Lesley Manville says her stage and screen careers ‘feed each other’

In the new film Midwinter Break, Lesley Manville plays Stella, wife to Gerry, played by Ciarán Hinds. The retired couple travels from Glasgow to Amsterdam, where long simmering cracks appear in their marriage.

“Relationship films always appealed to me to watch as well as to be in,” Manville told NPR. “You’re depicting people’s existence. It’s a very pleasing and satisfying relationship to develop, especially if you’ve got a good sensitive actor like Ciarán and you’ve got a very good director [Polly Findlay].”

Manville spoke with Morning Edition host Michel Martin between rehearsals for an upcoming production of playwright Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre in London.

Manville has balanced a career on both stage and screen for more than 50 years.

Her stage career began as a teenager with the 1972 West End musical I and Albert. She earned an Emmy award nomination for portraying Princess Margaret in Netflix’s The Crown and an Oscar nod for her performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread.

Her theatrical work in London has earned her several Laurence Olivier nominations and two Best Actress wins, one for her portrayal of Jocasta in Oedipus. That production transferred to Broadway to rave reviews and closed in February.

“I really can’t bear it if I’m not on stage for a couple of years,” Manville said. “I miss it. I think it’s ultimately where my heart is. I think if I had to do one thing for the rest of my career, it would be theater. But they all feed each other.”

Manville said stage work is exposing.

“You cannot be edited around,” Manville said. “You cannot be made to look better than you are. The audience can look at you all the time if they want to. And you’ve got to deliver something that’s consistent for possibly two hours, rather than two minutes.”

Oedipus, in a contemporary retelling of the Greek tragedy set on election night, features a large, red clock counting down to the polls closing. In the final minutes, Manville, as Jocasta, delivers a long, painful monologue, recounting a story she’s never told before: how at 13, she was made pregnant by the country’s leader and the baby was taken from her.

She delivers the speech to her husband Oedipus, played by Mark Strong, who eventually learns he is her son and had murdered his father.

She sits in a chair, practically motionless, as the clock ticks down behind her. Barely a sound can be heard as the audience is fixated on her every word.

“It’s an extraordinarily emotive piece of writing,” Manville said. “And never once did I deliver that speech without it affecting me. You could hear a pin drop and people who had coughs before stopped coughing.”

Manville is also an advocate for older women securing more acting roles.

“I think there is a far more interest now in stories about women of my age,” said Manville, 69. “Our story is as vibrant and vital as a 20-year-old’s story. We’ve lived longer lives. We have more stuff in us. We have more emotions in us. We’ve been through more.”

Nudging an industry that has long prized youthful looks, she insists that there’s a market for these stories.

“I think it is getting better slowly,” she added. “And long may that continue.”

Olivia Hampton edited the broadcast and digital versions of this story.