and her three brothers to the theatre as a birthday treat and she remembers her dad sneaking her in to see Schindler's List when she was under-age. "I was totally gobsmacked," she recalls. "I knew I wanted to be involved in making people feel that way." These days, she can spot her entire extended family in the audience when she's on stage. She was a bit of a tomboy when she was young, the only daughter who was more into rugby than dressing-up. In fact that's still the case. Wilson went on to read history at Nottingham University, where she met Carrie Cracknell, who now runs the Gate Theatre in London. They formed a company together and brought a play, The Hush, to the Edinburgh Fringe as students that ended up being taken to New York and London. "We had our photo taken with all these theatre greats the other day. Michael Gambon, Kevin Spacey, Patrick Stewart …" she says. "Carrie and I kept winking at each other as if to say, 'Look where we are!'"

There was another formative experience, one Wilson doesn't tend to discuss. When she was 16 she was approached by a scout and ended up joining Select, the modelling agency, for six months. "I didn't take it very seriously but it was good for my confidence," she says. "On the other hand it was highly weird and shallow. All the other girls were from Russia and Poland and had legs up to my armpits. It was quite demeaning. You go in, they pull up your skirt and say 'have you got good legs?' I'm like, how do I know? They're legs!" She had pictured herself in a David Bailey shoot, all monochrome and moody lighting. Instead she ended up on the cover of Mizz magazine. "They put me in bunches and I looked about 12 years old," she says, laughing. "It will come back to haunt me. I just stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat. It wasn't glamorous at all." She started college that autumn and lied when the magazine came out, saying the photo had been taken years before. "But it was good for me to experience all the rejection with modelling," she adds – not that she has faced much since. "It prepared me for this. In this industry you're hot one minute and not the next. You can't let that get to you. You just have to keep working."

Small Island starts tomorrow on BBC1 at 10:25pm

&#149 This article was first published in The Scotsman on December 5, 2009