“I’d rather see sex on screen than violence”
Keeley Hawes says co-star Jonny Lee Miller ‘kept a little pair of pants on’ while filming their sex scenes in Complicity.
Keeley Hawes has achieved the impossible — she was so sexy in a love scene with co-star Jonny Lee Miller that she made him blush.
The scene is one of many in the highly charged film Complicity. Based on Iain Banks’ novel, the movie has been made for video and will be released 12 June.
‘My character uses Jonny purely for sex,’ she says. ‘I think he felt a bit insecure, because I had to play a woman taking control. She used him as a man often uses a woman, which I found quite fun. But Jonny didn’t particularly enjoy it and kept a little pair of pants on while we were filming.’
Keeley, 23, has performed some memorable sex scenes in everything from her TV debut in Karaoke to playing Diana Dors in The Blonde Bombshell. She says: ‘Complicity is risque but I’m not bothered by such things. I watched RoboCop the other night and it was full of gratuitous violence. I would rather see gratuitous sex.
‘But Complicity is dark and more contemporary than anything I have done before. I find it quite hard to evaluate and was watching it recently, thinking: “My God, I’m so unsexy.” I suppose everyone thinks that about their scenes, because we can remember how they’re filmed. There was one consolation though — I looked much thinner than I thought I would.’
Keeley’s role is a complete change from that of an upper-class Anglo-Irish girl who’s infatuated with and Irish terrorist in the movie The Last September.
In the film, which is set in 1920 in County Cork, she plays an innocent virgin who’s loved by a British soldier.
‘I’ve always tried to have variety in my roles,’ says Keeley. ‘I went from Diana Dors one day to Ireland the next, with actresses such as Dame Maggie Smith and Jane Birkin.
‘In my first scene, I was supposed to go for an early morning swim wearing a woollen swimming costume. I found myself sauntering over, with hips swinging from side to side. The director had to remind me I was no longer playing Diana Dors.’
Keeley later starred in the BBC costume drama Wives and Daughters, playing a woman who constantly changed her mind about who she loved.
In real life she’s happily settled and is about to become a mother. She’s expecting her first baby in August with long-time boyfriend Spencer McCallum, a 28-year-old designer. ‘I wasn’t particularly trying for a baby, but felt that if it happened, it happened,’ she says. ‘And I couldn’t be happier now. I’ve been out looking at cots and houses. We’re living in a flat in London at the moment which has 60 stairs, so that has to change as quickly as possible.’
Keeley met Spencer three years ago. ‘We were friends for a while as I was with someone else at the time. It started off as a good friendship, which is always the best way to meet.’
Keeley’s career has been notable for rapid strides. She was discovered at 16 by a model agent while shopping in Oxford Street. Within a year, she had been chosen by writer Dennis Potter for a lead in his TV series, Karaoke.
‘I don’t think I was a very professional model,’ she says. ‘You either take it deadly seriously or you mess around, drink too much and your bottom gets too fat. that was me.
‘I moved out of my parents’ flat in Marylebone and got one of my own, above a Pizza Hut in Kensington. It was a crazy thing to do, because I spent all my money and I was too close to a pizza at any time of day or night.
‘My dad Tony is a cabbie and he would pull up outside my flat in his cab, give me some money out of the window and drive off. He made sure I was always OK. I’m still very close to my family. I have an older sister with two children and two older brothers, who are both cab drivers.
‘When Michael Caine said recently that there’s a division in acting and he’s seen as a working class actor, I agreed with every word. You’ll find that everywhere, particularly in the theatre.
‘I’ve encountered class snobbery, but then people like Samantha Morton, Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke are changing all that. They all came from ordinary backgrounds.’
Keeley spent several years learning to act at the Sylvia Young school, where fellow graduates include Denise Van Outen and All Saints sisters Nicole and Natalie Appleton.
‘I was very close to Emma Bunton before she was a Spice Girl and I stayed with her lovely mother Pauline for a time,’ she says. ‘Emma had a good voice – one of the best in the school. She really is a nice girl. It’s great to look at some of the best-known faces on TV and feel pleased for their success. They all worked hard to get where they are.
‘I never had any icons when I was a kid. I suppose I was more concerned with getting on myself. But I do admit being impressed by Sean Connery.
‘I played his secretary Tamara in The Avengers and when he walked in for the first time on set, everyone went quiet. He has more presence than anyone I’ve worked with. All I could think to say was: “Hello there,” — then I had to go to the toilet.’
Keeley also shows her sense of humour when her describing her marriage proposal from Spencer. ‘I knew something was coming, because we had bought a ring together in New York and had it sized to fit my finger.
‘We were at a club at Christmas and he asked the band to play Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You. He shuffled around in his pocket, then put the ring on the wrong finger. So it was a bit of a cock-up, but I was thrilled.’
By Garth Pearce for Now Magazine.
(Source: keeley-hawes.co.uk)