A Lesson for Keeley
Going back to school was an education for Spooks actress Keeley Hawes. Viewers last week saw MI5 officer Zoe Reynolds taking on yet another undercover role, this time as a secondary school teacher.
“For her day job she was English teacher Jane. Then, in her private life, at the same time, she’s pretending to be Emma, a legal secretary, to her boyfriend, Carlo. And when she actually goes to work, she’s Zoe, MI5 officer. It’s all very confusing!”
Cab driver’s daughter Keeley says she found standing up in front of a classroom full of teenagers a terrifying experience. “It was a nightmare. I certainly have a new-found respect for teachers. You have no idea what it’s like, and I wasn’t really teaching them. I think it must be an incredible thing to be able to do.”
But the actress reckons the hardest part of playing Zoe is the language. “The dialogue is a real challenge. Some of the jargon that the characters use, I don’t even understand.
“A lot of it is like reading the news because it’s all facts and figures and names. Some of the time you have no idea what you’re actually talking about. It’s just a matter of remembering it all and then getting it in the right order.”
When two billion dollars is stolen from the last British family-owned bank in London, the Spooks team are sent in to track the thief and the money.
It becomes obvious that the bank has secrets and that the government is protecting it. Zoe is then shocked to discover that her relationship has come under the microscope when her lover is implicated.
The award-winning spy drama has a habit of sparking controversy at least once a series. Last year, the notorious deep fat fryer death of MI5 trainee Helen, played by Lisa Faulkner, prompted over 250 complaints.
A television watchdog later rapped the BBC for failing to warn viewers about the gruesome scene and TV bosses admitted it had “clearly disturbed” a number of people.
Earlier this month, a Spooks episode about a fictional radical cleric and a suicide bomber in Birmingham prompted almost 1,000 complaints. The Muslim Council of Britain blamed the programme for an attack on a Muslim student and graffiti about suicide bombers outside a Birmingham mosque.
Controversy
Keeley steers clear of the controversy, aside from keeping the gossip columns happy with her real-life relationship with co-star Matthew Macfadyen, who plays senior MI5 officer Tom Quinn. The couple got together while filming the first series after she had parted from husband Spencer, father of their son, Myles, aged two.
She had no ambitions to be an actress when she was younger. “I think acting chose me, actually. The Sylvia Young Theatre School moved opposite the house where I grew up and I would hear them all singing. I remember saying to my mum how good it sounded, so I went along and had a great time.”
Keeley ended up attending the school with the likes of Emma Bunton, Daniella Westbrook, Dani Behr and Denise van Outen. “After that I modelled for a year when I was spotted on Oxford Street in London. “I never really enjoyed modelling so I was glad to give it up when I got a part in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke. I was very lucky.”
After that 1996 role, alongside Salford’s Albert Finney, her “luck” has certainly held, with roles in a wide range of TV dramas, including Our Mutual Friend, Wives and Daughters, Othello, with Christopher Eccleston, and co-starring with Stephen Tompkinson in the recently-screened Lucky Jim. She also played the young Diana Dors in The Blonde Bombshell.
After filming the first series of Spooks, Keeley had her head shaved for a role in BBC2’s Tipping the Velvet, which saw her as a 19th century lesbian who worked as a music hall impersonator.
“It’s a nice feeling to have done it now, but I did find it terrifying at first. Although I studied singing and drama at stage school, I spent a lot of time underneath the table, having a fag, so I missed out on most of it!”
Spooks is on BBC1 at 9pm on Mondays.
By Ian Wylie for Manchester Evening News.
(Source: keeley-hawes.co.uk)