It’s always lovely when we discover that a Woman of the Year has a link to Bazaar – and so it proves when I speak to Dame Harriet Walter. "It’s so out of the blue, this accolade, that I have to laugh," she says modestly. "I’m still staggering around working out what’s going on!" She then reveals that layer of connection: "My big sister worked as a secretary at Bazaar – it was her first job after leaving school," she says. "It was always this super, out-of-the-world, glamorous thing to me."
Walter and I first spoke a few months ago, just before the publication of her latest book She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said, an often-moving, often-hilarious ventriloquising of the hitherto-secret thoughts of Gertrude, Lady Macbeth, Miranda and the like. The work offers further proof of the scope of Walter’s talents; she would refuse, I am sure, the sobriquet of ‘national treasure’, but she surely is one. Most notable recently have been her central roles in Phyllida Lloyd’s terrific all-female Shakespeare plays: she was Brutus in Julius Caesar, Prospero in The Tempest and took the titular part in Henry IV. If you loved Ted Lasso (and who didn’t?), there she was as Rebecca’s mother and, of course, she portrayed the monstrous Lady Caroline Collingwood, Logan Roy’s second wife, in Succession; both performances garnered her Emmy nominations. But those are only recent credits. The other day, I rewatched Ang Lee’s 1995 film Sense and Sensibility – so brilliantly adapted by Emma Thompson– and there was Walter as a perfect Fanny Dashwood. Her stage and screen presence convey a remarkable strength and versatility.
Walter is known for playing powerful women; she’s inclined to say a lot of that is thanks to her looks (all killer cheekbones, excellent eyebrows and beautiful, transfixing eyes) rather than her own personality. But she likes to find her way inside such characters. "I think I’m interested in where they’re not powerful, and why they need to be the way they are," she says. This has been quite the year for that kind of exploration: this month, we’ll see her in The Mirror and the Light, the final part of the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor trilogy, and she has recently stepped into Margaret Thatcher’s shoes, filming Brian and Margaret, a new Channel 4 series written by James Graham and directed by Stephen Frears. It is a dramatisation of Thatcher’s final television interview, a grilling by her old friend Brian Walden, played by Steve Coogan.
"I hadn’t really had a challenge like that for a very long time," she says of playing Thatcher. "You’re trying to get under the skin of somebody, you don’t just want to be an imitation or a caricature." And the physical transformation she had to undergo was striking. "I had a wig, contact lenses, different teeth – I had to have bigger tits! There’s a point where you go, 'Hey, why don’t you get another actress?'" Her self-deprecation is genuine. "But the script was so good, and it isn’t a biopic. It is centred on this connection to Brian Walden, and also what happened when cameras came into the chamber of the House of Commons. So, I felt I could represent her in this story – I didn’t have to represent her whole life."
Walter is a woman who likes to keep busy. "I’ve been a bit of a workaholic," she says. "One of my goals for the coming year is to leave more time for people and places. I’d like to write another book, if I can find a good hook." How an actor chooses their work is always a complex question. "It’s different if you’re a young person," Walter says. ‘But I don’t have that kind of energy! So, in my case, you’re choosing from a menu. I do enjoy a challenge, yes. I’d like to do more comedy – I enjoy laughter. And I think the world needs laughter."
"I’ve had a very good year," she says, acknowledging her fortune in tough times. Next summer, she’ll take on Jaques in a production of As You Like It, directed by Ralph Fiennes. She continues to find her profession deeply rewarding. "It’s how I can express myself," she says. "I know it can seem a little mad. But the way I can function in the world is by getting messages through the funnel of somebody else. You can’t ever leave yourself behind, but you realise we’re like mirror balls, showing different facets to different people." The facets of Walter herself seem infinite; long may she sparkle in our midst.
‘Silo’ season two is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
