Ask Olivia Colman about her role as a plain-speaking woman cop in gripping new ITV drama Broadchurch and she says modestly: “I’m not a pin-up.”
The in-demand star has a string of brilliant sitcom performances to her credit plus a Bafta nomination, reports the Sunday People .
Now she is winning the nation’s affection as the likeable down-to-earth detective sergeant Ellie Miller beside former Doctor Who David Tennant.
Olivia, 39, claims her success in landing good parts in films and on TV is because she does not mind snubbing glamour to look just ordinary.
She said: “I feel fortunate that I’m not a beauty. I’m not a classic beauty. I feel it is harder for girls who are like that. There are fewer parts.
“It took me a long time to get used to it but I think, ‘If I’m allowed to play parts where I look s*** I’ll get more.
“For some reason people imagine that dramatic things happen to people who don’t look beautiful.
“So I feel fortunate that I’ve managed to get into that market and I’ve loved every part I’ve played.
“I’m not a pin-up, thankfully. I’m not suggesting I feel unconfident. I am beautiful to my husband. I am beautiful to my friends. I feel sexy and all those things with the people I love.”
Olivia appeared in the film Hot Fuzz and TV comedies including Peep Show, Rev and Green Wing.
In last year’s Twenty Twelve, a hilarious BBC show about the team preparing London for the Olympics, her performance as lovelorn assistant Sally earned her a Bafta nomination.
She also won acclaim as downtrodden Hannah in the award-winning 2011 British film Tyrannosaur.
In The Iron Lady she played Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol in scenes with Hollywood legend Meryl Streep, 63.
Meryl, who won a Best Actress Oscar for playing Thatcher in the 2011 film, described Olivia as “divinely gifted” as an actress.
Not everyone has been as quick as Meryl Streep to recognise her talent.
When the British actress was 20 she worked as a cleaner and struggled to make ends meet.
Olivia recalled: “It was really hard. There were years of no work and months of no work. It was a hard time.”
She has even told how she made the best of the bad times and enjoyed polishing lights and organising offices.
Olivia said: “I do go into things thinking, ‘Right I’m going to enjoy this.’
But I actually really loved my cleaning jobs.
I loved the job satisfaction. I’d really go to town. I’d wipe skirting boards, the top of lights…
“And I always thought if there was a secret camera they would be proud of me because I never did anything naughty. I never looked in drawers.”
Olivia credits her husband, writer Ed Sinclair, for getting her through tough times after they met at Cambridge University in the 1990s.
“My husband and I were very lucky,” she said. “We met when we had nothing and we loved each other then. So we were all right. We were 20 and he was also an actor. If you meet at that age then you are fine.
“For me it was thunderbolts straight away.”
She is undoubtedly at the top of her profession but Olivia still has the experience of failing to land parts she wanted.
And she still finds the rejection hard to handle. She said: “I still audition now. The rejection really hurt and it still does. Recently I auditioned for two jobs and I didn’t get either.
“That was a bit upsetting. I love my job and I know I am very lucky but still, if you audition and you don’t get it, it still affects you.”
Now she is revelling in the success of ITV’s Broadchurch, which has pulled in more than seven million viewers.
Olivia’s Det Sgt Miller investigates the murder of schoolboy Danny Latimer when his body is found at the foot of a cliff. The compelling eight-part drama is far more than just a whodunit.
It looks at how 11-year-old Danny’s death affects the small close-knit seaside community in the English south-western county of Dorset.
When she was getting into her character Olivia felt the emotional impact of quizzing the dead boy’s grieving parents because it made her think of her two young children.
She told the Sunday People: “I’ve got kids of my own. Performing some of the scenes was heart-wrenching.
“I wasn’t meant to cry nearly as much as I did. I couldn’t stop myself. It’s such an awful thing.
“The scenes with Jodie Whittaker and Andy Buchan were very emotional. It was impossible. I challenge anyone to look at them and not cry.
“I didn’t have to do any research. It’s all in the script.
“I know people approach it differently but I think if you believe what you are saying and the character isn’t that far off from yourself then you are going to be fine.
“I’ve read a lot of scripts and you get good at knowing which ones you want to do and this one was incredible.”
“Now I’m amazed at the viewing figures Broadchurch is getting. It’s such a beautiful script and it’s encouraging that the nation does not want to be thought of as stupid.
“They like a gripping intelligently written drama and I’m thrilled that everyone likes it.”
Olivia’s co-star David Tennant, 41, plays detective inspector Alec Hardy.
She said they struck up a close friendship during filming.
The pair would regularly find themselves laughing at the dour character David plays.
She said: “We all got on so well and enjoyed going to work even though it was a miserable subject matter. We all adored each other.
“David Tennant is gorgeous. He is so jolly and happy and witty.
“It was a big delight. We had a giggle being mean to each other. He is so warm and charming and having to play someone who is so socially inept was hilarious.
“We would all go to the pub and out for dinner. It was like a big family.”
Olivia was born and brought up in Norfolk, the daughter of a nurse and a chartered surveyor.
At Homerton College, Cambridge, she met future co-stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb and auditioned for the Footlights.
She spent a term doing a primary school teacher training course before deciding to switch to drama and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Olivia had first got the acting bug playing Miss Jean Brodie, aged 16, in a school production.
She said: “I was on stage and suddenly felt really at ease and at home. But at that age you keep it to yourself and say, ‘I want to be a nurse or a teacher.’”
Broadchurch was filmed on the cliffs and shores of Dorset and in the town of Clevedon, North Somerset.
It meant Olivia, who lives in London, spent time away from her sons Finn, seven, and Hal, five.
She said: “I miss my kids when they are not there so I make sure work isn’t far away from them. They keep me grounded.”
Source: mirror.co.uk – “I’m lucky I’m not a pin up” ITV’s Broadchurch star Olivia Colman’s own battle
