Justine’s eye on a floozie
Justine Waddell may look like an old-fashioned girl, but, given the chance, she would rather throw propriety to the wind and let her hair down.
Or maybe just cut it all off.
The actress portrays the spirited romantic heroine Molly Gibson — the poor lamb’s reputation is almost blackened because she’s the guardian of others’ secrets — in the BBC’s glorious, four-part adaptation of Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell’s unfinished novel about love, secrets and rules of decency.
Justine spent five months working with Keeley Hawes, Francesca Annis and others on the epic drama which gripped half the nation when it began last Sunday (the other half watched Oliver Twist on ITV).
Justine, 23, has done more than her fair share of period dramas, from distressed damsel in The Woman in White to super-bitch Estella in Great Expectations.
Next she’ll play Nina in The Seagull for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and London, opposite Penelope Wilton, one of her pals from Wives and Daughters.
As she says, they are all ‘jewel’ roles. ‘In the beginning you don’t have a choice, but Wives and Daughters was a conscious choice, and Nina is a jewel of a part. Why would anyone turn it down?’ Even do, she yearns for a contemporary role — a floozie in black leather would be preferable. She says: ‘I would love to do a modern comedy, or play a Bond girl, or do something with sex and drugs and rock’n’ roll.’ It’s clear she’s up for something radical.
Antoinette Beenders, the creative director at the hair salon in Harvey Nichols, must have sensed this when Justine went to see her soon after Wives and Daughters was filmed.
‘My hair had always been long, and the hairdresser said it should all come off and I gulped and said: “OK, cut it off”.
Was it radical? I don’t know. I supposed I could have shaved it.’ Born in South Africa, Justine moved to Britain with her parents when she was ten.
After studying at Cambridge, she dropped plans to become a documentary filmmaker for a career as a thespian.
‘I started acting at Cambridge, but I didn’t make it to the Footlights Revue,’ she says. ‘But I did do Romeo and Juliet, Under Milk Wood, and some weird 17th-century plays.’ So far, though, her defining role has to be Molly in Wives and Daughters (from the powerhouse writer/producer team of Andrew Davies and Sue Birtwistle), and Justine readily acknowledges the fun she had working with brilliant actors Michael Gambon, Francesca Annis, Bill Paterson, Anthony Howell, Tom Hollander, and Keeley, who plays her screen stepsister Cynthia.
‘The pair of us wasted a lot of film,’ she confesses, admitting she and Keeley kept getting the giggles.
(Source: findarticles.com)