Ruth Wilson on going bold in 'Lear' and her own secret family saga in 'Mrs. Wilson'
NEW YORK - It's nearly lunchtime on a Friday in downtown Manhattan, but Ruth Wilson is just sitting down to breakfast. Her meals are all out of whack because she's starring every night in a 3 1/2-hour production of "King Lear," in previews at Broadway's Cort Theatre: "You've got to work out how to eat," she says cheekily, "or you'll be farting everywhere."
Wilson, who plays doomed Cordelia and the Fool in "Lear," has also depicted a psychopathic genius in the BBC's "Luther," a woman clouded by grief in Showtime's "The Affair," a 19th-century governess who falls for her brooding master in the BBC's "Jane Eyre," and a submissive wife torn between her brutish husband and neurotic sister in a London production of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Yet none of these intense, enigmatic roles prepared the actress for her trickiest job: portraying her grandmother, Alison, in "Mrs. Wilson," a "Masterpiece" miniseries that premiered Sunday on PBS, which she also executive produced.
