RUTH WILSON
“I’VE LEARNED IN THE COURSE OF MY CAREER THAT I’M BETTER WHEN I’M CHALLENGED”
Do you want a cup of something? I’ve got lots of teas.” It’s December 2021, and Ruth Wilson welcomes Total Film into a cosy room in Hazlitt’s hotel, London. Claiming to be a little jetlagged after a trip to New York, she shows no signs of fatigue during the course of our hour-long chat, but her quiet drive is very much in evidence.
In the years since she found fame as the title character in the BBC’s 2006 take on Jane Eyre, she’s been acclaimed in roles on telly, on stage and on film, while avoiding a conventional, ‘more of the same’ path. As we speak, she’s gearing up for a stage production of The Human Voice, an adaptation of a 1930 Jean Cocteau piece in which she’s the sole performer, talking into a telephone. “It’s a massive challenge,” she laughs. “Anyway, I might fail at it, but there we go!”
The project that brings us here today is another bold gambit: True Things. Adapted from the novel True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies, and directed by Harry Wootliff (Only You), it tells the very subjective story of Kate (Wilson), as she embarks on an all-consuming affair with the mysterious Blond (Tom Burke), neglecting other aspects of her life.
It’s a project that she’s shepherded from the beginning as a producer. “I think that film and TV acting is a bit lonely, and I think I like being amongst people creating and collaborating on something,” she says. “I’m always looking for my tribe of people that I can connect to in that way, and create stuff with.”
It’s why she’s found herself gravitating towards producing (she also portrayed her own grandmother in TV miniseries Mrs. Wilson, which she exec produced), and also directing on stage. She’s attracted to the collaborators more than the parts. “Some people have a real, ‘I want to play that part,’” she muses. “I don’t really have that so much.”
That’s not to say she hasn’t found her way to some pretty memorable characters, as varied as Jane Eyre, ’ Mrs. Coulter and ’s deliciously unhinged Alice. Notable films have included , , , and . Gaining her attention across the pond was, which she eventually departed amid rumours of behind-the-scenes disagreements, which she has since been unable to comment on. Notable stage roles have included , , and .
