Observer Review

The Gibson girl

Justine Waddell's role in the BBC's

costume drama Wives and

Daughters has made her a star.

But now she wants to come out of

the corset...

 

Kate Kellaway

Sunday December 5, 1999

 

Justine Waddell has come suddenly into

focus. She is Molly Gibson in the BBC's

dramatisation of Elizabeth Gaskell's

Wives and Daughters. On screen, she

looks like an ivory doll with a quizzical

oval face and a black cloud of curls. She

is precise and affecting. She gives us a

portrait of virtue - the hardest thing in the

world to act.

 

It is a little shocking to meet her out of

Gaskellesque costume. She is boyish

and chic with not a ringlet in sight. She

leads the way, rather dangerously, across

the road from the RSC rehearsal rooms,

where she is playing Nina in Adrian

Noble's production of The Sea-gull, to a

restaurant opposite.

 

Justine explains that she has no easy

affinity with Gaskell's heroine: 'Molly is

challenging because she is so ordinary. I

felt vulnerable playing her. Molly's intuition

is to trust and be loyal and kind, things I'd

call old-fashioned or naive.' And the

challenge is compounded by the fact that

Molly often has to react speechlessly.

Justine's face has to work hard, be a

stage for sentiment.

 

I had wondered if she might be vain (she

did not want The Observer photographer to

take her picture), but it is more that she

cannot trust her face to behave itself. 'I

don't spend a lot of time looking in the

mirror, so when I watch myself on film, I

am often surprised at what my face does.'

I look at her. Modigliani would have liked

her almond-shaped brown eyes. She has

an intelligent face. She smiles - and

frowns - a lot. Her hand swats the air, as if

to see off a butterfly that has flown too

close to her. It is a frequent gesture but

expresses something new each time she

does it. Oddly, it is never dismissive. I like

her spirit and intelligence but reflect that

she is an interior person, slightly removed.

She can seem rapt and self-conscious at

the same time.

 

'Molly has to learn to combine her natural

openness with a degree of social

restraint,' Justine says. 'There are

moments in life when you think, "I have to

hide this because I have to face other

people". It's part of becoming an adult.'

Molly has to hide feelings of rejection.

Has Justine had to do the same? 'Yes' (a

rueful laugh, a roll of the eyes). Parts she

has wished for? 'Yes.' How did she handle

rejection? 'I don't think you can. Charlotte

Rampling once said to me, "It's the ones

that get away that haunt you..."' This is

true of life, I suggest. 'Yes.' But she

accepts that such experience for an

actress is emotional capital.

 

She has also enjoyed success. Other

women must be jealous of her? She

blushes: 'Maybe. I've never thought of

myself as someone anyone else would

want to be...' But she adds, minutes later:

'I am quite happy being me.'

 

Independence is important to her. She

does not want to 'settle'. She has an air of

self-sufficiency that makes her seem older

than 25. She tells a revealing story about

herself, about a scene she could not play

in Wives and Daughters. 'I could not sit at

Mr Gibson's feet and eat cheese. It took

24 takes. It is so difficult for a young

woman to sit at a man's feet and hand

him cheese.'

 

As an actress, she craves independence,

too. She would like to break free from the

restraining corset of literary costume

drama (she has played Tess of the

D'Urbervilles, Estella in Great

Expectations, Laura in The Woman in

White). 'You can lean on a book, but I

would love to do a modern comedy.'

 

She writes herself, mainly poetry

(unpublished). 'I'd love to write and direct.'

She was born in Johannesburg and lived

there until she was 10. Her father, a Scot,

removed his children to Scotland for three

years. At 13, the family moved to London.

She was 'blown away' by it. 'I wanted to

do everything. I wanted to be an

air-hostess, a neuro surgeon...' She went

to a day school in Baker Street and then

to Cambridge, where she read politics.

 

She found Cambridge 'claustrophobic'. (It

is a key word for her. Earlier, she said

South Africa was claustrophobic; later

that London sometimes is.) So she took a

year out to act in the 'real world'. This

taught her 'a degree of ruthlessness'.

Acting might have proved claustrophobic

too and not 'real' enough, were it not that

most of her friends are not actors: 'I have

a few close friends, mostly people I met at

Cambridge. I think friendships are ideally

non-competitive - acting is competitive.'

 

She had four free months after Wives and

Daughters during which 'I sorted out my

life'. She bought a flat in west London and

was able to delight her fancy with

questions such as: 'What happens if you

paint all your walls grey?' She is also

dancing again - ballet and jazz - which

she loves.

 

But now she must take on Chekhov's

tragic girl. It is Nina who, like a naive

journalist, asks the writer Trigorin: 'What

is success like?' I try her question on

Justine. 'I don't think anyone ever feels

successful. There is always something

missing, another hill to climb. And Nina is

a huge hill.'

 

The Seagull opens at Stratford on 26

January