Zoe Wanamaker - British stage actor - Interview

Interview, April, 1999 by John Heilpern

ZW: Yes, he was.

JH: He had a kind of a "don't mess with me" look.

ZW: He was very stubborn and powerful and he could be a real bastard. When I was a kid he scared me to death. But he also could be extremely understanding. Yet, when he died, there was no agenda between us. I was lucky because I had accepted my parents as human beings while still in my twenties. I'm not saying that I'm so brilliant, but I could forgive and understand.

JH: The other thing that struck me during our Globe visit was that wherever we went, you were asked for your autograph.

ZW: It's because of a television series I did in the early '90s called Love Hurts. I did it with, well, let's call him an aging pop star. His name is Adam Faith, and at the age of twenty-two, he was probably the highest-paid European singer in the world. I remember dancing to his records in high school. When I was first asked to do the series, I was snotty about it. But when I met Adam, I thought, "Well, here's a very pretty chap, cheeky and naughty," and I thought the chemistry would be brilliant. I came from a completely different world than he did; I was a "serious actress," politically correct, socially committed, all that crap, and he came from a showbiz world of buffers, chauffeurs, and sports cars. The show was a phenomenal success. It was about a love affair between complete opposites: I played a businesswoman and he played a "wide boy," as we call them in England, a wheeler-dealer. And it made me extremely famous. Car crashes would happen when I walked down the street.

JH: How bizarre. You spent twenty-five yearn doing award-winning roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. But that doesn't compare with the fame you got through a TV series. Did you enjoy being famous?

ZW: No, and I was very bad at it. Adam Faith has been famous since the age of eighteen, so he was a wonderful educator. My father taught me how to be gracious. But Adam taught me how to be gracious and careful at the same time.

JH: There is one thing I wanted to talk to you about, and It relates to your father and the idea of grace and forgiveness. Ella Kazan, the director, is about to receive an honorary award at the Oscars. As you know, he named names during the McCarthy era, he pointed the finger at people like your father and wrecked many Innocent lives, and he doesn't regret It.

ZW: Kazan is one person my father could not forgive. Obviously Kazan is a right-wing person, and yet he made extraordinary films. Do you deny him this honor? And is it really an honor? Who gives a fuck? But you don't honor him for being a schmuck. You don't forgive him for that. This is where people like Nelson Mandela are so extraordinary. They have been able to get past their bitterness for a greater good.

JH: Mandela, and I am not saying this frivolously, is a kind of saint. Most people are not. And this brings us full circle back to Electra, and the question of whether you forgive or whether you live your life out in bitterness. Whether you say, "This man should be honored and let's get on with our lives," or whether you say we must never forget that this guy behaved appallingly. What would Electra do?