Helen Baxendale, Kenneth Cranham, Prunella Scales, Rupert Graves, Ralf Little, Lucy Cohu, Life On Mars’ Liz White and the late Wendy Richard all pop up in various roles, while Matthew Macfadyen plays the detective investigating a number of suspicious deaths.
The new version is perhaps a little more raunchy than previous takes – Marple is about the only person in it not having an affair – and it boasts an all-star cast.
#Julia mckenzie and husband full
The forthcoming episode is called A Pocket Full Of Rye, and it’s one of the most famous Marple stories. My husband says, ‘Why do you have to look so fat in it?’ but it was a very shapeless look back then.” “It’s the clothes too, all the tweed and big coats. “They do make me down a bit, but I’m afraid to say her wrinkles, those lines is all natural! I’ve gone this colour because I don’t like full wigs, so her hair goes into my hair, with the front all crimped. “When I’m playing Marple, they do age me a bit. “People do give me their seat on the bus now,” she says of her age, “and I really don’t like it. In many minds, she’s crystallised in Fresh Fields and its sequel French Fields, in which she played opposite Anton Rodgers. While she’s now 68, it could be said no-one really thinks of Julia as an older lady. “It’s a big undertaking, but provided I can still walk unaided by that time, I’ll be there!” she says, with a glint in her eye. She’s signed up for four years of Marple, making four episodes each year. The former Fresh Fields actress shouldn’t think too much about packing up just yet. “I didn’t see who was third so I don’t know who’ll take over if I pack up!” Geraldine McEwan was at the top, now crossed out, with Julia McKenzie written underneath,” she says, proudly. “He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and it had the people on there he wanted to play Marple. In fact, it was only Agatha Christie’s publisher who told her he’d always liked the idea of her playing the role. The actress knows, because, she admits, she’s checked. Yet Julia’s name wasn’t on the lips of ardent fans on internet sites discussing their choices for possible candidates. It’s very hard to do it all.”Īfter Geraldine McEwan decided to step down as the spinster sleuth two years ago, the search for a replacement was on. all the time making everyone think she’s actually one step behind them, you know, appearing to be just an ordinary old woman. “I’d like to think what we’ve filmed gets a lot better as we go on,” she adds. Hopefully it won’t take too many episodes to get to know me and come along my path. “It’ll be hard on the viewer to accept another physical presence in the role. And any actor will tell you, you have to play certain facets of yourself in any character too. “I can’t go in the same direction as Geraldine, I’m not going to do an imitation of her. She picked up the character again 10 years later and she was a little different – tweedier, sturdier, kinder. At first, she was very much as Geraldine was playing her frail, Victorian, rather fussy and quirky. “We’re all different in our own ways, and it’s important to note Agatha Christie wrote her in two ways, too. “I think Joan Hickson is considered the definitive Marple now,” she says, referring to the late actress who portrayed the amateur detective in the BBC adaptations of the ’80s and ’90s. “Geraldine McEwan made a success of the part before me, and Marple is such an iconic role, it’s very difficult. “Taking over the role has been bloody awful,” she says, only half-joking.
On holiday in New Zealand at the time, Julia has since had time to catch up on the novels of Agatha Christie, having not read anything by the acclaimed crime author before shooting began on A Pocket Full Of Rye, which can be seen on ITV1, tonight. “But there was no time for that, so I just had to read the script and go with my instincts.” “Normally you like to research, work out what you’re going to do with the part and read up,” she says. She says it’s a phrase that took a bit of getting used to, but, as she found out she had the role just 10 days before filming began, all adjustments had to be made very quickly.
0 kommentar(er)
