When Brenda Blethyn stood down from her lead role in the popular detective series Vera after 14 years, she assumed that she would never work again. But the BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning actress, who turned 80 last month, couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I didn’t think the phone would ever ring, but it’s been ringing off the hook,” reveals Brenda, who left the long-running ITV series last year and was quickly snapped up for a role alongside Andrea Riseborough and Jason Watkins in the drama film Dragonfly. “I didn’t know this was going to happen.”
© Channel 4/The Forge/Sam TaylorBrenda Blethyn stars as Emma Harte in A Woman of Substance
The actress, who celebrated her milestone birthday with a lemon cake smothered in cream and fresh fruit, still fizzes with energy. “I don’t feel 80,” she says. “When you’re young and you think of 80, you’re in a bath chair. But that’s not the case, thank goodness.”
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, with Brenda telling us that her plans for her 80th year include running a half-marathon. “I’ll see what the trainer says,” reveals the actress, who has run the London Marathon three times with the help of a fitness coach. “Sometimes I didn’t feel like doing it, and if I didn’t answer the door, he’d shout through the letterbox, ‘I know you’re in there,’” she says.
WATCH: The trailer for A Woman of Substance
One of her training strategies was for her husband, Michael Mayhew, formerly the art director of the National Theatre, to drive her to another part of London and leave her to run home.
Vera’s longtime relationship with husband Michael
The couple met at the National Theatre in 1975 and married in 2010, after 35 years together; Brenda has said that they tied the knot because she felt they were “getting on a bit”.
© Getty Images for the NTA’sBrenda and Michael have been together for 50 years
“We have nothing in common, except a sense of humour.”
Brenda Blethyn on the secret to her relationship
The couple, who found that they disagreed on what temperature to keep their home, now live in separate apartments in the same building in Ramsgate, with their dog, Jack, often moving between the two. The secret to their long-lasting relationship? “Nothing in common, except a sense of humour,” she laughs. “Nothing at all.”
Brenda’s latest drama role
Now, Brenda is taking on a leading role in Channel 4’s highly anticipated adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s best-selling novel A Woman of Substance. It’s a part that she was “quite surprised” to be offered, she admits.
“If you were casting A Woman of Substance, this fashionista, this richest woman in the world, who’s the first person who would spring to mind? Brenda Blethyn?” she asks in disbelief.
© Channel 4/The Forge/Sam TaylorBrenda was surprised to be offered her latest role
Indeed, she was characteristically self-deprecating when asked how it felt to be called an icon at the show’s London launch last week. “You’re talking about somebody else,” she laughed.
Despite her long list of acclaimed performances, Brenda admits to having suffered from imposter syndrome for most of her life.
“We had a rather Victorian upbringing. You’re taught that if you want anything, you’ve got to work for it.”
Brenda Blethyn on her upbringing
“I haven’t got that quite so much anymore,” she said. “We were very poor growing up, but my mum and dad always used to say: ‘You’re as good as anybody else, and if you work hard, you can achieve it.’”
The show – in which Brenda plays the older version of the heroine, Emma Harte, who starts out as a housemaid before becoming a wealthy businesswoman – harks back to the actress’s own childhood. She grew up in a council house in Ramsgate with her eight siblings, her father, William, a chauffeur, and her mother, Louisa, whose first job was “gathering acorns for a local pig farmer” before she “worked as a skivvy in this posh house”.
© Channel 4/The Forge/Sam TaylorJessica Reynolds plays a younger version of Emma Harte
“I could understand Emma’s struggle, and how important it was just to get a couple more shillings a week. My mum had three jobs to make ends meet,” Brenda says.
“We had a rather Victorian upbringing. You’re taught that if you want anything, you’ve got to work for it. Nothing’s going to be handed to you on a plate, especially if you’re working-class.”
Brenda’s illustrious acting career
Brenda came to acting later in life, having first worked as a secretary at British Rail, marrying her co-worker Alan Blethyn at the age of 19 in 1964 (the couple divorced in 1973). At 27, she went to train at the Guildford School of Acting; three years later, she joined the National Theatre.
Following TV and film success in the 1980s, Hollywood came calling, and in 1992, she starred in Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It, playing Brad Pitt’s mother. But it was her acclaimed performance in Mike Leigh’s 1996 film Secrets & Lies that took her career to the next level: Brenda was nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards, alongside fellow nominees including Kristin Scott Thomas and Diane Keaton.
© Helen WilliamsBrenda played DCI Vera Stanhope for 14 years
“It was bizarre,” she says of the Oscars. “I’d won at Cannes, I’d won the Golden Globe; I thought there was no way that Brenda from Ramsgate was going to win an Oscar.
“But then, when they were up there opening the envelope, the blood drained from my face and I thought, ‘What if it is me?’”
© PA Images via Getty ImagesBrenda was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the film Little Voice
“At one party – Madonna was there – I was sitting at a table between Michael Caine and Sean Connery,” she says. “I started laughing, and Michael said, ‘What are you laughing at?’
“I said, ‘Well, Michael, I’m Brenda from Ramsgate and I’m stuck between Michael Caine and Sean Connery!’ He replied, ‘I feel exactly the same; I’m Michael from New Cross!’”
Looking back
Sharing the advice she would give to her younger self, Brenda says: “Speak up if you have an opinion about something. I used to be a bit afraid to do that, and I wish I hadn’t been. Your opinion’s just as good as somebody else’s, and you might learn something.”
In 2003, she was made an OBE for services to drama. “I couldn’t believe it; I thought it was a tax demand,” she laughs. Surely a damehood is next? “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she says.
© Getty ImagesBrenda is hoping for a second season of A Woman of Substance
Booked and busy
As for what’s next, even if the phone keeps ringing, Brenda might not take the calls. “There’s no work planned, but I’ve been turning some things down,” she says. “I’m dealing with some personal things at the moment, with family.”
One thing she is hoping for, however, is that A Woman of Substance returns for a second season so that she can reprise her role, alongside Jessica Reynolds as the younger Emma Harte. “I want to know what happens next!”
A Woman of Substance begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday at 9pm, when all episodes will also be available to stream.
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