View from my sofa: Eve Myles
How does the actor cope with the demands of family and filming? Running…
Paramount
- Gareth McLean
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What’s the view from your sofa?
Out in the garden, a crushed pear tree that we lost in Storm Darragh. No partridge in it, but we do have this big jay that visited. After the tree went down, it flew down beside it, looked at it, then looked at us as if we had done this terrible thing. Then it flew away. It’s quite depressing, really. And we used to get lovely pears every year.
Who controls the TV remote?
That depends on what time it is. After 8pm, it’s very much me. Before then, it’s very much my three-year-old. She’s in control of pretty much everything, really. She loves Bluey – so everybody in this house watches a lot of Bluey. We also like anything by Julia Donaldson.
How easy — or hard — is it for you, as an actor yourself, to watch dramas?
Sometimes you can’t help but notice things, which isn’t ideal. But if it’s a really good drama, then it’s easy – I get swept away. I recently binged Presumed Innocent with Jake Gyllenhaal, which is beautifully executed and addictive.
How do you choose your own parts?
The older I get, the less complicated I get about making decisions on work. I’ve learnt to trust my instincts. And you know, a lot of the time, my instinct does steer me in the right direction – as it did with Jeanette in The Crow Girl.
Eve Myles and Dougray Scott in The Crow Girl. Paramount
In your new series, Jeanette is DCI Kilburn, who’s hunting a serial killer. Unusually, she’s not a maverick loner with a disastrous personal life. Does this mean she’s no good at her job?
She’s incredibly good at her job! She’s very capable, not afraid of taking risks, willing to step over people to get where she needs to be. And she’s spinning so many plates. And then along comes
this pressure cooker of a case…
How do you cope with stress?
When I was younger, stress would manage me, but I’m hoping that with experience and age, I have found a better way of navigating it. As a working parent, with the hours that actors work, you have to have the tools to deal with it.
What’s your best tool?
Running. It’s the only time I get to myself, so it’s me and Prodigy or me and any 90s hardcore house for one hour. I manage the whole day in that time. I put it all in order. And then I take my earphones out and go, “Right, you can have me now.”
How do you juggle the needs of your family with a demanding career?
Very, very carefully! Whatever the decision is – to take work, and what work to take – it’s never my decision, it’s our decision. And I’m lucky to have a husband like Brad [actor Bradley Freegard, her co-star in Keeping Faith]. This year, he has held the fort, but we take it in turns so there’s always a parent at home. Having three kids and a full-time job, you have to be organised. It’s like a military operation! So thank God for a chalkboard. And timetables.
With a dark storyline featuring mutilated children, The Crow Girl isn’t for the faint-hearted. Does screen violence concern you?
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Absolutely. In any job, I want to know that those scenes aren’t gratuitous. With The Crow Girl, there’s no doubt that it’s sensitive material, but I think it’s handled properly. I remember when I was at the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Lavinia in Titus Andronicus [2003]. Every night, there was a “faint checklist” in the wings that David Bradley, as Titus, and I would look at and, usually, there’d be between seven and ten faints per performance. They [the audience members] would be asked afterwards why and they’d say it was because the play was so bloody, so grisly. But you know how much blood was used for the entire show? An eggcup’s worth. The power of suggestion was such that people imagined they saw more than they did. Harnessing the power of people’s imagination is what you aspire to.
Authors
Gareth McLean
Gareth McLean has been writing about television for nearly 30 years. As a critic, he's reviewed thousands of programmes. As a feature writer, he's interviewed hundreds of people, from Liza Minnelli to Jimmy Savile. He has also written for TV.
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