Brenda Blethyn may have gone blonde but Vera won't change

EXPRESS
By: Pam FrancisPublished: Sun, August 25, 2013

IT takes a certain kind of actress to play a character like ITV's female cop Vera Stanhope.

One who doesn't mind wearing layers of shapeless "bag lady" clothes and a hair-flattening scarecrow hat.

"Usually when you see a female detective, she's a bit of a pin-up," says Brenda Blethyn.

"But Vera's no sex symbol, which I find very refreshing. Just because she's scruffy doesn't mean she doesn't command total respect from her team.

"There should be a 'Vera' fashion line, shouldn't there?" she jokes.

"Vera's style tips... I can see it now. Or maybe she could turn up in the Christmas special of Downton Abbey in Victorian costume with her Vera hat on."

Cue more laughter from the 67-year-old actress who, it has to be noted, is looking very un-Vera-like when we meet over tea in London.

In fact, she is sporting a rather glam blonde hairdo and a smart black trouser suit: "I often go for suits. I'm not a frilly person but I do like to be nicely turned out, as my mother would say."

Brenda has no children of her own ("I had no strong need and it's just the way it worked out") but has played mum to some of Hollywood's finest - Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through it, Jane Horrocks in Little Voice and Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice, one of her favourite roles.

These days Brenda Blethyn OBE is such a national institution that it's easy to forget she was a late starter, quitting her job as a British Rail clerk at the age of 27 to go to drama school.

Huge success followed in theatre, but it was at 50 that she found fame, with her third film - Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies - winning her nine awards, an Oscar nomination and a guaranteed, glittering career for life.

Doesn't she ever get to the point where she wants to put her feet up?

"If I did, after a month I'd probably think, 'Well that was nice - I needed that. What now?'"


READ MORE HERE: http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/tv-radio/424619/Fair-cop-Brenda-Blethyn-may-have-gone-blonde-but-Vera-won-t-change

Keira Knightley Interview for Pride and Prejudice

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE TRIBUTE...

Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen: What is the ultimate Pride and Prejudice cast? From Colin Firth and Keira Knightley to Laurence Olivier and Alison Steadman, which actors would you hand pick for the ultimate Pride and Prejudice screen adaptation? Vote now...

Ellie Walker-Arnott
3:12 PM, 25 January 2013

Jane Austen's sunniest novel Pride and Prejudice celebrates its 200th anniversary on Monday. And it's got us thinking...

The iconic love story has sparked numerous adaptations, from the classic Laurence Olivier version to the 2005 romantic blockbuster starring Keira Knightly and Rosamund Pike. (It even inspired Helen Fielding to pen Bridget Jones's Diary...) But if you could hand pick actors from across the best-loved film and TV adaptations to make an ultimate cast of characters, who would you choose?

Do you firmly believe no other Darcy could beat Colin Firth emerging from that lake in a wet shirt? Is Keira Knightley's pouty performance in the 2005 your favourite Lizzie Bennet? Maybe Alison Steadman's shrieking Mrs Bennet strikes you as the best? Or perhaps bare-chested Johnny Wickham in the upbeat Bollywood adaptation Bride and Prejudice is your favourite?

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!  

Brenda Blethyn in Secrets and Lies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNmJNjJkOpg

The first movie I ever saw with Brenda Blethyn and I've been a devoted fan ever since.  1996 film 'SECRETS AND LIES" about a successful black woman who traces her birth mother to a rather seedy looking lady, whose whole family seems to be crippled by secrets and beligerence.  Great film with Marianne Jean-Baptiste as her daughter.

Pride and Prejudice in TWO MINUTES!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkm5XsUPbvg&feature=player_embedded

Brenda Blethyn: 'I don't care about the way I look' Brenda Blethyn talks about class, getting remarried in later life, and a late-blossoming career that only took off at 40 By Daphne Lockyer7:00AM BST 29 Apr 2012 (TELEGRAPH)

Brenda Blethyn is an expert in making herself ugly. “I couldn’t care less about the way I look on screen,” she says. “If you did, you’d never play the interesting parts.” Blethyn can currently be found on Sunday evenings in Vera, the critically acclaimed – and hugely popular – crime drama. Based on the Ann Cleeves novels, she plays Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, a well-upholstered Geordie woman of a certain age.

She is “big, fat and ugly”, says Blethyn, who wears her hair limp for the role. “And you also let this lot go,” she continues, unflexing a set of jowls that you wouldn’t normally notice.

We meet at what used to be the old Swan Hunter Shipyard in Newcastle, close to where the series is filmed. In the flesh, the actress looks considerably younger than her 66 years. She’s down to earth, giggly and good humoured with a Trojan work ethic –­ “I’m never late, I turn up knowing my lines, and I’m very clean,” she laughs.

In fact, today she is nursing the mother of all colds, not that she’s complaining. “I’m looking forward to going home and having a bit of rest, maybe cook myself a pork chop in my own kitchen.” While other actresses are always complaining that the roles decrease as the years mount up, Blethyn’s stock just keeps on rising. “I’m the reverse of actresses whose careers seem to peter out at the age of 40. Mine seemed to get better from that point on.”

Indeed, Blethyn OBE has twice been nominated for an Oscar – once as Cynthia, a woman tracked down by the daughter she gave up for adoption in Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies; and as Jane Horrocks’ blousy, alcohol-soaked mother in Little Voice. Many of the characters in her repertoire are emotionally broken. “Vera, for example, grew up in a funny family. Her mother died when she was young, her father was an oddball who hid his wealth by living like a hermit. Vera’s a loner too, but that doesn’t mean she’s lonely. She’s very happy in her own company.”

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9233362/Brenda-Blethyn-I-dont-care-about-the-way-I-look.html