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 Gideon's Daughter
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Miranda Richardson plays Stella
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Miranda Richardson plays Stella, a woman who is facing up to the
tragic loss of her only son.
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Terrified of the nightmares she might experience if she goes to sleep, she is occupying her nights by working in a 24-hour convenience store. There, she looks after a cage of guinea pigs in the store-room.
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Stella's life is gradually turned around, however, when she meets Gideon (portrayed by Bill Nighy), and forges an immediate bond with him.
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One of the finest actresses currently at work in this country, Richardson felt a connection with Stella the moment she read the script of Gideon's Daughter, and that has only increased since.
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"The more time I spend with this drama, the more I love it," she enthuses.
She was especially magnetised by the central relationship between Stella and Gideon, in which each provides the other with some sort of solace and stability.
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"It's a fascinating relationship," confirms Richardson, who is one of the hardest-working actresses in the business. "When they first meet, they get an instant buzz from each other.
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"Gideon is not quite what Stella had expected, and she finds that intriguing. But as their bond develops, she becomes like a parent to him. She looks after him and helps him to find himself.
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"The relationship offers her the opportunity to nurture someone and helps her to feel less bereft. There's a lack of wholeness in her life since the loss of her son, and her affair with Gideon helps to fill that void."
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Stella's directness was equally appealing to the actress, who over the
past two decades has shone in work as diverse as Dance with a Stranger, Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous, The Crying Game, Damage, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hours, Spider, Chicken Run, Get Carter, Sleepy Hollow, Empire of the Sun, and Tom and Viv.
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For the latter she earned a well-merited Oscar nomination and for her portrayal as Queen Mary in The Lost Prince, her last collaboration with Poliakoff, she earned both Golden Globe and Bafta nominations.
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"I like the fact that there's no agenda with Stella," asserts Richardson, who had terrific fun filming the role of Rita Skeeter in the Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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"Stella's a truth-seeker. She's not aggressive, but at the same time she is not afraid to say quite simply, 'That doesn't work'."
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The actress continues by pointing out that grief has had an unusual effect on Stella. "She is like a bright, new-minted penny. She has a lot of tragic history, but in a strange way she is reborn after her son's death. The grief she carries doesn't come across as a burden so much as a way of putting her in touch with humanity.
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"She's walking around in this odd state of grace, which enables her to
see things with great clarity. She's like a child who can't sleep because she's so in tune with the sounds of humanity. She's open and receptive to everything. In the best sense, Stella is joining humanity, rather than just sticking Band Aids on herself.
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"Stella makes choices after her son's death. She sheds a lot of
superficial stuff and starts to celebrate life in all its many colours. As a way of honouring the memory of her child, she is rediscovering life. Of course, she still lives with her grief, but it's as if it is on an anvil and she is re-shaping it. Being able to express that is half the battle."
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Gideon's Daughter is also a thought-provoking mediation on what you
might call the spiritual state of the nation.
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"The film is about spiritual malaise," Richardson declares. "We've become dispossessed because we don't believe in God and don't know what we mean by Him anymore.
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"Increasingly, there is emptiness at the centre of our lives. It feels like there is a tendency to live life in inverted commas and play out received images. Nothing is private or handled with grace anymore.
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"We're encouraged to go for our dreams, but it's an empty pursuit. In
the end, the material things we're urged to strive for don't make us happy. We live in a spiritual vacuum where form is prized above content."
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Richardson previously gave an outstanding performance as Queen Mary in
Poliakoff's acclaimed The Lost Prince. She clearly has a deep affinity with the writer-director.
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"What I love about Stephen is that he's such a visionary," she observes.
"He deals with stuff that appears to be on the periphery and brings it
centre-stage.
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"He's saying that, 'Of course, major events that we all know about happen, but equally major events are going on all the time in the lives of people who are not celebrities.
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"He is also fascinated by the suburbs. They can seem like banal places, but they become bejewelled if you have a connection with them. They are full of rich stories if you actually live there."
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Richardson closes by lauding her co-star, Bill Nighy. "He's a delight to work with. We also worked together on The Lost Prince. I played Queen Mary and he played her adviser.
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"In the very first scene we did together, he had to come to me to report the death of the Russian Royal Family. Whenever I do a portentous scene, it makes me giggly, so I was worried and thinking, 'This news is so awful that I'm bound to burst out laughing!' But in the end we got it.
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"Bill is a complete gent. He's complex and simpatico, which is a lovely combination. And he plays great music. You always hear the Rolling Stones coming out of his trailer. What more could you want?" Ìý |
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