Helen McCrory was famous as a stage actress – and for her roles in Peaky Blinders and the Harry Potter series – but her career got off to a rocky start, she told Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs. The actress, who died last week, auditioned for the Drama Centre London when she was 17 with a monologue from Romeo and Juliet. After the audition, the adjudicator said: “Have you ever been in love?” McCrory replied she had not. So the adjudicator asked: “Well, are you a virgin?” McCrory answered yes. “And he went, ‘Well why the hell did you choose that piece then? The speech was about love, and you know absolutely nothing about it – get out of here and live a bit.’” Most people would have been disheartened, but not McCrory. “I just thought, ‘That’s the school for me.’”
So she travelled to Italy, fell in love, came home and auditioned again – this time in front of one of the school’s founders, Christopher Fettes. She was put on the waiting list. “I’d been offered another four places at different schools and I wrote letters saying, ‘Thank you very very much but I won’t be accepting the place.’ And I photocopied these and sent them to Christopher Fettes and said, ‘I will do this every year until you give me a place in your school.’ And he wrote back and said, ‘I’ll see you in September.’”
Listen to the full episode here.
🎵 To Be Alone with You, Bob Dylan
🎵 Will Ye Go Lassie Go, The Corries
🎵 Malaika, Miriam Makeba
🎵 A Message to You Rudy, the Specials
🎵 A Man and a Woman, Francis Lai
🎵 Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, Rufus Wainwright
🎵 Pull Up to the Bumper, Grace Jones
🎵 Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing, Stevie Wonder
🎁 The Victoria and Albert Museum
📚 On the outside the complete works of philosophy, but on the inside the complete works of Spike Milligan