Miranda Richardson: I constantly want to give up acting, but I don’t know what else I’d do
The actress admits her profession is "frustrating and annoying" but adores her new BBC comedy Mapp and Lucia
Miranda Richardson is an actress who refuses to play the fame game. She has shunned celebrity and famously turned down the role of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. “The trouble is I haven’t obeyed the rules or done things I’m supposed to do.”
In an interview with Radio Times, Richardson reveals her rule breaking ways didn’t help her get ahead in Hollywood. “I had a go in America [playing a New York socialite in TV conspiracy thriller series Rubicon, which was shown on BBC4 in 2011], but unfortunately there was a shift in management just before we started filming and they didn’t know what to do with me.”
While Richardson admits: “I constantly want to give up acting”, she cannot break her bond with the profession. "It can be frustrating and annoying, but I don't know what else I'd do. I'm always saying 'I don't know'. “I’m no less clueless now than I’ve always been. But there are worse things in life than making people smile and happy.”
She adds, “I’m still around and hungry for work, but it can be frustrating finding a role that feels right.”
A role that has ticked her boxes is that of Miss Elizabeth Mapp, in Mapp and Lucia, a three-part comedy about cultural snobbery set in the 1930s. "I had such a nice time. I hope the series might be good. There were moments of such deliciousness."
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Read the full interview in the Christmas double issue of Radio Times magazine which is in shops now and on newsstand for iPad or iPhone
