Rome - this autumn on 91Èȱ¬ TWO - press pack phase two
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Polly Walker plays Atia
Described as the Ancient Roman 'queen of mean', Atia – niece of Caesar and mother of Octavia and Octavian – is snobbish, cunning, sexually voracious and totally amoral.
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And Polly Walker loved playing her.
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"I'm very fond of her," she laughs defensively. "I think she's, dare I say it, nice!"
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We're judging Atia by modern standards, says Polly, when in reality Ancient Rome was a completely different kettle of fish.
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"I feel protective of her because people are judging her by today's moralities and it was very, very different then.
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"Okay, she's insensitive and wilful and selfish and has lots of negative qualities, but basically she's protecting her lineage and her family and she'll go to whatever lengths to do that. She's a survivor and that's what you had to be."
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In fact, if she had been a man, her behaviour would have been considered admirable, Polly insists.
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"If anything I think she would have been held as a hero in some sense. She's just extremely ruthless, which in a man is considered to be terribly attractive in a way while in a woman it's considered an ugly trait to have.
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"She's extremely powerful and manipulative and deserves enormous respect, I think, as a character – she has no husband yet she's right up there with Caesar, for goodness sake. I think she would have made a brilliant emperor."
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The danger with such a schemer is that she can appear one-dimensional. Polly stresses that she was keen to make the character more rounded.
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"What I didn't want is to play an out-and-out baddie, so they tried to develop other aspects of her.
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"She's got lots of funny scenes. She hates Lindsay's [Duncan, who plays Servilia, Caesar's lover] character with a passion. She gets her a naked slave with a big penis and ties bells round it and sends him off.
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"I found her hugely amusing, such a joy to do."
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There were some aspects of the role, though, that she found a lot more demanding.
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"The sex scenes were difficult. Fortunately both James [Purefoy] and Lee [Boardman] were such lovely guys they made it easy for me. But you still have to get your kit off,"
she says, admitting she was a bit nervous about baring her all.
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"I um-ed and ah-ed, but I didn't feel that they were titillating scenes, that I was having to play a sex kitten," she says.
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"It was pretty shocking, but they were always for a reason, she was always trying to achieve something by doing it.
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"So I had to go with it because it's about the character and I had to accept all aspects of that; I had to do it."
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It helped that she's still in fabulous shape as she approaches 40.
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"I do try and go the gym generally, anyway, just to keep fit and not turn into a total blob," she says.
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"Obviously I was conscious of what I was eating beforehand but I didn't take it to any extreme level; I'm incapable of doing that! I just carried on as usual but obviously didn't dine out on pizza every night."
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She certainly looks the part of a voracious temptress, to her great relief.
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"I was relieved that I didn't look hideous. One has all kinds of images as to what you really look like, so I was relieved that I didn't look as monstrous as I thought I would do," she laughs.
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Such demanding scenes obviously took a lot out of Polly both physically and emotionally.
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"Afterwards I would be absolutely exhausted," she confesses.
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"I'm not naturally exhibitionistic at all. It wasn't easy and not something that my children will be watching and I certainly won't be encouraging my family to watch it – but I'm sure they will!" she says with a wry smile, adding – only half jokingly – "I'm dreading it coming out on TV!"
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More shocking, though, than her sex scenes is an episode when Atia is praying to a god for her son's safekeeping, the ritual involving standing under a giant bull while it is slaughtered and being drenched in its blood.
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It sounds horrendous. "It was!" she grimaces.
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"In fact I think that was more uncomfortable than doing any of the nude scenes. You can only do it so many times because you have to clean up. It was terribly, terribly cold.
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"You know when you jump into the sea and you can't get your breath – it was like that.
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"I thought gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack. And there was so much of it. It didn't stop, or that's what it felt like. It was difficult.
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"It's like a corn syrup, it's very sticky, sticks your eyes down. You know you're going to have to get up at the end of the scene and walk and hit your mark and say a line, and yet you are completely blind."
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Rehearsing the scene should have been slightly less unpleasant, using plain water, but Polly recalls with a shiver that things didn't go according to plan…
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"They made a mistake – it was meant to be heated water but it was ice cold."
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At least Atia's clothes met with Polly's approval.
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"They were absolutely gorgeous and very comfortable," she says.
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"Quite like an Indian sari, that influence, and much more modern than I thought. They were great.
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"Atia has some real showstoppers and I took a deep breath before I put them on, thinking 'Oh my God, dare I wear this?', but she's such an extravagant character I just had to go with it."
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It sounds as though Atia's larger-than-life personality rubbed off on Polly's own wardrobe during filming.
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"I became a complete shopaholic. I was buying all kinds of handbags and shoes that, in the Roman light, I thought, they are the most gorgeous things I've ever seen.
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"When I got back to London, just hideous!" she laughs.
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"Sometimes Italian fashion, especially in the summer, is bright and gaudy and tarty, so I'd be buying these bright pink and bright orange things and when I got home I'd just go, 'what was I thinking, I can't wear this!'"
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Luckily as a passionate foodie Polly also bought a lot of more sensible Italian staples such as pasta and olive oil.
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"I love cooking," she reveals. "People seem to enjoy my food but I absolutely love it. I'm one of those people who will buy a cookery book and take it to bed and read it.
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"If I wasn't an actress I'd like to cook. I'm pretty obsessed by it. Rome was great in that sense, going to amazing cookery bookshops.
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"No wonder their food is good because the quality and wide range of their produce is so good. It's not fair really."
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It sounds as though spending a year in Rome filming was a dream job for Polly.
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"I absolutely adore Rome. If I could transplant my family there when I'm there then it would be a perfect place," she sighs.
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But as her children are still young - Giorgio is 11 and Delilah is five - they stayed back in England with her partner and her mum, meaning Polly spent much of her time travelling back and forth.
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Well, at least it kept her out of the shops!
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"Whenever I got any down time I'd be a on a plane, coming back to England. I felt more like an air hostess than an actress for that year," she smiles.
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Though the family joined her for holidays she regrets they couldn't be there full time, as she has a close association with the country.
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"I was married to an Italian and my son was born there. I've got lots of connections there and I lived in the north, in the country about an hour outside of Milan, for quite a few years. I speak fluent Italian," she explains.
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That helped her feel at home while she was filming.
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"That was very nice. I've been in other places where you don't speak the language.
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"I was shooting a couple of years ago in Bulgaria. You feel terribly strange and vulnerable on your days off when you're wandering around as you haven't got a clue about the language.
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"It just meant that here I could tap into things – see something, watch the telly."
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It's a long way from Warrington in Cheshire where she grew up, though in truth her acting career has been so successful since she first came to attention in 1992 for her role as a terrorist in Patriot Games that it has taken her around the world for films including Control, Savage Messiah, Curtain Call, After Alice, Dark Harbor, Talk Of Angels, The Gambler, Robinson Crusoe, Emma, Restoration, Sliver, The Trial and Enchanted April.
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Her television credits include the acclaimed State Of Play for 91Èȱ¬ ONE and she has just finished work on a film called Scenes Of A Sexual Nature with Ewan McGregor, Sophie Okenado and Hugh Bonneville.
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Though she has another film lined up for the end of 2005, she'll soon be back in Rome for work on series two.
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"I'm curious as to what they have in store for me this time," she smiles. "I hope that I've got lots to do!"
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As long as it doesn't involve bulls, perhaps…
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