Olivia at Holkham Hall memory walk

Norfolk-born, Bafta-winning actress Olivia Colman, joined more than 300 walkers on Saturday at Holkham Hall for the Alzheimer Society’s Memory Walk. The event is hoped to have raised more than £20,000 to help improve the lives of people with dementia and their carers. This was the first time that Olivia had stepped out to support the Society and did so after starring in the series, Exile, and the Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady, both of which featured dementia in the storyline. She attended with her parents and the three of them took part in the 3km walk together. Olivia, pictured above at the event with clown Gavin Orchard, said: “Dementia is something which touches many of us and that’s why I’m keen to lend my support to Alzheimer’s Society and Memory Walk. It’s wonderful that so many people have put on their walking shoes and come along to raise money for this fantastic cause. There has been a really good atmosphere here today with lots of different generations walking together to fight dementia.”

Tracy Wood, from Lynn, took part in the 10km walk with her sister, Debbie, friends, Joanne Long, Teri Adams, Dawn Thirkwell and Dawn’s daughter, Sophie Thirkwell.

She said: ‘Despite the weather, there was a great turnout today and a fantastic atmosphere, especially when we did the zumba warm-up! My friends and I did have a giggle while we walked and more importantly, I have raised quite a lot of money for Alzheimer’s Society.”

Source: lynnews.co.uk – Award winning Olivia at Holkham Hall memory walk

Mitchell & Webb return to sketches

08414149 David Mitchell and Robert Webb are to return to Radio 4 for the first new series of their sketch show in four years.

And Olivia Colman – whose star is at a peak thanks to the success of Broadchurch – will be returning, too .

That Mitchell And Webb Sound first appeared in 2003 and won a Sony award for the second series two years later – before the show transferred to TV.

Now it is to be revived, with a new, fifth series starting on November 26 in the traditional 6.30pm comedy slot.

Mitchell said: ‘It’s great to return to Radio 4 now that we’re old enough to listen to it.’

Webb added: ‘I love doing radio, mainly because you don’t have to do the actions. David does the actions anyway and I respect his process. Although waiting for him to change costumes can be irksome.’

Many of the shows previous writers, including Toby Davies, Joel Morris, Jason Hazeley and Bleak Expectations creator Mark Evans are also back on board – as is actor James Bachman.

Radio 4‘s comedy commissioning editor Caroline Raphael, said: ‘It’s always wonderful to see Radio 4 programmes and talent move to television. My parting words to David and Robert were – “the door is always open” and here they are, back again and we are absolutely delighted, as I am sure the listeners will be.’

Source: chortle.co.uk – Mitchell and Webb return to sketches

Bafta-winning actress Olivia Colman takes part in walk for the Alzheimer’s Society at Holkham Hall

Like tens of thousands of others from Norfolk, she has been touched by the subject through personal experience.

Ms Colman’s mother, Mary Colman, helped many people suffering with dementia during her 45 years as a nurse.

And, in her roles as Margaret Thatcher’s daughter, Carol, in the 2011 film The Iron Lady, and Nancy Ronstadt in the television series of the same year Exile, she has acted in story lines focused around dementia.

So the Norfolk-born actress and former pupil of Norwich High School for Girls and Gresham’s School in Holt had no hesitation in accepting an invitation to take part in the Alzheimer’s Society’s Memory Walk at Holkham Hall, near Wells.

The event, which took place on Saturday, raised an estimated £20,000 to help people with dementia and saw some 300 people take part in 3km and 10km walks.

Ms Colman, best known for her roles in Broadchurch, Twenty Twelve and Peep Show, was joined by her parents on the walk.

She said: “My mum has always been very passionate about making sure that people with dementia get the care they need.

“Her grandmother died after suffering from dementia and she had a nursing home where she looked after a lot of people with dementia.

“I’ve grown up around that and my mum’s passion has rubbed off on me.

“Events like this Memory Walk are so important in raising money to help people with dementia and I’ve been really impressed to see so many people coming out to take part and support the Alzheimer’s Society.”

Tracy Wood, 40, a nurse from King’s Lynn, took part in the walk with her sister Debbie Wood and a group of friends.

All four of her grandparents have suffered from dementia.

She said: “It’s heart breaking to see a loved one who has been so bubbly and full of life change completely.

“That’s why we wanted to come along today and do our bit to help others going through it all.”

The Memory Walk is the Alzheimer’s Society’s flagship fund-raising event which sees walks taking place around the UK throughout September.

It is hoped all of these walks will raise about £2m.

For the third year running the Memory Walk is being held in partnership with Bupa Care Homes.

This was the first time a Memory Walk has been held at Holkham Hall, but organisers said they planned to return to the venue next year.

Source: edp24.co.uk – Bafta winning actress Olivia Colman takes part in walk for the Alziemers Society at Holkham Hall

UK film industry celebrated in new GREAT campaign

The campaign, created by Radley Yeldar, which worked closely with government and industry bodies such as VisitBritain, DCMS, Bafta and the BFI, aims to push the UK’s plethora of film talent and production facilities to its international markets.

A total of 15 actors, writers, directors and producers appear in the ads, from Bafta winner Olivia Colman to Oscar-nominated John Hurt, producer Tim Bevan and ‘Star Wars’ director George Lucas.

Films minister Ed Vaizey said: “These posters are a fine addition to the huge range of images that we are using in the GREAT campaign in different markets around the world.

“Our home-grown creative industries – and the British film industry in particular – are a real success story and it’s great to see this highlighted in the new campaign.”

VisitBritain, which has been spearheading much of the GREAT campaign, promoted Philip Taylor to head of marketing in July. He will be responsible for implementing the campaign across key visitor markets to boost the UK’s tourism income.

Source: marketingmagazine.co.uk – UK film industry celebrated in new Great campaign

Olivia Colman on How to Build a Better Murder Mystery, ‘Broadchurch’ and Proving She’s Not Just a Funny Lady

Olivia+Colman+Summer+TCA+Tour+Day+2+X-yvFAMhDa9l Olivia Colman’s should be a familiar face to any fan of British comedy, particularly the work of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, whom Colman worked with on their sketch show “That Mitchell and Webb Look” and on sitcom “Peep Show,” playing Sophie Chapman, the coworker, object of lust and eventual long-suffering girlfriend of Mitchell’s Mark Corrigan. While Colman’s still doing funny stuff — she plays the supportive spouse of Tom Hollander’s floundering inner-city vicar Adam Smallbone in “Rev.” — the past few years have found her proving her talent for drama in a series of wrenching roles. She won multiple awards as battered wife Hannah in Paddy Considine’s 2011 directorial debut “Tyrannosaur,” acted alongside Meryl Streep as Carol Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” and earlier this year received BAFTAs for both her parts in BBC anthology series “Accused” and Olympics mockumentary “Twenty Twelve.”

In murder mystery “Broadchurch,” which premieres on BBC America tonight, August 7th, at 10pm, after becoming a hit in the U.K., she captivated the country as Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, a local policewoman reluctantly paired with newcomer Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) who finds herself investigating her friends and neighbors in the small coastal town in which she lives when a young boy, her son’s best friend, is found murdered. Indiewire caught up with the impossibly affable Colman in Los Angeles to discuss her role in the crime drama and not having to choose between laughter and acting serious.

Murder mysteries are hardly new to the small screen. What is it about “Broadchurch” that sets it apart and makes it so compelling?

I think the writing, Chris Chibnall, the writer, the fact that he went in to look at the family, at the fall out — you can picture yourself in the community, if you knew the child, and the awful implications of that. I think that’s why it’s so gripping. It’s just heartbreaking to watch. Whenever those cases appeared in the U.K., the whole of the country is looking for that child, the child that’s missing — they want to find someone and get them back and protect them.

It is an obsession because it’s so horrific, and Chris wrote it so that all of the characters are multifaceted and have a proper arc to follow. He doesn’t patronize you. He lets you work things out, which is why you had to talk about it. He did it very cleverly.

Because there are so many procedurals on TV, it’s easy to get jaded about the idea of murder within a story. But grief and how the community was affected are not neglected in “Broadchurch” at all. How do you see your character as bringing that part of the story to light, as someone who comes from the town?

It really cranks it up to 11, because I think she thought, “I’m a good detective. I’ve worked my way up. If there’s a murder investigation, I’m sure I can handle it.” You just don’t expect it to be a little boy, a boy you knew, a family you know, and in a place you love and trust. The doors have been blown open. Everything has been ruined for her. That was so interesting to play, and I think it made it much more accessible to believe everybody, not to mention yourself, having to deal with something you never want to deal with.

And how would you describe her journey as a police officer over the course of the series? Toward the beginning, David Tennant’s character tells her she has to learn to look at people from the outside, but obviously there’s also a price for that. You don’t want to look at everyone in your community as a possible suspect.

And the reason she took the job in the first place was because she loved where she lived and thought, “This was a way to protect the people I love and to give back to my community, look after everyone.” So yes, when he comes along and he takes her job, which pisses her off, she starts to realize, “He’s right. He had to learn the hard way. He’s really been hurt by his life and job. He’s right.” So slowly she has to start. If they want to get to the bottom of this, she can’t look at anybody with the benefit of the doubt. It really goes against the grain for her.

Can you tell me a little bit about the area in which “Broadchurch” is based?

Chris, the writer, lives there — in Dorset, in West Bay which is where the external shots of the coast are. So beautiful. The last time we were filming there everyone had their phones out, going, “Look! It’s amazing!” And we had to concentrate. So it is based on a real community. He’s so happy there, and you know everybody. Kids are running in the park and you know whose kids they are. So the impact of something like that happening there — it just sort of streamed out of him because you can imagine how everyone is going to react.

So we filmed in Bristol, but it was meant to look like a town in Dorset, which was on the coastal side. I think it does work quite well. You can’t really see the seams where we were filming in the inner city but making it look like the coastal town.

I didn’t know there was that kind of landscape out there.

Jurassic Coast, they call it. The hut we keep going back to, the cliff is very close to the edge. Not that long ago, when [the current owner] bought the hut, she was saying she had a big garden, and it just dropped away because it’s sandy and not very sturdy and quite scary. You can see fossils. Lots of fossils are found on the beaches. And, at night, those type of sea creatures.

I know there’s been a second season approved, and that was a surprise to some people who thought it would be a self-contained story. Is there anything you can tell us about what’s going to happen?

I should’ve checked what I was allowed to say, because I’m slightly anxious that I’m going to drop anyone in it. We all wondered how it was going to work, but Chris talked us through his idea. He’d always pictured if it were to be picked up again that he would do this. And it’s great. I think you’ll be pleased. He’s writing it, and we hope to film in April or May, but if he’s not happy already with it then I’m sure we’ll shift it out, so don’t take that as gospel that it’s going to be ready.

I became familiar with your work via Mitchell and Webb, and then saw you in “Tyrannosaur,” which was a transition not just to a serious role, but an incredibly dark one. It can’t be easy to initially convince people “I can do this”…

Getting it, that’s the hardest bit. There’s a massive lack of imagination. They forget that you’re an actor. They’ve seen your comedies, and they go, “Ohh, oh.” I’m an actor. I’ll do anything you give me. I’ll do it. I’ll play a bloke if you let me try it. So there are thousands of actors who’ve been stuck in a pigeon hole, so I feel very fortunate hopefully to remind people that everyone can do it.

I know that you’ve continued to do comedy as well. What was that process for you, expanding into this territory?

I’ve always done little bits of drama. It’s where my heart lies, what I always wanted to do — but if you get work, you don’t say no. Also, I loved it. I felt so lucky being with these amazing people in the comedy world and I made some fantastic friends. I just felt very, very lucky to be given the chance. Paddy Considine, for no reason at all, just decided that “I want her for Hannah.” I’m so grateful to him because it just changed everything for me.

Do you find now that people are able to accept that you can play this wider range than you had previously been offered?

They still seem to find it terribly surprising!

But it’s not new.

No, it’s not. And I can give them examples, but it always happens. Why is it always a shock every year when someone does something different? It’s funny. I still get some really staunch “Peep Show” fans, and they clearly know if I booked a comedy — maybe they don’t watch drama. It’s very nice. Some people have never seen the comedy I’ve done. They’ve only seen dramas. So it’s peculiar.

Certainly for me, and I think I speak for most of my actor mates, when you go into it you, the whole idea is to play lots of different people — funny, sad, strong, weak. That’s what you want to do. So, if I’m allowed to, I’d like to forever try to do a different thing each time. That would be great.

Yours was one of the names tossed around in the rumors about who’d play the next Doctor on “Doctor Who” — would that be a role you’d ever consider?

Yeah, of course! It’s a great job. But then everyone would know you, which is a big dealbreaker. I’m not that thick-skinned.

Source: indiewire.com – Olivia Colman on how to build a better murder mystery

Olivia Colman talks Broadchurch

olivia_colman-6542256BROADCHURCH made its American debut this week on BBC America. The eight-part series, airing Wednesday nights, previously riveted audiences in Britain.

Created by Chris Chibnall, BROADCHURCH shows how the murder of an eleven-year-old boy devastates the whole community of a small English coastal town. The crime takes a personal toll on its two primary investigators, out-of-town transfer Detective Inspector Alec Hardy, played by David Tennant, and local police detective Ellie Miller, played by Olivia Colman.

Olivia is livid when she finds that Alec has been handed the job she was promised, but this is nothing compared to her shock when she realizes the victim is a good friend of her son and that the dead child’s parents are her good friends.

Colman, a native of Norfolk, England, appeared on international theatre screens last year in HYDE PARK ON HUDSON, for which she won a British Film Award for Best Supporting Actress, and as Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol in 2011’s THE IRON LADY. Colman has also received numerous awards for her performance in the film TYRANNOSAUR and will be familiar to DOCTOR WHO fans as Mother in the “Eleventh Hour” episode.

Appearing at the Television Critics Association press tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Colman discusses her work in BROADCHURCH.

AX: How did you get involved in BROADCHURCH?

OLIVIA COLMAN: It was very simple – I got sent the script and I said, “Yes, please.”

AX: Do you like murder mysteries as a genre?

COLMAN: I like anything that’s good. If a murder mystery is terrible, then no, I don’t like it, but if it’s not patronizing, if it’s an intelligent script and it’s gripping, then, yes, of course, like everyone else.

AX: How does Ellie Miller differ from other people you’ve played?

COLMAN: I’ve never played a police detective before, so there’s that obvious one [laughs]. I think she’s kind of like a female Everyman. There’s a lot of her which has been in a lot of other characters I’ve played as well.

AX: Without giving away the context, you have one scene of extreme rage in BROADCHURCH. Was that difficult or cathartic?

COLMAN: Again, it was so well-written and you’re so involved in the story all the way through, it was easy to do, really, easy to imagine. I don’t think you need to be a mother to imagine [what the characters are going through]. Everyone has some children in their lives that they are related to, or friends’ children that you love. And this is the worst possible thing you can imagine. So it’s very easy to access how awful that is. Personally, I’ve always been a fairly emotional person anyway. Now, with children, I have no armor at all. So there were lots of scenes where it said [in the script], “Ellie doesn’t cry,” and I was kind of, “Good luck with that, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop. So I don’t think you have to be a parent to be an actor to perform that upset. And clearly Jodie [Whittaker, who plays the mother of the murdered boy] – I can’t watch those clips where Jodie sees her boy on the beach. I can’t look at her. You just have to know what love feels like in order to experience that pain, I think.

AX: What would you most like people to know about BROADCHURCH?

COLMAN: That it’s gripping and it’s moving and you can’t help but get slightly addicted to it, you can’t help but keep watching.

Source: assignmentsx.com – Exclusive interview with Broadchurch star Olivia Colman on the BBC America series

ITV refuses to conform Olivia for Broadchurch 2

Olivia+Colman+Summer+TCA+Tour+Day+2+X-yvFAMhDa9l Many people have been wondering just how a second series of Broadchurch could be made, given that the murder it centred on was unheard of in the sleepy seaside town it was set.

Ad now ITV’s director of television Peter Fincham has said that the second series will be completely different from the first, as well as refusing to confirm who in the cast would return with it.
For 5 weeks the nation was gripped as the sleepy seaside town of Broadchurch came to terms with the sudden and mysterious murder of eleven year old Danny Latimer.

Leading the police investigation was Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) and viewers watched as several members of the close-knit community were linked to and questioned over the murder in some way until, in the final episode, the killer was unveiled as being Ellie Miller’s own husband, Joe (Matthew Gravelle).

At the end of the series finale fans were delighted to see an announcement that Broadchurch would be back, but were quite puzzled over the how’s and where’s as this incident was completely unique to the town which is why its effects were so dramatic.

One of the shows stars, Will Mellor who plays telephone engineer Steve Connolly who claimed to have psychic abilities, even came out to say that the new series might well be a prequel and not focus on the same characters, or even feature a murder.

And now Fincham has insisted that the next series will be different and not a “formulaic repeat of series one”.

When the subject of the recasting of the series’ main stars David Tennant and Olivia Colman at the Edinburgh Television Festival , he refused to confirm who had or would be asked to sign up for series 2.

And Chris Chibnal, the writer behind the hugely popular thriller, has backed this by telling Digital Spy earlier this year that the line-up for the new series may be a complete surprise, adding:

“I would take nothing for granted, I would just wait and see!”

Source: primetime.unrealitytv.co.uk – Broadchurch series 3 ITV bosses refuse to confirm David Tennant return

Olivia Colman Is Britain’s “Finest Export”

Olivia+Colman+Summer+TCA+Tour+Day+2+X-yvFAMhDa9lOlivia Colman is late to our interview.

A nervous publicist explains that the star of Broadchurch, which plunged the U.K. into a full-blown obsession when it aired earlier this year, is making her way on foot to our location, deep within the caverns of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. (Colman is slated to appear the next day on a panel for BBC America at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.) When Colman does turn up, she’s barefoot, clutching a pair of wickedly high-heeled Louboutins in her arms and apologizing for her tardiness.

Apparently, the BAFTA winner — who stars opposite David Tennant in BBC America’s murder mystery Broadchurch, which begins Wednesday, August 7 (it aired earlier this year to huge ratings on ITV in the U.K.), and can be seen in everything from Tyrannosaur to Peep Show — can do comedy and drama well, but finds walking in heels a real challenge. (It may be her rare flaw, in fact.) Hugs, however, are something she excels at. Colman and Doctor Who star Matt Smith embrace briefly as she passes by him, shoes in tow; she appeared in Smith’s very first Doctor Who episode (“The Eleventh Hour”).

“She’s amazing,” Smith tells me. “She’s great fun. Especially when you go and have a beer with her. She’s a riot.” And no one, I say, can cry like her. “Yeah, no one! And as a comedy actress as well, she’s incredible. She’s one of our finest exports.”

Colman is, in fact, a cottage industry unto herself, turning out highly nuanced performances from both ends of the comedy/drama divide. The Telegraph called her “the next Judi Dench.” Meryl Streep referred to her as “divinely gifted.” But Colman doesn’t wear those accolades comfortably. Bring them up and she laughs uneasily.

“It all seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? I did rewind the Meryl bit quite a few times,” Colman says, shifting in her chair. “That was amazing. I don’t know. It’s lovely and I’m aware that I’m lucky and there are many, many people who can do what I do. I’ve just been given an opportunity to do it, and I’m very grateful. It might all dry up. I’m making hay.”

The 39-year-old actress is absolutely riveting in Chris Chibnall’s eight-episode Broadchurch, where she plays Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, a sunny if harried mother of two who returns to the police force after maternity leave to discover that the promotion she was up for has been taken by an interloper to her sleepy British seaside community, Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (Tennant). But before these two — forced to work together as partners — have a chance to know each other, they’re plunged into a murder investigation when the body of an 11-year-old local boy, Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara), is found on the beach. The victim is the best friend of Ellie’s son, and investigating the murder of someone in her own life forever shatters Ellie’s worldview.

Which puts Colman in the position of having to portray both the spirit of justice itself while also embodying what Chibnall calls “unfiltered pure emotion.” (“Her responses are human,” he writes in an email to BuzzFeed. “Ellie, hopefully, is us.”)

When Chibnall is asked what Colman brought to the role, he’s effusive: “Genius. Limitless range, between humour and emotion. An absolute inviolable deep humanity. And huge intelligence. She never fails to give the best possible delivery of any line, scene or look. She has an ability to seek out the truest, deepest emotion while also never losing the incredible warmth and humour that Ellie and Olivia share. She also brought a lot of tears. I refuse to say any more good things about her, because if people begin to understand how talented she is, and how wonderful to work with, she will never return my calls or texts again.”

Broadchuch would seem to take some inspiration in part from the Danish series Forbrydelsen (which in turn spawned AMC’s The Killing): a multi-layered mystery that tracks both the detectives closing in on the killer and the family left behind by the victim. With Broadchuch, however, Chibnall goes one step deeper by connecting the victim’s family with Ellie and her own, resulting in a taut thriller that has additional emotional stakes for the detective.

“The Killing was a huge hit in the U.K. and everywhere around the world, and I know Chris, our writer, was a big fan of it as well,” says Colman. “I think it paved the way for us. There was nothing about The Killing that patronized its audience, and it was quite slow and detailed, all of the things which, for a long time, people had been nervous of making. It showed that audiences want that; they don’t want to be patronized. They want to be able to work things out for themselves and talk about it and have a fight about it. Chris delivered all of that because he’d written such clear multifaceted characters as well. If it was the boy next door, in your community, how would it feel?”

And yet Colman’s Ellie isn’t the type of female detective we normally see on these types of shows, but that is part of what made the character so appealing to Colman in the first place: she’s not a Sarah Lund-type, all dark and tortured, or a Saga Norén (from Broen/The Bridge). Ellie, when we meet her, is frazzled but perpetually cheerful, a working mother looking to juggle all of the demands in her life. She appears ill-equipped to handle the rigors of an investigation like this one, much less the murder of someone close to her, a crime that rips open the placid town of Broadchurch.

“I loved her for exactly those reasons,” says Colman. “That she’s a mum and a wife and a friend. She has this job, which has never really tested her up until this point… I love the fact that she’s a normal woman who’s dealing with something horrendous with no training on how to deal with that sort of thing. When you’re training, you imagine, ‘If there’s going to be a murder, it won’t be someone I know, and it won’t be a child.’ Yet all the worst possible scenarios happen.”

And while chalk-and-cheese detective pairings are far from a novel occurrence on television, Ellie and Alec’s working relationship pushes that now-familiar dynamic into some uncharted territory, setting up the two as polar opposites on an unseen moral compass.

“She assumes everybody is good and she gives everyone the benefit of the doubt,” Colman says. “He does the opposite. She’s always in demand, she’s got a family; we don’t know about his. But as more is revealed about him, you realize he might have been hurt at one point, but so much as happened and so much has hurt him and he’s had his fingers burnt that he’s had to build up this armor. She learns from him so they become closer and closer. Because I think he does understand where she’s from, but he’s trying to protect her.”

As the animosity between Colman and Tennant’s characters transforms into something resembling friendship, there is also a naturalistic quality to Ellie and 134859904gAlec’s interactions, according to Chibnall: “Look at any scene with David and Olivia — they contain multitudes. You can play two minutes off them eating fish and chips and chatting. They are playful, precise, technically gifted and instinctively brilliant performers.” And it helps that the characters weren’t devised as archetypes. “I wrote the characters I wanted to see as people — we researched with the police and both characters seemed credible to me,” he adds. “Only later did I think, oh, he’s the hard-bitten cop from the city, she’s the country mouse. Sometimes, just doing the simple things well, works.”

It also helps that the two coppers are played by actors as beloved as Tennant and Colman. “He’s the sweetest man in the world, an absolute joy to work with,” says Coleman of ex-Doctor Who star Tennant. “Everyone keeps asking me what it’s like working with him, and I wish there was something that I could make up as he’s so nice. He’s awful! Very rude!” She laughs. “He’s a really lovely, funny, witty, gentle man… After a day’s work, I’ll go, ‘Shall we go and have a beer?’ and he’ll go, ‘No, no, no. I’m going to learn my lines and then I’ll have a cup of tea.’ …I’m forever trying to get him to come out and have a drink! But he’s such fun. A giggler.”

For her part, Colman might have been best known for her roles in such comedies as Peep Show, Rev, Green Wing, Twenty Twelve, and That Mitchell and Webb Look, but dramatic turns as Hannah, the abused charity shop worker, in writer/director Paddy Considine’s bleak 2011 film Tyrannosaur and as hard-bitten Carol in Channel 4’s current drama Run (not to mention a memorable turn as Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carol in The Iron Lady and as Queen Elizabeth in Hyde Park on Hudson) have quickly transformed the overall perception of the hard-working actress, who cut her teeth on comedy. Just don’t call her characters downtrodden.

“Hannah was a soldier, the strongest character in that film,” says Colman of Tyrannosaur’s heartbreaking female lead. “She suffered torture every day and she was impenetrable. She was extraordinary. Somebody once said in a Q&A, ‘she’s like a doormat.’ Oooh! They didn’t think it again afterwards.”

That spirit of conviction — and of commitment — is what powers some of the best of Colman’s performances, including Broadchurch’s Ellie Miller. “Ellie probably became stronger because I realised that whatever I wrote Olivia would deliver beyond my expectations,” writes Chibnall. “So that then becomes a challenge: how far can we go with this? How funny can we make her (I love the deftness of her performance in the dinner scene in episode 4)? What reserves of anger and toughness can this character have? Olivia understands the contradictions in characters and reconciles them. She can play loveable and selfish, calm and furious, funny and broken-hearted all at the same time. Ellie has those facets because I had a performer who could bring them.”

Colman is clearly attracted towards playing complex characters in the throes of some dark matter, and in her late thirties has tapped into something primal and powerful in her performance.

“To play something which is a big spectrum is so much more fun, so much more of a challenge,” she says, “and also because I think I spent so many years doing comedy, which I fucking love. But when you’re given a chance to do something different, I think maybe I’m going a little bit nuts with it at the moment. I’m loving it, playing all these different things.”

Which means that there is still a chance of seeing her reprise her role on the popular comedy Peep Show as the long-suffering and posh Sophie opposite Robert Webb and David Mitchell, whom she met when the threesome attended Cambridge University.

“Oh, I hope so,” Colman says, smiling. “I couldn’t do Series 8 because I was doing Broadchurch. But Series 9? I really hope so, because they are my favorite people in the world — Rob [Webb] and David [Mitchell]. I love them. I hope so.”

Whatever she opts to do next, Colman will continue to ricochet between comedy and drama, a trajectory that she genuinely loves. While some actors might experience psychological whiplash from such a constant shift between genres, Colman is resolute about leaving her roles at the dressing room door.

“You don’t take it with you,” she says. “I know some people do. I really don’t. It’s all pretend and by the end of a filming day, whatever you’ve done, it’s the end of the working day. Hopefully, you’ve done it justice and you’ve told someone’s story well, committed to it. But it’s gone.”

Source: buzzfeed.com – Broadchurch Olivia Colman is Britain’s finest export

Olivia to launch a memory walk for Alzheimer’s

olivia_colman-6542256 The walk, around Holkham, will be launched by Bafta-winning actress Olivia Colman on Saturday, September 14.

Tracy Wood, 40, a nurse from Kings Lynn, put on her walking boots outside Holkham Hall with her two sons, Marley Carter, 10, and Sonny Carter, aged seven.

The family will be taking part in the Alzheimer’s Society’s Memory Walk, in memory of Miss her three grandparents who all lived with dementia.

They will also be walking as a tribute to the many people with the condition who Tracy meets through her work as an auxiliary nurse in A&E at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

“I meet people with dementia every day through my work as a nurse and I see the devastating affect it can have on both them and their families,” said Miss Wood.

“I can relate to their situation as my grandma, granddad and my nana all lived with dementia.

“It really was a heartbreaking thing to witness, especially as it touched so many of the people I cared about. When I heard about the Memory Walk at Holkham Hall, I knew I had to take part, and have been encouraging friends, family and colleagues to come and walk with me.”

Memory Walk is Alzheimer’s Society’s flagship fundraising event which sees walks taking place around the UK throughout September. For the third year running Memory Walk will be held in partnership with Bupa Care Homes.

Together, Alzheimer’s Society and Bupa aim to support more people living with dementia through the vital funds that are raised.

Miss Wood was joined at the launch by Dawn Thirkell, 35 and her children Sophie, 10, Charlie, aged seven, and Hollie, aged three.

Mrs Thirkell said: “My daughter, Sophie and I have decided to take part in the Holkham Hall Memory Walk alongside Tracy and her family and do what we can to support Alzheimer’s Society.

“My auntie had dementia and I remember the way my father and the rest of the family were affected by it. I don’t think there is enough done to raise money for people with dementia – it’s an issue which seems to get forgotten.”

More than 10,000 people with Alzheimer’s are believed tolive in Norfolk alone.

Participants at the Holkham Hall Memory Walk can choose between a gentle 3km walk or a more challenging 10km walk. The routes will wind around the estate’s grounds, as specially landscaped by the famous Lancelot “Capability” Brown, spotting various wildlife, beautiful woodland and the famous deer residing in the park.

Source: edp24.co.uk – Bafta winning actress Olivia Colman will launch memory walk at Holkham hall to raise funds for people with alzheimer’s