Anna Friel: in praise of the difficult woman
“There’s a lot of very fit men with twelve-packs and it has a great soundtrack.” Anna Friel’s been watching Kingdom, the highly-rated Netflix show that seems to have slipped through the cracks of our viewing list.
Fuelled by adrenaline, vitriol, and sexual repression, it documents the story of three cage fighters struggling to reconcile their personal and professional identities. In spite of the twelve-packs, what really attracts Friel is seeing what happens when powerful people are brought to their knees.
Depicting the darker side of the female psyche is Friel’s bread and butter. In , she played Sergeant Odelle Ballard, a soldier determined to prove the involvement of her government in a terrorist conspiracy. In Steven Soderbergh’s she transformed into a power-driven, gay Republican fundraiser, regularly engaging in prolonged dominant-submissive sex scenes with multiple women. Butterfly saw Friel assume the role of a mother trying to understand her transgender child.
But it is in Marcella where Friel’s acting chops are really shown. Sharp corners, underscored by emotional fragility make Friel’s a masterclass in emotional intelligence.
So, what drew Friel to Marcella? “I like her combination of both extreme strength and vulnerability,” she says. “There’s so many sides to us; she has the freedom to release that rage, I don't know how aware of it she is.” Unbridled female rage is something so rarely seen on TV, I offer. Instead, female protagonists tend toward a reductive portrayal of heroism; the mentally-ill woman repackaged as the mother or lover who cared too much, both trivialising and stigmatising women’s mental health.
Friel is glad we’re talking about mental health. As someone in the business for over thirty years, she says things are changing for the better. “There’s so much more noise about it. It’s so healthy to be able to talk. Perhaps it’s more relatable than ever; how someone deals with pain when they’ve nobody helping them, when they’ve been abused emotionally.” In series three of Marcella, Friel’s titular character is undercover as Keira, sent to gain evidence that will convict a well-known crime family in Belfast. As she becomes more embedded into the family, the lines begin to blur and at times, we wonder where Keira begins and Marcella ends. Blurred lines, in fact, are what has delayed series three this side of the water for so long.
Friel refers to the case in Grays, Essex where thirty-nine Vietnamese people were found dead in the back of a trailer. “The human trafficking storyline in the first episode has a bit of a resemblance to the horrific episode that happened in Essex. It’s in court now. Even though it was written a year before that, ITV legal said that it could prejudice the jury because it was so similar.” Despite her seamless transition into blind anger and ruthless determination, Friel is one of the chirpiest people I have ever met. Even her jumper says so, emblazoned with a rainbow- hued HAPPY. So, how does Friel get into that dark place? Music, she tells me without hesitation.
“It’s all about concentration. I remember one day we were shooting and it was blue skies outside. The sun was shining and I was far too happy.” Friel listened to the music of Hans Zimmer with laser-focus on dark thoughts in order to portray Marcella/Keira’s mental instability. There were times when she wanted to give up.
“I nearly pulled out from doing it a few months before, thinking there's been so many detectives. How can I do it differently?” Approaching Marcella from a physical standpoint was paramount for Friel. Seeing Friel on Zoom only emphasises the differences between her and Marcella physically. Her instincts, combined with nuanced technique make for one of the most fully-formed, three-dimensional female characters on mainstream television.
“She was a rock and roll kind of detective; quite androgynous. Because she had been left by this awful man and had her heart shattered, the last thing that she would ever do is wear a silk blouse that you can see the shape of the boobs in. She doesn’t rely on the female form.” Friel says Marcella’s style is an ode to Scandi-noir and Tintin, the cartoon world’s rent-a-hipster. Knee-length peacoat? Check. Pin-rolled ankle-basher trousers with biker boots?
Check. Collared shirt and Nordic knitwear? Check, check, and check. The comparisons stop there however, as the anodyne boy reporter lacks what Marcella has in spades. What we Irish like to call neck.
Playing such an intense character with a dark storyline really takes its toll on her mental health.
“You spend twelve or thirteen hours a day being really depressed because it’s the only way it works. You have to actually become someone, not act them. It’s months of trauma but you know you're making powerful stuff, so it's all worth it.” So, how does Friel switch off? Quite simply, family. Her daughter Gracie (with David Thewlis) is the most important person in her life. While she was filming Marcella, Gracie attended Strathearn grammar school in Belfast.
“Thank God I had my daughter with me. You have to try to make it as normal a job as possible. Go to work, come home and have a family dinner. My brother and his three kids under three stayed with for the first six weeks [of lockdown] while I was shooting in Los Angeles.” Because she was an executive producer on this series, Friel had to put in a lot of extra hours at the office. In Belfast, however, she was surrounded by extended family. Friel’s father was born in Belfast and raised in Donegal so she had a lot of support awaiting her there.
I've got eighty-two cousins, the ones that I grew up with [were in Belfast]. There would be letters and flowers through the door every day, saying if you need anything… just such lovely acts of kindness because they didn't want me to feel alone.”
The writers of Marcella (Hans Rosenfeldt and Nicola Larder) have not skimmed over the darkest of storylines; there’s been cot death, paedophilia, abduction, and child homicide all dealt with in a nuanced way. In season two, Marcella turns to desperate measures when, wielding a knife, she threatens to hurt the killer’s child.
“I think a lot of people found that scene very, very tough to watch. A lot of mothers said the storyline with kids was just too painful but unfortunately, there are very bad people out there who would [do that]. I don’t think there’s anything worse than hurting a child that can’t protect him or herself. The world's not getting any easier.”
Being a mother, you have a primal instinct to protect your child at all costs, she tells me.
“A mother's instinct is like nothing else. You will you protect them till the cows come home. I can't envisage murder but I’d do anything to protect my daughter.”
One of those things is tackling the issue of revenge porn. Solidifying steps in law to protect women needs to happen, we agree and Friel draws attention to the recent Only Fans leaked images scandal. These sites need to have more accountability, she says, with stricter monitoring and privacy regulations. Dialogue around issues like mental health, sex work, harassment, and domestic abuse has to become more transparent, she says and women need to watch out for and protect each other.
In a post-Weinstein era, Friel hasn’t spoken at length about her experience with misogyny in the workplace but she is adamant that it very much exists. She, too, has her own story.
“I’m not going to say who it was but I was absolutely traumatised. The only reason I carried on is because I knew we were making good work. I thought I was tough enough to be able to deal with it but I think some of those things don't affect you until much later - if you go and have therapy. I’ve been working since I was 13 years old and in the business for thirty now; certain things you just got used to and expected.
"And it's not until you look back you go - how did they ever get away with it?”
So, what’s next for Friel? There’s , Clive Barker’s horror where Friel’s character is looking to communicate with her dead son through a supernatural vessel. Then, about Grace Gordon who fought for women’s rights in 1960s America. After that, Friel travels to Sweden to do a supernatural Scandi noir-thriller called . During lockdown, she’s been co-writing a script with an Irish writer and she’s bought the rights to a book she intends to produce.
As Covid-19 continues to spread, it’s beginning to look a lot like Groundhog Day, this notion that we try again and again because we don’t have forever. But for Anna Friel, walking five miles a day, watching TikTok with Gracie, and cooking on her Aga, it’s a monotony she can get on board with.
