A surprise called Saffron - British actress Saffron Burrows - CSIVTR

Interview, Jan, 1999 by Ingrid Sischy

As rigid perceptions fade with the century, new actors and actresses are emerging to ring in the changes. Leading the list is Saffron Burrows - a twenty-six-year-old actress from England who's poised to rocket

INGRID SISCHY: Did you grow up in London?

SAFFRON BURROWS: Yes. In the inner city, in north London. Having traveled a lot, I now realize how unusual the community I grew up in was, and how open, really. My parents were very political - strong socialists. My mother is a teacher and a feminist, and was very active in the women's movement. My father was an architect and then he became a teacher. So from an early age I was surrounded by a lot of political activity in the house, and a lot of wade unionist activity. The miners' strike, when I was eleven or twelve, was a pivotal event for me. We had miners living with us - some of whom in the past may have been pretty racist because they came from communities where there weren't a lot of black people - and I saw them completely opening up.

IS: Would you go to political meetings with your parents?

SB: Yes. Although they split up when I was two, they remained friends for a long time. I was an only child until I was fifteen, when my brother was born. Anyway, I went to meetings out of necessity when I was young - because there was nowhere else for me to go - and I sat in the back with my schoolwork and watched these debates. At a certain point I started loving it.

IS: What was your life as a teenager like?

SB: I was quite shy, but when I felt strongly about something I ceased to be shy. I was very involved in an antiracism organization locally; there were lots of racial attacks going on at the time. I also fell in love with music - I was into what we'd call Rare Groove, black American music like Gil Scott-Heron and Roy Ayers. I loved dancing, going to clubs. But I didn't ever feel a need to rebel. I was allowed to do an awful lot. My mother basically trusted me.

IS: That's always nice, isn't it? What other activities interested you?

SB: I went to the theater a lot with my morn. I would daydream about Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney.

IS: You later worked with Albert Finney on Karaoke, one of the last TV series that Dennis Potter wrote. . . .

SB: Yes. Albert is completely untainted, I think, by the business, and he's very straightforward and really enjoys what he does. He's never a disappointment. The series was an incredible experience for me. I played a working-class girl from London whose mother has been really badly beaten, destroyed by a man. So this girl sets out to destroy the man. She has this night job as a hostess, which is a slightly glorified prostitute. Then Finney comes along - he's essentially playing Dennis Potter, a writer dying of cancer. These two characters have a pure relationship: He falls in love with her, and she's kind of appalled and amazed at the same time. A lot of the story is about how a person comes into your life who reminds you of somebody you loved years earlier.

IS: Your part in Karaoke - which had people commenting on how memorable you were must have required an understanding about life. Some people believe that In order to act you don't have to understand anything - you can put it on. Others think that the more experience one has the more one can draw on it to create a character. What do you think?

SB: To me, knowing more and more about life can't fail to help you. There are actors who can fake it - who are technically very good. I have not been able to do that. I'd feel worded if I did. You might come away feeling that nothing had actually happened during a scene.

IS: What movies affected you while you were growing up?

SB: Those made by people like Ken Loach or John Sayles. I felt very affirmed by their work - they made me feel less alone. Because when you grow up in a left-wing environment you can feel a little marginalized. Finding people who responded to things the way I did was remarkable. Also from an early age I was moved by the immediacy of theater. I attended a youth theater group run by this woman named Anna Scher, who is quite an icon in London. I started participating in the group when I was about twelve, although I was so appallingly shy that for two years I barely spoke. But there was something about the experience that kept me going back, even though I never did anything. I was always too tall for everything.

IS: Not too tall for modeling. [both laugh] How did the modeling start?

SB: I got spotted on the street by the woman who at the time ran what is now [the modeling agency] Elite. She'd spotted Naomi Campbell the year before, so she was on a roll. I was fifteen. They sent me to Paris for the pret-a-porter shows. I modeled on and off, from '88 through '93 or '94.

IS: Who did you work with?

SB: Chanel. Vivienne Westwood I worked with constantly, and Romeo Gigli, and lots of others. I was photographed quite a bit by David Bailey.

IS: You spent a lot of those years in Paris, right?

SB: Yes. But I also worked a little in Milan, and a little in New York, for Calvin Klein a few times.