Harriet Walter: Rubbing shoulders with aristocracy impressed Succession character
D
ame Harriet Walter says that rising up on the “foothills of aristocracy” helped her put together for her position of Lady Caroline Collingwood on hit HBO drama Succession.
Lady Caroline is the slicing Roy household matriarch – the second spouse of Brian Cox’s formidable Logan Roy, and mom to the three kids Kendall, Shiv and Roman.
With shares in Waystar Royco, she can also be a rich aristocrat, the likes of whom Dame Harriet says she “rubbed shoulders” with whereas rising up.
I at all times consider it as we lived on the foothills of aristocracy. We had been very low down however we rubbed shoulders with folks so I used to be conscious of them, however I wasn’t certainly one of them.
Speaking to the Brydon & podcast with Rob Brydon, she mentioned assembly actual life “Lady Carolines” and stated her portrayal of the character was a “mixture of lots of people.”
“I’ve got a theory about when you can do something very exactly as an actor,” she stated.
“It’s not that you’ve necessarily got it in you and you’re sort of bringing it out. It’s that you have closely observed those people for various reasons, either because they really scare you, or because you want to be them.
“I think that because I’ve been on the receiving end of cold, snooty, witty put down people… I’ve so observed it because it’s delved into your head because it’s so scary or something.”
Dame Harriet stated that regardless of her mom and father coming from rich backgrounds, her household was “not very well off”.
“What happened was they knew people who had country piles so I always think of it as we lived on the foothills of aristocracy,” she stated.
“We were very low down but we rubbed shoulders with people so I was aware of them, but I wasn’t one of them.
“We didn’t have masses of money, put it that way, but I was very aware of a certain type of behaviour… and it sort of rubbed off on my whole family, you didn’t ever say anything terribly serious.
“You didn’t get into the nitty gritty of your inner soul, you didn’t talk about yourself… everything was flippant, everything was glib.”
Acting success runs within the household for Dame Harriet, whose uncle is the late Christopher Lee.
She informed Brydon that regardless of their similarities and successes, she took her profession rather more critically than the Lord Of The Rings star had.
“He never took his career very seriously because he’d seen people die in the war. He’d cut people’s throats,” she stated.
“He’d been to the death camps and liberated them. And he was in before he was 30.”
Dame Harriet recalled desirous to be an actor as a toddler, however had been “disappointed” when visiting Lee on the set of certainly one of his films.
Brydon & publishes weekly on Amazon Music and Wondery+, with podcast Terribly Famous additionally launching this week throughout all podcast companies.