Interview: Keeley Hawes, Leading Lady
If you love Louisa Durrell’s pluck and parenting, get to know actress Keeley Hawes, the leading lady at the helm of The Durrells in Corfu. In an exclusive Season 1 interview with MASTERPIECE, she teases Season 2, describes doing her own “stunts,” and shares the experiences behind her pronouncement that she doesn’t ever want to work with anyone but children and animals!
MASTERPIECE: What is at the heart of Louisa’s journey?
Keeley Hawes: Ultimately, her being a mother is all-important to her. That’s what gets her up in the morning. There’s a lovely quote that I think was written by Larry, where he says, “Looking back, the best thing our mother did for us is just allow us to be.” She was such a good mother, I think—and not a perfect mother—I don’t think there is any such thing. I’m a mother of three children, and we do make mistakes. But she was always striving. Not always succeeding, but always striving to be the best mother that she can be.
MASTERPIECE: What was it like to work with the diverse cast of animals?
Keeley Hawes: The animals are fantastic…We have a recurring seagull whose name is Steven Sea-gull, which is always funny. We say, “Can you bring Steven? Is Steven Sea-gull coming to visit?” He’s quite a serious seagull. And we have a donkey. We have geese. We have Roger the dog, who is really a female dog called Moffet, who is great. In [Season 2] we have lots of songbirds, these little canaries who’ve all been taught to do things. We have a magpie this time, and the chap who looks after the birds and teaches them things has taught them to fly out of Larry’s bedroom window holding bits of his novel in their beaks—it’s just extraordinary to see it! Every day, an animal is doing something else, and just doing it brilliantly. I love it.
MASTERPIECE: We’ve heard that you’re something of a mom figure to the kids on the cast.
Keeley Hawes: I just absolutely adore them, and I can say that with my hand on my heart. It’s a little team. They are all older than they’re playing—Milo [Gerry] is playing 11, so he’s 14, he’s a big chap, and Josh [Larry], who now I think is 24, is playing 21. We all love each other, and we’ve all seen each other, or been phoning or texting each other. Not a week’s gone by where we haven’t all spoken to each other, and that’s quite rare, particularly in that I’m a good 20 years older than them, so it’s very sweet of them to be so inclusive with me, as well. But it doesn’t feel like that. It just feels like a little gang.
MASTERPIECE: The Durrells in Corfu’s humor is very special—poignant yet never cloying. Can you talk about it?
Keeley Hawes: The minute it starts to sound sentimental or something, it’s always cut by somebody coming in and talking about something completely different. Simon [Nye, the writer] never allows it to wallow in sentimentality; he always cuts it just in time. I love it for that.
It’s that sort of Pixar thing, where you go and see Toy Story and adults are laughing at one thing and children are oblivious to the joke. Yet there is so much for the children to laugh at as well. I think that’s a major part of its charm. I’ve got a letter from somebody saying that they had watched every week of the show: their mother who was 94, and this lady who’s in her 50’s, they’d watched it with her husband and her daughter and her daughter’s son. Ages 9-94 sitting every Sunday together, and all loving it. And it’s quite a rare thing. I’m very proud of it for that.
MASTERPIECE: What can we expect in Season 2?
Keeley Hawes: We can expect Louisa to do some more fast driving—Louisa does all her own stunts, I’d like to point out. [Laughing.] Well, there’s only two vehicles on Corfu, so now she’s driven both of them. Aunt Hermione returns, so there’s a visit from the English relative that doesn’t go to plan. And we also have Una Stubbs from Sherlock coming in for an episode, which is very exciting.
MASTERPIECE: Can we expect more romance in Season 2?
Keeley Hawes: Yes. I think Louisa’s search for love across Corfu is definitely going to continue. It’s a very tall order to find someone who is perfect for her, and who is also perfect for the children, because as she says, “I come as a bundle with my children.” And she does, and it’s a very lovely bundle, I think.
MASTERPIECE: What does it mean to you to be part of an adaptation of the beloved Corfu Series?
Keeley Hawes: Well it means an awful lot, because I am a diehard fan of My Family and Other Animals—I’m one of those people who read it as a child, and have read it again and again and again through my life. I was in the process of reading it to my two littlest ones, when news about The Durrells and moving off to do it came true. It was really, really quite emotional for me. They’d made it before, but I was too old to play the children, but too young to play the mother. And now I’ve sort of reached the perfect point, and I was delighted that I was there and available, and they wanted me to do it. There’s lots of love, because all the producers and the writer, they are all lifelong fans. So everybody wants to do it well, for the Durrells.
MASTERPIECE: What would you recommend for me if I were to pull a Louisa Durrell and pick up and move my family to Corfu?
Keeley Hawes: Take an umbrella for the autumn. Expect to be very, very, very hot. Expect to fall in love with it and the people. And don’t go without any money!
