Amanda Redman: How I've learnt to live with my scars
From The Independent
The actress Amanda Redman was burnt as a child and was badly scarred as a result. But, as she tells Brian Viner, she has never seen herself as a victim
Published: 27 March 2002
In the lounge of the Athenaeum Hotel in Piccadilly, London, the actress Amanda Redman – the star of the current ITV hit At Home With The Braithwaites, about a dysfunctional family who win, and then lose, a fortune on the lottery – is pouring tea.
She is wearing a startlingly green short-sleeved sweater, revealing nasty scars almost the length of her left arm. Redman has never been secretive about her scarred arm, and this is not the moment to start. On Thursday she presents a BBC1 documentary called Scar Stories, which looks at four incidents of scarring, three physical and one psychological, and learns how the various sufferers have coped.
First, though, her own case history. When she was 18 months old she tipped a pan of boiling turkey and vegetable soup over herself, and was so badly burnt, and so traumatised, that at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, she was pronounced clinically dead. The burns covered most of her body, and for the next few years her parents carted her around from hospital to hospital, depending on which specialist she needed to see.
Her arm was the only part of her body permanently affected. "And that," she says, "was because infection set in." Her mother, she adds, hates her talking about the accident and the scars, hates the fact that she is presenting this documentary. "She says to me, 'why can't you leave it alone?' "
Needless to say, the accident left her mother tormented by guilt. "To this day if she hears a child crying in a particular way..." Redman tails off; she doesn't need to finish the sentence. She herself has never ascribed blame. Rather, she admires her mother for resolutely not allowing her to feel like a victim.
"I was brought up to think that there was nothing wrong with it, even to the point of going up to people and saying 'look what I've got'. I say to her that she did such a wonderful job with me that she should feel proud when I talk about it."
But for an actress, who by definition spends her life being looked at, the scars must surely have caused some problems?
"No, really. Oddly enough, in fact, that's how the acting started. When I came out of hospital I had so much energy, having been cooped up for so long, that my parents were told I was hyperactive, which in those days sounded like a mental disorder. So to let off steam, I was put into Saturday morning ballet class. The trouble was, I had two left feet, and was bumping into other children all the time. So then they put me into the drama class upstairs. And I loved it."
She remained serenely free of self-consciousness about the scars, even during the introspective teenage years. "It was never an issue," she says flatly. "Well, only once, when I was 22, and sitting in an Indian restaurant in Westbourne Grove (west London) with a boyfriend. I was asked to cover up because it was making my fellow diners feel ill. And I did. Of course, that wouldn't happen today."
Redman is now 42, and infinitely more angst-ridden about her age than her scars. "Turning 40 was horrid," she says. "I was so depressed on my 40th birthday, and I don't understand when people say it's marvellous. I don't like the fact that when it rains, my knees hurt. Wrinkles are bad enough, but I can't even do the same things physically that I used to."
None the less, in her fifth decade her career has shown no signs of flagging. On the contrary, she is more in demand than ever.
Redman has appeared with Denzel Washington in the film For Queen and Country, with Ray Winstone and Ben Kinsgley in Sexy Beast, and with Ricky Tomlinson in Mike Bassett, England Manager. She also has behind her a long list of television appearances, including playing deputy head to Lenny Henry in the classroom drama, Hope and Glory, and taking on the part of Diana Dors in Blonde Bombshell, the made-for-TV film about the Fifties film star.
And since her profile is so high, and she rarely makes any attempt to conceal her scars, it is no wonder that she was invited to present Scar Stories. Doing so, she says, was a humbling experience. The first subject was an RAF pilot who was badly burnt during the Second World War. "He suffered typical airman's burns, and was put back together by Archibald MacIndoe, the man who started the guinea pigs, you know, pioneering the growing of noses from the chest and so on. In fact, it was the protégés of MacIndoe who treated me in East Grinstead, which is where he was based. "Most of the airmen he treated were only 18, 19, 20, so they haven't seen themselves grow old, because they have the same face they had then. And as a result they still behave like 18-year-olds. They have this fantastic love of life. It's so humbling."
Another subject is a woman of 24, a jazz singer. "And she self-harms. She uses caustic soda and cuts herself. She can only sing if she can feel blood trickling down her thigh." I recoil. "I know. Awful. And there's another one, which was actually quite a celebrated case. She was a young girl of 17, babysitting for a woman whose ex-husband had taken out a contract on her life. He sent round a contract killer, who mistook the babysitter for the ex-wife, and threw a vat of acid in her face, disfiguring her. The programme finds out how all these people deal with life, how they get on, their outlook on things."
The remaining case, she adds, involves internal scarring. "It's a man who got meningitis when he was 55, and was left in a coma. When he came out of the coma he thought he was 15, and it's now five years on and he still doesn't remember anything between 1959 and the present. He feels nothing for his wife, children, grandchildren, which is terribly sad, as he was very close to them before, especially his daughter.
"He says he feels as if he's trapped in a science-fiction movie. In fact, the first time he looked in a mirror he smashed it. He said 'that's not me, that's an old man'. Similarly, he said to his wife, 'you're not my wife, you look like my mother'.
"He is stuck in 1959. Anything that has happened since is a mystery to him. He maintains that it is impossible to put a man on the moon. And when he was given a video of the 1966 World Cup final, he played and played and played it. He couldn't believe it, because in 1959, less than 15 years after the Second World War, it must have seemed extremely far-fetched to think of England beating Germany in the World Cup final."
Best of Times, Worst of Times: Amanda Redman
From The Sunday Times
My first memory is of standing up in a cot and a nurse asking me: “What shall we have for dinner tonight?” And me saying: “Sawdust and hay.” I was 3½ and in Great Ormond Street hospital — my home. I remember pain. It was constant, and I lived with it, as did all the children who’d been burnt. That was the norm. The story of what happened to me on the day of my accident is now so ingrained it’s almost as if I remember it, but of course I don’t at all, whereas it will stay with my mother for ever. Even now, when she hears a child screaming in a particular way, her blood runs cold.
I was 18 months old. We were staying with my grandparents in Brighton. It was Boxing Day morning. My grandmother was out. Mum was Hoovering in the front room and Dad was washing up in the kitchen. Nobody else was up. I’d been given a rocking duck for Christmas. I wanted to be closer to where my dad was standing by the sink, so I dragged it towards him and stood on it. I was singing, and then I lost my balance. There was a huge cauldron of turkey-and-vegetable soup on the stove. When my hand touched the hot metal, it stuck. I fell backwards and pulled the cauldron on top of me. Only my feet were sticking out. I was literally burnt from head to foot.
Mum freaked. It was total panic. I was wearing a woollen cardigan and she pulled it off. But as she did, it took everything off, all the flesh down to the bone. She stopped and then wrapped me up, which was the right thing to do. The first my grandmother knew of it was when she saw the ambulance and heard me screaming for her. I was very close to my grandmother. She dropped her shopping bags in the middle of the road and ran to me.
The accident was much worse for Mum and Dad than for me. They’d been together for about nine years when I was born. Mum was 31, a housewife. She was considered a great beauty — a cross between Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner. She still is. Dad was 27 and a salesman. They’d had a miscarriage before I came along, so I was a very wanted baby. But Mum always said: “You were so perfect when you were born that I just knew it couldn’t last.” So she was very protective of me. She says it was almost as if she expected something like that to happen. And when it did, she felt everything that parents feel when anything happens to their children. But the guilt of pulling off my cardigan has remained with her for ever. Even now when she sees me at some do or other and I’m in a sleeveless evening dress, she doesn’t like it. She gets very upset.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]I had third-degree burns to 75% of my body. In hospital I lost consciousness and my heart stopped, but I was revived, and then it was a case of waiting. They couldn’t move me because I was so ill. Later I went to a big burns unit in East Grinstead, where Sir Archibald McIndoe worked — a leading plastic surgeon who had given up his Harley Street practice after the war to save the faces and bodies of thousands of burnt RAF airmen. I was looked after by his protégé — Mr Faulkner. But then he moved to Salisbury. My parents upped sticks and moved too. It hugely affected them, emotionally and financially. I was in hospital from the age of 18 months until I was five, because of all the skin grafts I had. They could only do one or two at a time, because your body can’t take any more than that. Everything healed, which was amazing. Only my left arm remains badly scarred. Mum has never forgiven herself for that.
The stress for my parents was absolutely terrible. And then, a year after I left hospital, Dad contracted leukaemia. He was 33. He beat that, but then he got liver cancer when he was 49. At the same time I was asked to go to Hollywood to be in a film. It was 1980 and I was 21. I’m very glad I didn’t go, because Dad died shortly after that. I wasn’t asked again.
I’ve never felt self-conscious about my scars or covered them up. What helped my confidence when I left hospital was that my parents sent me to a Saturday-morning drama class. I loved it. And that’s why, 10 years ago, I founded the Artists Theatre School in Ealing, west London. It’s not just for actors, and it has nothing to do with getting famous. We have kids there who have been bullied or suffered trauma. It’s an excellent healing process for them, as it was for me. I’m extremely proud of it.
I’ll always remember a wonderful old man — one of McIndoe’s chaps. He’d been shot down in the war and at 19 his whole face had been burnt away. He said: “The most marvellous thing is that I haven’t got old. I’ve got the same face that I had when I was 19.” I look at my arm now and it hasn’t changed a bit. He was right — it is marvellous.
Amanda Redman is filming the fifth series of the BBC1 drama New Tricks, due to be shown next year. She is patron of the Children’s Fire and Burn Trust
Redman Blasts Equity
The Stage News: (January 2004)
Amanda Redman has criticised Equity for being “very weak”, particularly in its negotiating of cable channel repeat fees, and has blamed the situation on the fact the union is no longer a closed shop.
Her comments come after Richard Briers recently branded as “legalised theft” the deals Equity has undertaken with channels such as UK Gold for repeats of shows including The Good Life. Their criticism could be seen as indicative of the increasing gulf between actors at the top of their profession and the union that is supposed to represent them. A recent campaign was launched featuring Ewan MacGregor trying to attract well-known actors back to the union.
Said Redman, who has recently starred in At Home with the Braithwaites and Hope & Glory: “I don’t think that I have ever knowingly received a fee from any of the cable people when anything I have been in has been retransmitted and I have been in a lot of things that have had fresh life on the new channel.
“If I have had monetary gain from those shows, it has been a matter of a few pence - rather than a few pounds. The trouble is that our acting union Equity used to be very strong and now it is sadly very weak and we have been left behind in the negotiations where new technology is concerned. We are no longer a closed shop and I regret that - anyone can become, and get a job as, an actor now - as is proved by the proliferation of the ‘reality’ shows.”
Under the terms of Equity’s agreement with channels such as UK Gold, broadcasters wanting to transmit old British programmes pay a one-off sum for a licence to show a set number of programmes, usually a series. The cast then shares 17% of that lump sum between them - the share being relevant to their prominence in the show.
Although Equity and the BBC never had a closed shop agreement, it did operate one within the ITV companies. Legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher’s government ruled that employment could not be refused to someone on the grounds that they did or did not belong to a union. Membership of such bodies has fallen dramatically since then and many, including Equity, have had to launch extra incentives to attract members.
An Equity spokesman said: “In a multi-channel TV world where some channels get audiences that are so small they cannot be measured, it is inevitable that some payments to performers will be small. This is nothing to do with the closed shop or the strength of Equity. It was, after all, after the closed shop that Equity reversed nearly a century of history and got repeat payments for actors in feature films.”
'I'd Risk My Life To Have Another Baby'
AMANDA REDMAN EXCLUSIVE
I'D RISK MY LIFE TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY
By Karen Hockney 23/04/2007
For Amanda Redman, pregnancy has been a long and gruelling experience - and it very nearly killed her. The actress has suffered six miscarriages and, 14 years ago, almost died from an ectopic pregnancy. At 14 weeks the baby had started growing in her Fallopian tube, causing it to rupture. She was filming the TV series Demob at the time when she suddenly felt unwell and was raced to the Princess Margaret Hospital in Windsor.
Amanda recalls: "I ruptured and they gave me 20 minutes. It was really dangerous. As I went under, I was silently crying and telling my daughter Emily I loved her. The surgeons asked why I was crying and I said, 'Because I'm going to die'. "They said: 'We won't let you die, we're the A Team'."
It was Amanda's second ectopic pregnancy - and yet she still dreams of a brother or sister for Emily, her daughter from her eight-year marriage to actor Robert Glenister.
"I always wanted another baby," the star of BBC1's New Tricks confesses. "I can still have one apparently. Although, of course, it's looking less likely now."
Now 48, Amanda is desperate for a child with her toyboy boyfriend Damian before she hits 50. Yet she battled for years before giving birth to miracle daughter Emily.
"Once you've had an ectopic you are more likely to have another one", explains Amanda. "I'd had two miscarriages before Emily and there were more after her.
"They never found out the reason but luckily Emily was a tenacious little bugger - she hung on."
After each miscarriage, Amanda grew more and more despondent.
"It was pretty ghastly, I was in denial," she says. "I was watching TV one day and a lady who had two miscarriages was crying. I said to the TV, 'Pull yourself together'. It was terrible to say that. I've dealt with that denial now but there was a hell of a lot of pain.
"With the ectopics you undergo very traumatic surgery. But it is easier to grieve because you know your life is in the balance.
"If I had given in to how I was really feeling over the miscarriages, I would have been too frightened to get pregnant again. I was so desperate to have another baby that I couldn't allow myself to have that fear. I'd have made life awful for everyone around me."
Amanda says miscarriage runs in her family. "My mum got pregnant at 43 and had a miscarriage so it's a genetic thing," she reveals. "They say it could have been stress but I was working very hard during Emily's pregnancy and she was fine so it doesn't make sense."
Amanda is now patron of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. She explains: "People relate to my experiences because unfortunately they are not unusual. It's a huge problem and it is easily misdiagnosed - some doctors assume it is gastroenteritis. Women need to be aware that they should have a scan early, at six or seven weeks."
Amanda's partner, designer Damian Schnabel, is 12 years her junior and has been a doting stepfather to Emily.
"We were at a wedding and everyone was getting pictures of their kids out and I was suddenly aware that Damian didn't have one," says Amanda, who lives in Ealing, West London. "But he started talking about Emily, bless his heart."
Despite her age, she still hopes that she can conceive naturally. She explains: "My mum and grandmother didn't start their menopause until their early fifties."
AND she is not concerned about being an older mum: "Babies are hard work and you have to have the energy to run after them. At the moment it would be all right.
"To have one at 67, as some women do, is possibly pushing it but I'd never judge anyone where having children is concerned. I worry about what would happen later on but my father died when I was very young. Being a younger parent doesn't prevent tragedy."
Amanda's experiences have tightened the bond between mother and daughter. "We are very close, I adore her," she says. "Emily is 19 now and doing A-levels which is weird. I don't feel old enough! In fact, she treats me like I'm her daughter. She told me off the other day for saying, 'Whatever!' and said I was deeply uncool.
"Teenagers are a nightmare. It starts at 11 and gets worse. You ask a question and get no, no, no in response but then the sweetness comes through.
"Her dad and I want her to go to university and she wants to go to drama school - hardly surprising as we are actors.
"She is passionate about acting so we have to support her.
"We have a very fiery relationship but it's also very loving. It's passionate - sometimes we'll scream at each other but she still crawls into bed for a cuddle with me. She is very special, all the more so because she is my only one.
"She borrows my clothes and I often see her in something I recognise from my wardrobe. Motherhood is easier on one level now but she needs me more than when she was younger. Girls want their mums." Amanda's age belies her youthful looks and energy, which she puts down to good genes. "My mum is 77 and hardly has a line on her face," she laughs.
"I do try to keep in shape but it's harder as you get older. I go to the gym and I have a trainer who comes on set three times a week. At lunch we go for a run or lift weights. I hate it with a passion but doing this job, you have to try."
Having a partner 12 years younger is probably a good incentive too. Amanda's taste for toyboys saw her enjoy a fling with an 18-year-old (when she was 39) before she met Damian.
But she's found The One now, although marriage is not likely.
"Marriage is not really a consideration," she explains. "Loads of his mates are getting married at the moment because they are all in their mid-thirties. We have been going to interminable weddings and I just think, 'Why?'
"Some of the ones that we went to a few years ago have already broken up. These days it is unimportant. If you are committed to each other, it's as simple as that. You don't need anything else. You never know if marriage puts so much pressure on sometimes that it could make it worse. We are very happy as we are."
Having been married to an actor and involved with others - including her New Tricks co-star Dennis Waterman - over the years, Amanda is convinced they don't make the best partners.
She says: "What has made it work with Damian is the fact we are very different and he is not in the business. At first it was difficult. He had the impression of actors being spoilt and shallow and wasn't keen on meeting my friends. Then he met them and would say, 'Well, they are really nice people actually'.
"He came on set this week and afterwards he said, 'Don't ever tell me you have a hard time at work. You wander out of the house, sink into the back seat of a Mercedes, someone opens the door and ushers you into your luxury trailer. Try getting on a tube!'
"He is not impressed by any of this and that's healthy."
Me and My Motors
From Times Online - 'Someday My Bentley Will Come.'
"Actress Amanda Redman has had several defining moments in her life. There was the day she got married, and the day her daughter was born. And then there was the day she bought an Astra GTE. Up until that point she had been driving “old ladies’ cars”. “The Astra was black and very fast,” she says. “And I like the change. It was great to see guys at traffic lights. It was amazing — 0 to 60 in seconds. Whoof — and off. Their faces always made me laugh. I loved that car.”
Unfortunately, so did the car thieves. “I remember coming back to find someone had tried to steal it. In so doing they had broken the steering column, which took three months to repair. The car was back one week then it got stolen for real. The police drove me to this rough council estate at 2am to pick it up and take it back to the garage. Then it got nicked from the garage. That car was famous — all those police reports. In the end I was thrilled when my mate gave me her old Fiat Tipo instead.”
In more recent days Redman has swapped the humble Tipo for some of the most expensive cars in the world, including Porsches, Aston Martins, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. Unfortunately, they weren’t hers, belonging instead to her lottery- winning character in the ITV series At Home with the Braithwaites.
“That character had expensive tastes,” says Redman. “My favourite was her Bentley Convertible. I thought it suited me. I hoped that the production company would agree and allow me to keep it. But no such luck.”
Redman also experienced open-top driving in Blonde Bombshell, the biopic about Diana Dors in which she starred. “That involved me driving round in a 1950s Rolls-Royce convertible. Having driven a Rolls and a Bentley, I suppose it’s little wonder I love convertibles.”
Her real-life drive is slightly more prosaic — a second-hand Mini Cooper: “I needed something I could nip around in and park easily. A friend had only had it 10 months, and it seemed like a good bargain.”
Bargains are good because she is saving for a far more flashy dream car. She wants a convertible — naturally — and is struck with the CCS Convertible, an open-top version of the Hyundai Coupé V6. She heard about it through a friend and is adamant that this is the car she wants. She may have to wait some time, however, for the car — shown as a concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show last year — doesn’t go into production until 2007.
Redman first sat behind a steering wheel when she was 17 and her parents gave her a Mini for her birthday. “It was the ideal car for showing off to friends. Pure and simple, ‘I’ve got a car, look at me’. One day I made the mistake of letting my boyfriend borrow it. He crashed it. Typical man.”
She didn’t actually take her test until after her 20th birthday, claiming she was too scared of failure — her father had to take his test twice, her mother four times “and my brother still hasn’t passed!”
When she finally sat the test, Redman needn’t have worried. “It was a lady examiner and she was delightful. She talked about my shoes. She said ‘They are lovely — where did you get them?’ It put me at ease and I passed.”
Over the years Redman has filled many column inches in the tabloids, mostly concerning her relationships with the opposite sex. Her first love affair was with a music teacher when she 16. She has been the victim of domestic violence in two subsequent relationships and has spoken out publicly about the problem. Now settled with the designer Damien Schnabel, her love-hate relationship with men has calmed, but some things about them still rile her.
“I tell you what I really, really hate about men,” she says. “When you have to drive a car for film or TV and you have to reverse it back to the starting point, and a man says, ‘Would you like us to do that for you?’ I can’t believe it. I am quite capable of reversing a car, thank you.” And despite being not mechanically minded, woe betide anyone who treats her as such.
“About three months ago my Mercedes broke down so I called the AA,” she says. “AA man patronising? Oh please, yes. I know I’ve got a temper, but it was difficult to keep calm with that man around.”
She finds it just as hard to control herself when not driving. “When I’m in the passenger seat,” she says, “I am forever putting my foot on the imaginary brake and screaming ‘Look out!’ Which is terribly irritating for the poor driver.”
Redman’s fiery temperament does sometimes get her into trouble. She hates people who still insist on using their mobile phones while they’re driving. “So I make a sign or mouth something at them. ‘Stupid twat’, usually.” And she hates people who block her car in the driveway.
“I never shunt them out the way, but I do like to leave angry notes: ‘Thanks to you I couldn’t make an appointment’. Embarrassingly, though, it always ends up being a neighbour.”
ON HER CD CHANGER
My tastes in music are really eclectic. I love Coldplay’s second album, Ella Fitzgerald’s Greatest Hits and the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge. But if my daughter Emily is in the car we have to listen to music from a group called Blue; she’s only 16 years old, you see, and that’s quite a difficult age."
Question and Answer with Amanda
Benji Wilson meets the star of New Tricks.
BW: A fourth season of New Tricks is upon us. Tell us all about it…
AR: Crikey, where do you start? The first episode is a continuation of a story from the first series, dealing with the death of James Bolam's wife in a hit-and-run. He finally finds out who did it and starts to lose it slightly, and that carries on throughout the entire series. It's quite dark, actually.
Sounds highly entertaining.
Well, he's such a wonderful actor and he was thrilled that it gave him something more to play. New Tricks is one of those rare phenomena where you can go anywhere; it's not a comedy or a tragedy. I think what they've tried to do this series is get a little bit more grown-up.
And the list of guest stars is mighty starry: Sheila Hancock, June Whitfield, George Cole, Roy Hudd. How do you entice all these stars? Free bus passes?
We have a wish list, obviously. And I have to say that it's very rare that people say no. Some ask us - the executive producers get phonecalls from knights and dames saying, "I'd love to be in that show".
So it's the fourth series and it's all about detectives of "a certain age". How long can it go on before someone gets a dicky back or something?
Oddly enough, they're all really fit. James Bolam is the oldest, bless him, but that man has more energy in his little finger than most 25-year-olds have. I think it's an actor thing - you can't do those hours unless you look after yourself.
So there won't be any incontinence plotlines?
No, but we do actually play on the fact that they can't run as fast as they used to do. And they can't run as fast as me.
You also run the Artists Theatre School. Do you show them New Tricks episodes as a study aid?
Not New Tricks - other things, depending on what they're doing. I set it up and it operates out of Ealing Film Studios. We help students get into the top drama schools. After this I'm going to teach a four-hour lesson from my house.
Do you tell them that, with reality TV throwing up new stars every week, now's not a great time to be getting into acting?
I tell them the truth. People who have a real passion for the craft, I want to help as much as I can. It's probably more important to do that now than when I started, because when I started there was none of this s*** that's going on. To combat all these people who just want to be famous, they've got to really want to do it.
One final question: it's called New Tricks - does that, by implication, make you an old dog?
I think the point is that I'm the new trick - it's the boys who are the old dogs.
On set with Amanda Redman
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Time and Place
It was compact – you couldn’t swing a cat in it – with a tiny bedroom, bathroom and sitting room, and a minuscule kitchen. There was a balcony off the bedroom and sitting room. I thought the flat was cute – and, because it was on the first floor, I thought it would be safe.
When I moved in, I had loads of happy times. I was 22, and working at the Bush theatre over the road, so we all used to pile back. The place was always crowded with friends.
I painted it cream and had bookshelves made. I put up mirrors everywhere to make the flat look larger. I wanted wall lights, and I remember finding electricians in Yellow Pages. They put the lights up, but didn’t sink the wires into the wall. They said: “This is the latest fashion.” And I said: “Oh, is it?” The furniture was all Habitat. There was a cream sofa, to match the cream carpet, a coffee table and a white laminate dining table that folded against the wall. If I had people over, I had to move the coffee table to put up the dining table.
The kitchen was pine and shabby, but I couldn’t afford to change it. Gary Oldman, who was then with Lesley Manville, gave me their old bright-green psychedelic fridge because I didn’t have one. I was fond of emerald-green towels in the bathroom, which I got from Fenwick. I thought them the height of glamour!
I lived at the Grampians on my own, then with Robert Glenister after we married in May 1984. As soon as he moved in, bizarre things started to happen.
The first incident was when he was away in rep in Leicester, doing The Cherry Orchard. I’d gone out for the evening with two friends, and they took me back to the flat. It was June, and very warm. I put my key in the lock and, when I opened the door, this blast of ice-cold air literally pushed all three of us against the wall in the communal hall. The first thing that came into our heads was that there was somebody in the flat, and that the balcony doors must have been opened. But there was nobody there, and the doors were locked.
Then the radio alarm clock came on. It had been set to six minutes to midnight, which, of course, is a time you’d never set an alarm for. It was so scary that my friends said: “You ought to come and stay the night with us.” Next day, I came back with my parents, who were taking me up to Leicester to see Robert. We made coffee in our new coffee-maker, a wedding present. We didn’t drink all of it, and my mum turned off the machine. Next day, Robert and I came back. It was on, but the coffee hadn’t burnt away, so it must have just been switched on.
A couple of months later, we got two kittens, Menace and Minnie. All four of us were in the bedroom when Robert and I got this horrible feeling, and the cats’ fur stood up on end. The following morning, I was waking up, and had my eyes closed. I could hear footsteps in our hall, and called out to Robert to make some tea. Then I realised I could feel his leg next to me in bed. I sat bolt upright, and all the lights in the flat started flashing on and off. Robert rushed up and found our front door open. He came back into the bedroom and said: “Oh my God, look at your knee!” On my knee was drawn a face, with a crooked mouth, crossed eyes and weird meeting-together eyebrows. The lid of a felt pen Robert had put on the dressing table was on the floor, but the pen was missing.
That morning, I was rehearsing Oxbridge Blues, a Frederic Raphael film, with Ian Charleson. Ian picked me up, and I told him the story as he was driving. He looked at my knee and nearly crashed the car! Our director, James Cellan Jones, who was into poltergeists, said: “It sounds to me like you need to do a bit of history.” In the old days, there were huge serviced flats at the Grampians, and he suggested that our little unit had once been a nursery. He said the spirit sounded childlike and mischievous, and maybe it didn’t like the fact that I’d married.
I was too frightened to stay and, at the beginning of 1985, we moved in with Robert’s parents. We put the flat on the market with the estate agents I’d bought from 18 months earlier. They said this was the third time they’d sold the place, and that nobody stayed longer than 18 months. Eighteen months later, Robert and I went back to see if the chap we’d sold to was still there. He’d just moved . . .
Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet
Mike Bassett
plays Karine Bassett
Amanda Redman has been a prominent figure on both television and film since the 1980s. A starring role in Richard’s Things, in 1981, led to a continuous stream of television appearances including The Importance of Being Ernest, The Men’s Room, Demob and Body and Soul. Since appearing in the popular television series Dangerfield Amanda has taken on many more starring roles, most notably in Beck, as Diana Dors in The Blonde Bombshell, Alison Braithwaite in At Home With The Braithwaites and Sandra Pullman in the hit BBC series New Tricks. She has been most recently seen on the big screen with Ray Winstone in the British crime comedy Sexy Beast and, of course, in Mike Bassett: England Manager.
Why did you decide to go back to the character of Karine?
Brilliant, brilliant writing. Comedy writing that makes you laugh just doesn’t happen. The amount of scripts that I’ve been sent where you just don’t laugh or smile at all is so common. But these scripts were wonderful. They’re so witty, so clever, and just great fun. And I know nothing about football. You don’t have to know about football with these scripts, which I think is great. We’re not marginalising here, trying to reach a specific audience. I would watch this series. And I think that is an indication of why I wanted to do it.
Has Karine changed since the movie?
I think she’s become tougher, because she’s had enough. She’s finally given Mike that real ultimatum. I know she left him during the movie, but she was always going to come back to him. But this time I think she actually means it. And also her boy has moved away from home, so she doesn’t have to keep it together so much now. It’s more “you do something for me now”.
Would you have been upset if you couldn’t have played Karine?
I wouldn’t like that because it’s MY character. I would have been very disappointed. It’s difficult to give a character over to another actor.
Was working with Ricky Tomlinson fun?
He’s so sweet, he just makes me laugh and laugh. Your face aches after a bit because you laugh so much. I think Ricky is just wonderful, and this is the best thing he’s ever done. It’s a tour de force by him, it really is. This is the role that he was born to play.
Is it different acting for television and acting for films?
It’s the same process really, especially on this job. There’s only one camera so technically, for an actor, it’s exactly the same. Television is only different when there’s multi-cameras, and that’s not something I’m really interested in anyway.
Do you like Karine?
I do like her very much, I think she’s a terrific woman. I’m not just saying that because she’s my character. I sometimes enjoy not liking the characters I play – it helps me get a handle on them. But I do like Karine because I think she’s got huge integrity; she’s loyal and strong. Anybody who is that loyal to their family really gets my vote. I also admire her now for saying “well, what about me?”. She still loves him, but is now saying “listen, you’ve got to think about me as well”. She’s good news. And she’s funny – she doesn’t know she’s being funny of course – which is a strength of the writing.
Do you think Karine likes Mike?
I feel she loves Mike very much. It’s one of those long running marriages that you come across. There’s no way she’d ever be unfaithful to him. She hates him at times too, but that’s a healthy thing. I really believe her loyalty and devotion to him is complete.
How difficult was it to pretend to be a hairdresser while acting?
Actually I liked it - it’s more challenging. When I watch something I find it irritating that you can tell the person’s not really cooking or whatever. You think: “you don’t know what you’re doing.” So I find it quite a challenge to make people believe that I am a trained hairdresser.
Does playing comedy become easier or more difficult with experience?
I think comedy becomes easier. When you’re younger you’re desperate to be funny. But actually comedy comes out of truth. Timing helps, but the timing has to come out of the situation – and as you get older you realise more what the truth of the situation really is. And you’re not frightened then also, because you know that all you can do is be truthful to the script and the situation. If I’m funny then that’s brilliant. But if I’m not, at least it will be believable.
Do you see any similarities between you and Karine?
I think probably the difference between her and myself is that I try to remain very much in control of my life, despite the madness circling around. So the drama school is very much my baby and I keep my finger on the pulse of it. My career is also something which I completely control. The paparazzi rubbish is even something that I can control by refusing to talk to them. Whereas Karine actually has no control. Mike is leading her wherever, and she has to make the best of a bad job wherever she arrives. So she is more nose-led.
Who are your heroes?
Helen Mirren – I adore her work. I’ve never met the lady unfortunately, but I think she’s a wonderful person. Everyone who knows her has nothing but good to say about her. I also respect Tony Blair; despite whether I agree with some of his policies or not I believe that he has huge integrity and that he believes he’s doing the right thing. He stands up for what he believes in, and I admire anyone that does that. It’s terribly unusual for a politician. And he knows how much popularity he’s lost for sticking up for what he believes in. His heart’s in the right place.
New Interview
Actress Amanda Redman has had more than her share of monster television hits in the last few years. She tells Liz Thomas about the downside of being a household face and how far she was prepared to go for the third series of New Tricks
Amanda Redman has had no less than five major ratings-toppers in the last decade. Shows such as At Home With the Braithwaites, Dangerfield and New Tricks - which will be filming a third series this autumn - have fast become household favourites and Redman still can’t quite believe her luck.
Now there is a new six-parter, based on the hit British movie of four years ago, Mike Bassett: England Manager, in which a washed-up football pundit was promoted well beyond his capabilities and found himself attempting to guide and inspire the national side.
She reprises the role of Karine Bassett. “It’s been marvellous to make because it reunited nearly all the original team - Ricky Tomlinson is Mike and he’s an absolute joy to work with. I’m laying myself open to correction but I believe that this is the first time that a British feature film has become a full TV series, it usually happens the other way about.
“The plot is that Mike and Karine are living out in Spain and she definitely wants to stay there. But he finds himself offered the job of managing a has-been football club, the fictional Wirral Town. And he just wants to prove himself for one more time. Mind you, Karine actually comes into her own over the action of the new series, since she starts up her own beautician business and actually becomes rather good at it,” she says.
Despite its the series’ setting Redman confesses that none of the filming took outside of the M25, which will come as a blow to those proponents of the north west’s flourishing production industry. She says: “It was all filmed in and around London. Also on location in Marbella in Spain, which wasn’t quite so wonderful as it may sound. Although even that was full of British holidaymakers and Ricky and I were getting recognised everywhere we went. There was no escape, no hiding place.”
The fortysomething actress acknowledges that she has a had a pretty good 20 years in the industry and is quick to add that getting recognised comes hand in hand with success. However its clear that she is craving a little anonymity before filming for surprise BBC hit New Tricks starts again. She says: “I’m off to Mauritius and I have the feeling that no one will have heard of me over there.”
Redman discovered acting almost by accident, having been sent to dance classes to help her recover from a bad accident as a child. “I am a rubbish dancer and they soon despaired of me - that was when I discovered a little room upstairs from the class where they did a weekly drama class and I took to it like a duck to water,” she explains.
The rest, as they say, is history and the star is relishing the roles she is tackling at the moment. She says “The Bassett series is very much like New Tricks - it is character-led and it isn’t one person’s show. But, as when New Tricks began, it will take a little time to ‘bed in’ and for characters to become familiar for the audience. I liked the first series of New Tricks very much but establishing who you’re playing for the viewer and what is going on always takes a few episodes.
“You hope that people stick with you through that process. And on New Tricks, they did, because the second series was better than the first - and so were the ratings. I’ve seen three scripts for the third series and the quality of the writing is just amazing.”
And it sounds like Redman is prepared to go even further in the new series. “I never do nude scenes unless they are totally essential to the plot,” she says. “It all has to have a reason for me - a lot of people remember me for some pretty up-front scenes in a TV drama I did quite a few years back. But in that case I was playing a woman who was having a secret affair. I’ve never honestly ever worried about nude scenes before, because you’re well looked-after and you know that the other person acting opposite you feels as vulnerable as you do.
This time round she confesses to being nervous. “Not so much the nudity of itself but making sure that I delivered an honest performance - reacting as my character would. You see, I’ve observed people in real life in grief or in shock, when they’re wonderfully happy or blisteringly angry. I know how to ‘mimic’ that, and how to bring it to life on the stage or on screen.”
Amanda on her burns.
As a toddler, the star of ITV1's hit series, At Home With The Braithwaites, was burned from head to foot when she poured a saucepan of boiling soup over herself. Her childhood was spent in a succession of hospitals having skin grafts and plastic surgery. By the time she was a teenager,the only remaining scars were on her upper legs, her thighs and her left arm.
Redman doesn't consider her arm to be deformed. "My left arm fascinates me," she says. "I remember once lifting up my arms in front of a mirror so that I couldn't see the scars, but mostly, I am really proud of my arm; it's me. And I have a great left hook."
Adamant that the scarring will not get in the way of her career, Redman says she doesn't worry about the way her arm looks."No casting director has mentioned it and I am pretty sure it has never stopped me getting work as an actress."
As a result of her childhood accident, Redman has always been extra vigilent with her own children and is the patron of the Children's Fire And Burns Trust where she campaigns for prevention by way of education.
Quote......
"As a small child I pulled a pot of boiling soup over myself and received severe burns over my entire body. Regardless of the scar on my left arm I went about achieving my ambition to be an actress. Being so aware of the pain and trauma involved with such burns and how easily they can occur, I strongly believe that prevention by way of education cannot be valued too highly."
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Amanda on her pregnancies.
Amanda on her pregnancies.
Recovering in that hospital bed from major surgery, you ask yourself — why me? And you find yourself wondering whether there is anyone else out there who's been through this traumatic experience. That's why it is so important to share these experiences to help you realise that you are not alone. In fact our Patron, actress Amanda Redman, suffered two ectopic pregnancies.
"When I was asked to become the patron of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, I agreed with alacrity as I have had two ectopic pregnancies in the last eight years. The first was diagnosed fairly early, but the second was not discovered until much later which resulted in my nearly losing my life. This I am sure, was due to the lack of knowledge and expertise in the medical profession at that time. I feel that anything that can help make more people, and not just General Practitioners, more aware is extremely important in order to combat this potentially lethal and distressing condition."
The following are extracts from an interview with Amanda from a health magazine, following her starring role in the second series of the television drama "Hope and Glory":
..Today, at 40, Amanda has head turning looks and is up beat and resolute about the future, but behind her beaming smile lies awful heartache. She's had to get through some terribly tough times, as her dreams of a second baby ended in tragedy again
and again.
"...I've had 2 ectopic pregnancies and it's much more common than people think — 1 in 100 pregnancies. Eight women a year die from it and the reason is usually lack of awareness of it and so it is misdiagnosed... The first time it happened to me
it wasn't so bad. I hadn't even known I was pregnant until I was rushed into hospital with copious amounts of bleeding and quite extraordinary pain. The second time, I did know I was expecting and was very thrilled to be having my second child.
I was making a film with Griff Rhys-Jones and I told everyone on the set that I was having a baby."
"We were about to shoot a scene and I really wasn't feeling very well. The cameraman was looking through the view finder at me, setting up the shot, when he suddenly went, 'Oh my God! Look at Amanda, she's gone grey!' All the colour had drained out
of my face and I had this deathly pallor. Everyone insisted I go straight to hospital. I felt light-headed, but on the way I was calm, even jokey." But when she got there all that changed.
"A nurse was giving me a transvaginal scan when she abruptly turned off the machine and announced one word 'Ectopic!' Just one word. I screamed out loud because I remembered the pain of the first one. Panic broke out to get me into surgery. My feet
didn't touch the ground. They couldn't operate immediately, as I'd just eaten, and they had to wait for the food to be digested."
"My then partner arrived as we waited and finally they wheeled me into the operating theatre. They allowed him to come with me and hold my hand — I thought that meant for sure I was dying. I was weeping and the surgeon, to whom I am forever indebted,
asked why? 'Because I think I'm going to die,' I replied. He told me, 'No you're not. You've got the A team here and we're not going to let you go.' "
All that Amanda remembers of the operation is that as she went under the anaesthetic she kept repeating a message to her little
girl, 'I love you, Emily.'
"...I was back at work in three weeks. Even so, I felt very frail and very vulnerable... emotionally I'm still not over it, even now seven years later."
Read About Redman (The Scotsman)
But the lurid coverage should have come as no surprise: Redman has always been a headline-grabber. Her very first film in 1981 - Richard’s Things, in which she and Liv Ullmann indulged in a steamy lesbian affair - set the tone. In 1986, she again attracted attention in To Have and To Hold, as a woman who sleeps with her brother-in-law in order to give her sterile sister a baby.
Her personal life has scarcely been less interesting to the tabloids. The scar on her arm, which she makes no effort to cover up, was caused by spilling hot soup on herself when she was 18 months old. At the time of Close Relations, Redman was going out with a man 20 years her junior, who was studying at the drama school she set up. The papers duly worked themselves into a frenzy about her "toy boy".
Over the years, her life has furnished the popular press with shed-loads of such stories. As a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Redman had a relationship with a teacher who abandoned his wife and children for her. Later in life, she endured two violent lovers, a divorce from actor Robert Glenister, six miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies. Phew!
But now, finally, as a trendy American psychotherapist might put it, Redman is "in a good place" - a "greenlight" actress, the sort of performer whose name attached to a project is sufficient to get it commissioned. After such hits as Blonde Bombshell, the ITV1 biopic about Diana Dors, Hope and Glory, the BBC1 teacher drama in which she starred opposite Lenny Henry, and Sexy Beast, the Oscar-nominated film where she played a gangster’s moll, she can take her pick of the plum drama offerings. This week, she returns as Alison in the third series of At Home with the Braithwaites, Sally Wainwright’s comedy-drama about the cataclysmic effect that winning £38 million on the lottery has on a family.
As well as being enormously entertaining, the series says some pertinent things about the corrupting influence of sudden wealth. "It’s an old cliché, but money doesn’t buy you happiness," Redman reflects. "You can’t look for contentment in material things. Alison was always aware of that - and that’s why at first she didn’t tell her husband and three daughters about the money. She knew that they were already on a knife-edge, and that the money would spoil them. She was right."
In the more than 20 years since she left Bristol Old Vic drama school, Redman has never been out of work, but she now seems to be coming into her prime. She is one of a handful of actresses of a certain age - Helen Mirren, Amanda Burton, and Francesca Annis are others - who are breaking through the old ageist barriers.
"When I was a baby actress," she recalls, "actresses my age would tell me: ‘Make hay while the sun shines because once you reach 40, it’ll all go horribly wrong.’ But it all changed with Joan Collins’s success in Dynasty. When they saw that, the TV bosses thought, ‘oh, women of that age can pull in the ratings.’ After that, there was the ‘Prime Suspect effect’. There, Helen Mirren proved that you can be a 40-something woman who is both a hard nut and deeply sexy. Good on you, Helen."
Redman’s personal life is looking equally healthy. She is the doting mother of Emily, her 14-year-old daughter by Glenister. She also declares herself to be "so happy" with her boyfriend of three years, the 29-year-old designer, Damian Schnabel.
Age certainly has not withered her. Sporting a striking blonde hairdo, a fashionable brown jacket and tight blue jeans, Redman looks a decade younger than her 42 years. It’s as if the setbacks in her life have only made her stronger.
"I am content now," she asserts. "I feel a new chapter in my life has opened. But, yes, I have at times thought, ‘oh God, why me?’ My life does read like a soap opera, and my mother has often said after reading an article about me: ‘That is not my Amanda. All those things cannot have happened to her.’ They have - just at different times.
"I have learnt from everything, and I am a lot stronger. Of course, I would change some of the things that have happened to me. But if I could, then what path would life have taken me down?"
Her new-found strength has certainly helped Redman deal with the excesses of the popular press. Endowed with a wicked, throaty chuckle, she can now laugh off their more outrageous stories.
"You’ve got to have a sense of humour, that’s the only way," she declares, firing up the first of many cigarettes. "If you take yourself too seriously, you just get too upset about the stories.
"If they find something out about you, you can go all Greta Garbo and deny it - but then they print it anyway. It’s better to talk to them. The only problem is that those interviews are dreadfully boring because they always go over the same old subjects. ‘She’s had trouble with pregnancies’ - yes, we know all that."
She assures me the often salivating articles no longer bother her. "I’m too used to it by now," she maintains. "I expect it. The only problem was that the pre-publicity for Close Relations made my mother say, ‘I’m not going to watch it. I’ll never be able to go into the hairdresser’s again.’"
But Redman can’t really see why the sex scenes are such a big deal. "I’ve never minded because none of the roles I have played have been sex objects," she says, blithely. "Anyway, sex is part of what we all are. Drama is about real life, so sex is bound to be an element of it."
Redman is not so matter-of-fact when it comes to protecting Emily. "The press stories do get me down when they affect my child," she says, the exasperation clear in her voice. "I’ve never courted publicity. I’m not a party animal - I find those showbiz dos terrifying. I don’t put my private life out there. So I don’t like paparazzi knocking on my door. That’s a huge invasion of privacy. You’re fair game if you’re out at all the premieres going, ‘here I am’, but I just get on with my job.
"Of course, I know what comes with fame, and without that we wouldn’t be where we are. I accept that there is going to be notoriety of some kind and that I’m not going to be able to get round Tesco’s in half an hour. That’s fine. What is not fine is when my private life is put up for grabs by the papers."
Redman thinks that some elements of the press corps have developed an unhealthy obsession with her because they are failing to make a distinction between fiction and reality. "A lot of the women I have played have been larger-than-life characters in contentious situations," she says. "Some of the stuff I have been in has been controversial. Therefore, I’m linked with that. But it’s so stupid. If you get offered the part of Hitler, you don’t suddenly become Hitler."
During the past five years, Redman has run a weekend drama school near her west London home. "I set it up because I felt - arrogantly - that drama can help anyone. It’s great therapy. When kids who have been bereaved or bullied are referred to the school and I see them thriving, it’s a fantastic feeling.
"Also, I felt that the young actors I was working with didn’t have the all-round training that we oldies had. They could go straight from school into EastEnders and become a star in seconds, but they didn’t have the grounding. Now 140 people - from the age of five to 45 - come and learn about the craft every Saturday." Redman says she relishes the opportunity to train British actors. In the wake of Richard’s Things, she was invited to work in Hollywood, but has never lamented not going. "When I was asked to move over there, my father was dying. If I hadn’t been with my father during his last six months, it would have scarred me irreparably.
"In the naivety of youth, I thought the Hollywood offer would come again, but it didn’t. It’s not something I grouch about because I adore the work I do in this country ... I wouldn’t have lasted two seconds out there. I would have had to learn something which plays no part in my make-up - diplomacy."
Her forthrightness is part of what makes Redman so captivating - if occasionally difficult to work with. She admits: "I can’t hide my feelings. I should learn to count to ten before I open my mouth. I’m a bit obsessive about work, so when people aren’t into it as much as I am, then I do say something. But perhaps I should keep my opinions to myself and not shove it down other people’s throats. Other actors say, ‘Let it go, it’s only work’, but I can’t think like that. For me, it’s a complete passion. If I ever lost that passion, a big part of me would be dead."
People instantly warm to a woman who bares her feelings so honestly. "My friends call me ‘Wysiwyg’ which is a computer term for ‘what you see is what you get’," Redman says, before flashing another trademark smile: "That captures me exactly."
WHY ARE PEOPLE OBSESSED WITH MY TOYBOY?
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AMANDA Redman is looking fantastic with a golden tan after just coming back from holiday with her boyfriend Damian and her daughter Emily. She is feeling happy and at peace with the world. But then I happen to mention the dreaded word. Toyboy. For five years now, Amanda, 44, one of TV's sexiest actresses, has been with Virgin design manager Damian Schnabel, who just happens to be 12 years younger than she is. "I find it mad that people still talk about my toyboy lover," she says. "I can understand at the beginning why people were interested and kept saying, 'ooh guess what'?" "And certainly with Oliver, yes OK, even I saw that! But Damian and I have been together for five years. It's not a f**king fling." Oliver is Oliver Boot, her previous boyfriend who was admittedly 22 years her junior, but the actress insists it's not a pattern. It's simply that she has fallen in love. "Damian is just the nicest man in the world," she says. "He is such a lovely bloke and doesn't cease to be. That is the lovely thing, that after five years together he is still as fantastic." She points out that many older well-known men, such as Michael Douglas, date younger women - but nobody ever questions their reasons. "If it was a man dating a younger woman, nobody would care," she says. "But if it's the other way around, it's a different thing altogether. "Look at Demi Moore, she is absolutely gorgeous and looks fantastic. But people still drag out the fact she's dating someone younger. "It's like, 'Oh God, here we go again'.'"Amanda says she never deliberately dated younger men and to set the record straight adds: "What I actuallysaid is that it's interesting that the two men in my life who have made me feel protected are Oliver and Damian - but I certainly did not mean that all younger men make me feel protected." Now she's said her piece, calm returns. She says her break in Italy with Damian and 16-year-old Emily did her the world of good. Not only did she need a well-earned rest after finishing filming her latest ITV role, Suspicion, it also gave her the chance to spend some quality time with Damian. Amanda is very much in love and describes him as "the nicest man in the world". And when we head off to a bar, she introduces him. It's obvious within seconds that he is just as besotted with her as she is with him. Clearly, the 12-year age gap doesn't bother them a bit Yet Amanda does get annoyed that the age debate even extends to her friends such as her co-starin TV's At Home With The Braithwaites, 26-year-old Adam Rayner after they were pictured having lunch together. "What I don't want any more is to be frightened of meeting my friends, irrespective of how old they are,"she says. "That is just horrible and also very unhealthy." Not that she's ever really looked the part of the "older woman". No matter what she wears, the actress - with her blonde hair, aquamarine blue eyes, glowing complexion and slim-toned figure - could easily pass for a woman a decade younger. Unfortunately for Amanda, the rest of Britain seems to have a fascination with her choice of a youngerman as her partner. What does Damian think of being labelled her younger lover? "He doesn't mind," she says. "He's never been frightened of getting out of cars with me with all the paparazzi about which is surprising because he is quite shy. But he, like all my mates, wishes everyone would give it a rest." Her eyes sparkle whenever his name crops up, so is there likely to be a wedding soon? Her first marriage, to actor Robert Glenister, collapsed in 1992 with both blaming the split at the time on work pressures. So has that experience put her off? "I've actually come to the conclusion you are better off not making vows you don't know you can keep," she says. "It seems to me that I've had a happier relationship in the last five years without all that sh*t, so no, I am not bothered about getting married again. Life is good, so why change it?" Friends have two nicknames for Amanda - WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and Grub because to the envy of millions of women she rarely wears make- up but still looks stunning. She also has a great sense of humour, happily letting slip that Damian is easily the more sensible of the two. "It's true," she giggles. "He is like my granddad becausehe is! The actor Ray Winstone, who is a good friend of ours, calls him sleepy Damian as he always falls asleep early! "The other day Damian told me in all seriousness that he used to be very passionate about jigsaws and stamp collecting! But I do love him, he is wonderful." Work means she is forced to spend large chunks of time away from her home in WestLondon filming. Weekends are sacrosanct and are a real family affair spent with Emily, Amanda's daughter from her first marriage. "Damian is a great mediator between me and Emily sometimes," she says. "He manages us brilliantly, particularly as she is at an age when she is so vile! "The great thing is Emily loves him to bits too. On Father's Day, she gave him a card saying, 'Thank you for looking after my mum' I thought 'ahh how lovely' until I opened it and it read 'because it keeps her off my back'!' Yet that mum and teenage daughter thing has not put her off the idea of another child, although her dream of a sister or brother for Emily has led to heartbreak after heartbreak. In the last few years, Amanda has suffered six miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies, the last of which nearly killed her. "What will be will be," is all she says about her hopes of having a child with Damian. " I have never gone down the route of planning and going 'quick, quick come home'.That's too clinical. I would just like to let it happen when it happens. That is my philosophy I do get upset sometimes about the fact that I haven't been able to have another child yet. I never normally cry but very occasionally something will remind me and I will weep buckets. "I don't think I will ever come to terms with it. Not really. But that is the way I have coped with it by pushing it into the background. But then every now and again it will come to the surface." There is plenty in her life that she has had to push in the background. She spent most of her childhood in and out of hospital having a series of skin grafts after accidentally tipping a pan of boiling soup over when she was an 18-month-old toddler. Then her father died when she was 21. "I realised recently that I never cry when anyone close to me has died," she says. "Instead I put things on the backburner. It's a strange way of dealings with things as it's much healthier if you can get them out, rather than storing them up. "But if something innocuous happens, like breaking a coffee cup, then it becomes the biggest problem ever. I'll cry buckets over that!' Amanda has never been busier. Her success in At Home With The Braithwaites has allowed her to pick and choose her roles. She pops up again next month in ITV's two-part drama Suspicion which was filmed in Manchester. It's a two-part thriller about a woman who receives an email claiming that her husband (played by Adrian Dunbar) is having an affair. It puts a seed of doubt into the woman's mind that causes a whole series of events that slowly spiral out of control. "I really enjoyed working on Suspicion," she says. "It was a fascinating experience to explore how you can plant suspicionin someone's mind and how that idea like a wriggly worm keeps coming to surface time and again. Am I a suspicious person? No, I always take people for what they are, probably a mistake sometimes!" Next in the pipeline for Amanda is a series for the BBC, New Tricks, and there are other potential projects after that. "In terms of longevity, I would love to be like Thora Hird," she says."I absolutely love my job and work. " |
Amanda plays some New Tricks
By Derek Robins
New Tricks star Amanda Redman says she has never laughed so much before on a job.
Redman, 44, blames co-stars Dennis Waterman, James Bolam and Alun Armstrong for her fits of the giggles during filming of the BBC1 police drama screened on Thursdays. She says: "We had a ball making the series. I love working with them, although we laugh like naughty kids and get into terrible trouble. Alun is the worst — I crack up while he manages to keep straight-faced." The actress is keen to make another series of the show in which she plays Supt Sandra Pullman, who tries to solve cold cases with the help of three retired cops . She says: "I believe that BBC bosses hope to go again with it. I think there's a lot of mileage left in it. I think the scripts are fascinating and it's very un-politically correct as there is a lot of truth in it." The 20-year-old unsolved murder of a peace campaigner is the subject of this week's episode. Supt Pullman and her team — Gerry Standing (Waterman), Jack Halford (Bolam) and Brian Lane (Armstrong) — re-open the case when one of the dead man's pals is put in Broadmoor for another killing. At the time, the death near a Nato base was blamed on a secret service plot. And it seems dirty tricks did occur. Even though she's playing a top cop in her current show, Redman admits she's not a big fan of police dramas. She says: "The only police show I'm a fan of is Prime Suspect. My character Supt Sandra Pullman is similar to Jane Tennison, but Sandra isn't as likeable. "Jane is sexier but Sandra doesn't use her sexuality in her job. She is very politically correct and is married to her work, but later she lightens up and has boyfriends played by Anthony Head and Patrick Baladi." Amanda Redman says she is struggling to give up smoking in spite of a pact with co-star Waterman to stub it out. She moans: "We made the pact on New Year's Eve but I only lasted 10 days while Dennis is still going strong. "I've tried acupuncture and herbal fags, but they failed. As for nictotine chewing gum that makes me sick. I began when I was 16 and now I smoke more than 20 a day so it's a fairly awful habit. My daughter Emily always tells me off." Meanwhile, Redman is critical about the lack of repeat fees actors receive for previous screen triumphs. In a career spanning around 25 years, her TV credits have included At Home With The Braithwaites, Hope And Glory, playing Diana Dors in The Blonde Bombshell, Dangerfield, Close Relations and the movie Sexy Beast. She says: "I'm not aware of getting much money for stuff I've been in from UK Gold." Another thing that bothers her is the growth of reality TV shows. She says: "Reality shows make me so angry — British TV is in a disgraceful state because of them. "They are an embarrassment and the Americans seem to be taking over the drama mantle that TV in the UK once carried. TV bosses are giving money to cheap shows that deliver the ratings, but I think viewers would watch better stuff if they were given the chance." Off-screen, Redman lives in West London with daughter Emily, 16. And in her spare time she helps the next generation of actors by running drama classes at nearby Ealing Film Studios. She says: "They're held at the Artists' Theatre School on Saturdays. It's an important thing for me to do. "The young people's passion for acting helps to renew my passion. What does make me mad is that you don't need an Equity card to be an actor these days."
Amanda on T.V
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Apr 6 2004 | |
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Star attacks reality shows | |
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By Nicola Methven, Tv Editor | |
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ACTRESS Amanda Redman has accused reality shows of ruining British television. She wants programmes such as Big Brother, The Salon and Driving School to be banned. The At Home with the Braithwaites star said: "They make me so bloody angry. British television is in a really disgraceful state. "It is pandering to the lowest common denominator. I believe that if the audiences were given better stuff, they'd watch it." Amanda, 45, who is co-starring with Dennis Waterman in BBC1's New Tricks, described American dramas such as Six Feet Under and The Sopranos as being among the best in the world. She added: "I think it's embarrassing for this country, when we used to be so good at what we did. "When the Americans are taking over in terms of the quality of their drama, which they are, and we are giving money to the cheapest stuff possible, it's a terrible state of affairs." Amanda, who teaches at a drama school in London at weekends, was also scathing about the contestants who appear on reality shows just to find fame. She said: "It's wonderful seeing young people who have that passion for theatre, as opposed to just becoming famous, which I cannot stand. It makes my blood boil. I just can't bear it. "It makes me furious. You choose a profession because, hopefully, you have a passion for it, and for the craft itself, whether it be writing, painting, acting, it doesn't matter." |
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