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Foto di Lara Jade:   
CITAZIONE
‘I think a lot of people assume that I am a posh, public-school blonde, and a lot of people are shocked that I’m not.’
The assumption, she admits, is forgivable. First there’s her name, like something straight out of an F Scott Fitzgerald novel (her parents were just playing word association with Mollie and Billie, she says). Then there’s her recent career, where she has shone in an array of well-heeled roles, many of them with her brown hair dyed a regal blonde, playing every shade of aristo from Lucrezia Borgia in the TV series The Borgias, to a baroness in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina and Estella in Mike Newell’s Great Expectations. Not to mention Lady Chatterley, the role she starts filming next month (opposite Game of Thrones’s Richard Madden as her gamekeeper-lover Mellors), in the new Jed Mercurio-directed adaptation of the D H Lawrence classic, to be screened on BBC One next year.
[...]
‘I do see a lot of me in Lauren, actually. She’s a Northern girl, not posh, who is obviously very intelligent and quite socialist in her views. She has got into Magdalen College along with the boys. I think of her as representing the modern Oxford, Oxford as it is now – except the truth is that there are still elements of The Riot Club at Oxford even today. Some of the male actors did their research and chatted to people, and it actually sounds as though what goes on in this movie is quite tame compared to what happens in real life.’
Holliday has been acting since childhood, in a string of roles from the BBC’s 1994 comedy All Quiet on the Preston Front (when she was six), via Where the Heart Is and on to Waterloo Road, before her big break in The Borgias. But in all that time, Lauren, she says, is ‘the only character I haven’t had to research. She’s the only one that I wasn’t nervous about because, basically, she’s me.’
Not only is Holliday from Manchester, smart and engaging, but she applied to Oxford herself – and to Magdalen College. ‘I went for four days of interviews at Magdalen. I didn’t know it was the most oversubscribed college. I just basically chose it because it looked pretty and had wi-fi. I arrived at the interviews and I was the only Northern girl there.’
What she also didn’t know was that Magdalen has a reputation. ‘It’s the very posh, old-school college. I was shocked when I arrived at how “other” I felt. I was always sort of the posh one at my local comprehensive [her mother, who raised her, was a graphic designer] and so I had never experienced feeling so working class and Northern – even though I’m not!
'After a couple of days at the interviews, some jokes started to go round about the “two Northerners”, which was me and this guy from Birmingham. I was, like, “Mate, Birmingham’s not even in the North.” But I’m not sure they were too bothered about the geography.’
[...]
Sexism, of course, is not restricted to certain wood-panelled club rooms in Oxford. It is still rife in the film industry, for example, which at executive level remains a bit of a boys’ club. ‘Misogyny and sexism, particularly in our industry, are pretty prevalent. It’s disgusting that you get to a certain stage as an actor and it becomes part of the politics of your job to dodge certain men’s advances. But, if I was to get angry about it, then I’d get riled with someone and start an argument, which is probably not good for my career.’
Holliday is well placed to talk about women in the industry – she’s good friends with several of our leading young actresses, including Jessica Brown Findlay, Vanessa Kirby and Downton Abbey’s Lily James: ‘Everyone knows everyone.’ Together they have been called a female Brit Pack. It’s the kind of throwaway tag that I’d have thought Holliday would take exception to, but she sees it as a compliment. ‘Of course we’re going to be clustered together. Actually, it’s nice to think that there’s a group of actors, 18 to 30, who are known to be working and successful.’
[...]
'For me, acting as a child was just a good experience. I became independent at quite a young age because from the age of 16 my mum was, like, “I’m not chaperoning you any more,” so I was off getting trains and staying in hotels and learning how to deal with the business. I didn’t rebel as a teenager and I think that’s probably why – because I didn’t really have anything to rebel against. I already had my own life outside school as well.’
In spite of all the extracurricular activity, she achieved good enough grades to apply to Oxford, as we’ve learnt. She wasn’t offered a place, however, and she didn’t mind one bit. ‘I was thoroughly pleased when I didn’t get into Oxford, because I’d thought that if I did get in, I’d be working so hard I wouldn’t want to take any time out to act. So the fact that I didn’t made me go, “Oh phew, I can still act.”’
Instead she went to Leeds, but barely attended because by that time her career was taking off with roles in Waking the Dead, Demons and the BBC’s Five Daughters. ‘At the time I had a boyfriend in another city [she is single now], so every weekend I’d be on the train and then in the week I’d be juggling two acting jobs as well.’
But rather than forget about a degree altogether – and this tells you all you need to know about Holliday Grainger – she enrolled on an Open University course in English literature and, in 2012, got a first. Why did she bother when she was already starring in films by that point?
‘If I hadn’t, then my entire life I would have just done half a degree. I had to finish. And if ever I don’t want to act, I have something to fall back on.’
She ponders for a minute, that perfectly round face intent as she twiddles with her hair, plays with her strappy top. ‘Also, when you are in those producers’ offices for auditions, just a little young girl, it gives you a quiet confidence. It’s like, “You know, I got a first. I know I’m intelligent. I can stand here in my towelling robe, naked underneath, but still have you listen to me like a human being. I don’t have to feel like just a silly little actress.”’
It’s hard to imagine that Holliday Grainger was ever a silly little actress; she certainly isn’t now. She used to live with her mother in Manchester, but has recently bought her own place there. She is careful with her money (‘I don’t spend that much money on clothes, actually. I’m more likely to go to an antiques fair’) and she’s watchful of her figure.Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/articl...l#ixzz3EBJ4Ch6lFollow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Edited by ‚dafne - 24/9/2014, 00:57
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