Brenda Blethyn has just removed an enormous floor-length white ruffled coat and killer sunglasses. Petite, with flawless skin, the actress has been having fun dressing up for our cover shoot. The designer outfits are a world away from her uniform of fisherman’s hat, dowdy raincoat and battered boots worn as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope in the 14-year-long ITV series Vera.
‘It is fun to dress up and look glamorous for a change, but to be honest with you, it’s just part of the job. And one of the things I am proudest of is having played a woman of a certain age, like Vera, who isn’t glamorous,’ says Blethyn, who has just turned 80. ‘To have an older woman in the title role of a series that was shown in around 180 countries for whom glamour is not a prerequisite is a good thing,’ she says, eyeing her reflection while still wearing a jaunty pillbox hat from the shoot.
Blethyn’s new role in Channel 4’s much anticipated eight-part adaptation of A Woman Of Substance may be unlike Vera, but it’s closer to her own life and family history. Based on Barbara Taylor Bradford’s multi-million bestselling novel of the same name, it is a remake of the rags-to-riches TV series – Channel 4’s biggest-ever drama when it aired in 1985. Blethyn plays iron-willed retail magnate Emma Harte – ‘the richest woman in the world’ – with a relative newcomer, Irish actress Jessica Reynolds, starring as her penniless younger self.
‘My mother was rather like Emma Harte, she was born in 1904 and was a skivvy who worked her way up to be a lady’s maid. My father was a chauffeur, sometimes working for the same family. They didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together and they were brought up with this strong working-class work ethic. I do sometimes wonder if my mother was treated as unfairly as Emma,’ she says.
Blethyn’s scenes in A Woman Of Substance were shot in Liverpool at the iconic Cunard Building, which was cleverly disguised as New York’s Pier 54. Set in that decade of decadence, the 1980s, Blethyn loved power dressing for the role.
‘The clothes were beautiful and very of the time: jackets with shoulder pads and I had hair extensions,’ she says, pausing to show me a picture on her phone of her with ‘big hair’. ‘There were lots of pale colours, which is very different from my practical approach to fashion. If you were to look in my wardrobe you would think it was empty because everything is black. You can just pull out this and match it with that, and it works,’ she says.
Petite, with flawless skin, Brenda Blethyn has been having fun dressing up for our cover shoot (coat, Selezza London; sunglasses, Longchamp)
The clothes were beautiful and very of the time: jackets with shoulder pads and I had hair extensions, Brenda says of filming A Woman Of Substance (blazer, top and skirt, The Fold London; earrings, Dower & Hall)
Since most of Blethyn’s scenes were set decades later than those starring Reynolds, there was only one occasion when the two met during shooting.
‘I made one fleeting trip to the moors on a very cold, wet dark day when Jessica was doing a scene. She didn’t know I was turning up and I didn’t know it was her scene and we just both said “Emma!” and hugged. Jessica is magnificent in the role, a total delight.’
The youngest of nine children, Blethyn was born in Ramsgate (where she still lives) in 1946 in post-war poverty: the council house she grew up in had one cold tap, one electric socket and an outside lavatory. She believes her parents’ gift for storytelling sparked her own love of acting. ‘Growing up we didn’t have a TV or even radio a lot of the time and sometimes no telephone – it would get cut off because the bill hadn’t been paid – so they would tell these fantastic stories.’
Raised with three of her brothers (her other siblings having left home), she worked as a secretary for British Rail until she decided to go to drama school and pursue a career as an actress. Starting relatively late, she was 29 when she joined the National Theatre and 34 when she got her TV break in 1980 as Gloria in Mike Leigh’s Grown Ups on BBC2. Blethyn’s time at the National established her as a serious actress and gained her a man, art director Michael Mayhew. In 2010, after more than three decades together, he became her second husband (she married first husband Alan Blethyn at 19, divorcing him after nine years but keeping his name).
Jacket, Selezza London. Trousers, Marina Rinaldi. Hat, Emily-London. Earrings, Coeur de Lion. Shoes, Charles & Keith
One of the factors in Blethyn’s decision to leave Vera last January, was wanting to see more of Michael after 14 years of spending half the year apart – she on location in Northumberland, and he in their Kent home. The couple, who have no children, enjoy an unconventional relationship. They were engaged for 35 years and live in separate apartments (him above, she below) in the same building.
‘My parents didn’t get married for 20 years. They say that life is what happens when you are busy making plans. We weren’t going anywhere, and we wanted to be together, and it was sensible. It felt right and it still does,’ says Blethyn of her husband, who is looking after her adored cockapoo Jack today. ‘He is very supportive and doesn’t tell lies. He tells it like it is and it’s much appreciated.’
She brushes off any further discussion of their unusual living arrangements with the comment ‘he likes hot, and I like cold’. ‘It’s temporary, hopefully we will find somewhere together eventually. We eat together, we go out together, we live together but in separate apartments,’ she says.
Brenda stars as Emma Harte in a new adaptation of A Woman Of Substance
Blethyn’s attempt to spend more time with Michael (together but apart) since exiting Vera hasn’t quite panned out as she imagined. Instead of slowing down and embracing retirement as she enters her ninth decade, she is relishing new challenges. In addition to A Woman Of Substance – which she hopes will run to a second series – she has worked with director and writer Paul Andrew Williams on the gritty, critically acclaimed British film Dragonfly starring alongside Andrea Riseborough. It received rave reviews upon its release last November and saw the actresses win a joint performance award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
‘I hadn’t even unpacked my bags from Vera when I got the call for Dragonfly. It’s the story of an unlikely relationship between an elderly lady who has had a fall and a young misfit who lives next door. I’m very proud of it; it makes you change your preconceived notions about people, and it does have a very dark turn,’ she says.
In a career spanning five decades, there have been many highlights but none perhaps as unexpected as Blethyn’s role in the 1992 film A River Runs Through It, in which she played a young Brad Pitt’s mother (she has described him as ‘lovely, a normal fella’).
Coat, Charlotte Simone. Dress (just seen), Edeline Lee. Earrings, Dower & Hall
Blethyn was cast by the film’s director, the late Robert Redford. ‘I was in a play in New York, and I got this call from Robert Redford’s office saying, “Bob would like to send you a script, Miss Blethyn”. And I was like, “Shut up! What are you talking about?” I got the job without even an audition. I thought as the characters were Presbyterian preachers it would be a Scottish accent, but he wanted middle American, so I spent two weeks in a town in Montana just chatting to people as my research,’ she says. Blethyn becomes emotional when she talks about Redford who died aged 89 last September. ‘When Michael and I heard he had died… we were genuinely moved and upset because he was so lovely. It didn’t seem right that he should be gone.’
The young Blethyn was a natural beauty (she shows me some old publicity shots in which she is ravishingly pretty with dark bobbed hair). She has always looked after her skin, and it shows. ‘I do moisturise, and I don’t sunbathe. When I was a child growing up by the sea, I got horribly sunburned. I was about six and I remember crying with the pain. But I think good skin is in the genes; my mum used to point to herself and say, ‘’Look at that, skin like a baby’’.’
Yet she counts herself lucky to have avoided the kind of sexy roles that could typecast youthful actresses in the 70s and 80s. ‘The raunchiest role I had and the one I am still most recognised for is Chance In A Million from 1984. It has a cult following on YouTube. I played a librarian madly in love with Tom Chance played by Simon Callow. I am forever in and out of my underwear: stockings and suspenders, bras, negligees and even a basque,’ she says, bursting into the theme tune of the series, Taking A Chance On Love.
Top, Julia Allert, Wolf & Badger. Hat, Harvy Santos
Blethyn is delightfully modest, appears unaffected by fame and is philosophical about the future and ageing. ‘I don’t feel 80, but who is going to invest money for someone of my age in a long-running series? I don’t know what’s next, I am just going to play it by ear. Maybe do some decorating, but if a job comes up that I fancy then I will do it.’
She is candid about the subject of mortality. ‘You have to acknowledge it, plan for it and then get on with it. Make a will, in case you get run over on the way home. Make sure you are not leaving any problems behind. I am actively getting rid of stuff; I think the charity shops in Ramsgate are sick of seeing me. The good stuff goes to them and the rest goes to the dump.’
It took her a long time to become confident of her acting ability – until she was well embedded in the role of Vera. ‘I suffer from imposter syndrome. I would sometimes feel a bit intimidated doing Shakespeare or the classics. Looking back, I think I was just lucky to get the jobs that I did. Even Vera at the start – anyone could have played her. I was very flattered when Ann Cleeves, who wrote the books the drama is based on, said that after I had started playing Vera and she was still writing the books, she heard my voice when she was writing. That was very pleasing.’
Coat, Selezza London. Sunglasses, Longchamp. Earrings, Alex Monroe
While Blethyn is guarded about her private life, there is a loved one she is more than happy to talk about: her ten-year-old dog Jack. She and Jack are rarely separated and she even turned down a role in her great friend Timothy Spall’s comedy-drama Death Valley, because the dog was having an operation on his leg.
‘After his operation he had to sleep in this cage for six weeks and I slept alongside him on a mattress on the floor. He came with me when I was shooting Vera, and he had his own minder because he suffers from separation anxiety.’ She shows me a video on her phone of Jack playing on the beach with his best mate Rambo (‘half Jack Russell, half chihuahua’).
There are not many stars who would choose to stay in their childhood town all their lives, but Ramsgate is Blethyn’s favourite place on earth (and, one suspects, Jack’s too). ‘My idea of a holiday is going home. There’s nowhere else I would rather be.’ Her brother Bill also lives there and they are still close.
Coat, Rainsisters, Wolf & Badger. Earrings, Sonia Petroff. Bag, Michael, Michael Kors. Tights, Falke. Shoes, Emma Hyacinth
‘As children, our father used to set us puzzles and anagrams to solve, and Bill and I love puzzles. We see each other most days and have a race to finish The Times cryptic crossword. We sit round my table, and I go “finished” and he goes “you’re cheating”. It’s a ritual each morning,’ she says.
Blethyn has more awards than she can count and has twice been Oscar nominated (for Secrets & Lies and Little Voice). But while she has an OBE, isn’t it time that her national-treasure status was recognised with a damehood?
‘Oh, good gracious, my brother keeps saying that and I tell him, “They don’t just give them out – a whole team of people campaign for you” and that hasn’t happened to me yet. I don’t think I have earned one anyway. I always say acting is just a job. And someone who is a good saleswoman in a dress shop – a top salesperson year after year – they are not going to be made a dame. So why should I?’ she says.
But after such a long and distinguished career, surely it’s time!
A Woman Of Substance airs Wednesday 11 March, 9pm on Channel 4 with all episodes available to stream
From Ramsgate with love: Brenda’s life in pictures
1946: Born in Ramsgate, Kent, Blethyn, née Bottle, was the youngest of nine siblings
1974: Studies at the Guildford School of Acting, where she is scouted for the Royal National Theatre
1980: Makes TV debut in the BBC’s Grown Ups, before starring in its adaptations of King Lear and Henry VI
1981: Wins a London Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for starring in Nell Dunn’s play Steaming, set in a London Turkish Bath
1992: Hits the big screen in Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning film A River Runs Through It alongside Brad Pitt
1996: Stars in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies with Timothy Spall, bagging a Bafta, a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod
2003: Awarded an OBE for services to drama in the New Year’s Honours List. It was presented by Queen Elizabeth II
2005: Plays Mrs Bennet (aka Keira Knightley’s mum) in Pride & Prejudice, which got four Oscar nominations
2008: Guest stars on US TV shows The New Adventures Of Old Christine and Law & Order, for which she gets an Emmy nod
2010: Marries British art director Michael Mayhew. The two have now been together for 51 years.
2011: Cast in ITV crime series Vera. At its height in 2019, the show pulls in nine million viewers an episode
2026: Leads Channel 4’s A Woman Of Substance based on Barbara Taylor Bradford’s bestselling book
Stylist: Joanne M Kennedy
Fashion assistant: Hannah Shaw
Hair: Federico Ghezzi
Make-up: Caroline Barnes
