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

TV doesn’t get much better than ‘Broadchurch’

Murder most foul, TV most fabulous.

That’s Broadchurch.

Debuting on BBC America on Aug. 7, this British import follows the murder of a young boy in a small, sea-side English town. Written by Chris Chibnall, the series stars David Tennant as a new chief inspector, Olivia Colman as his local assistant, and Jodie Whittaker as the boy’s mother.

The series is a self-contained, eight-hour mystery: At the end of the run, you will know who the murderer is. For Colman, that was essential – anything else, she says, would have been cheating.

If solving the mystery was a game, the actors got to play along. They didn’t learn who the murderer was until the last script came out, and spent much of the shoot trying to guess. ‘We were obsessed with it.”

Like her character, Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, Colman has children. But she does not feel that having children is essential for playing a role like Ellie, who is devastated by the murder of her best friend’s son.

“I maintain that you don’t have to be a mother to imagine. Everyone has some children in their lives. …This is the worst thing you can imagine, and it’s fairly easy to imagine how awful that is. …There were many scenes where it says ‘Ellie doesn’t cry,’ and I said ‘Good luck with that.’ ”

Happily, she says, she was able to leave those tears on the set. “At the end of the day, you let it go and you carry on.”

Colman assumed she would be letting go of the role, as the end of the story does not seem to leave a lot of room for a second season. And then, she says, when the show concluded on British TV, a card flashed on the screen saying Broadchurch would return – which she took as both good and bad news.

“We’re all going ‘How? How will that happen?’ It is going to go again, but that’s as much as we know/ … The premise, we’re not sure about. Who’s in it, we’re not sure about. We’re a bit nervous.”

Source:app.com – TV doesn’t get much better than Broadchurch

Colman: I like playing against type

olivia_colman_5604329 Olivia Colman has said she relishes playing “unlikeable” roles.

The Broadchurch star’s latest project is as down-on-her-luck single mother Carol in Channel 4’s gritty new drama Run.

The series, which will be shown over four consecutive nights, weaves together four seemingly unconnected people who are each facing life-changing decisions.

“Carol’s doing what she can,” explained Olivia. “She’s trying to keep the family together and she’s doing it in an unconventional way.”

The star of Twenty Twelve and Accused said that as an actress, she enjoys playing against type.

“I like the fact that some people might find Carol unlikeable,” she said. “I like that she’s not all smiley and sweet.”

While many people may think the Bafta-winning actress has one of the most coveted jobs on the planet, she revealed her children Finn, seven, and Hal, five, aren’t among them.

“My sons are too little to get wrapped up in the fame side of things and I keep reminding them that being an actor is nice but it’s not impressive. Saving lives is impressive,” said Olivia. “Their mates go, ‘Your mum’s famous’, and my sons go, ‘Yeah but that’s not cool. It’s cool to be a nurse’.”

Despite having so many strings to her bow, Olivia has no intention of leaving Blighty for La-La land just yet.

“Me go to Hollywood? Only for a holiday!” she snorted. “I’m getting good work here and you don’t want to ruin it and start somewhere else. I feel lucky to be working.”

Source:thurrockgazette.co.uk – Colman: I like playing against type

Olivia Colman Confirms She’s Signed Up For Broadchurch 2

Olivia+Colman+Broadcasting+Press+Guild+TV+abaMHF86xeqx Good news for all who were hooked on Broadchurch earlier this year – Olivia Colman has signed up for the second series.

The actress, who was widely expected to return, has confirmed in a new interview that she has agreed to reprise her role as Ellie Miller – though fans have a long, long wait before the next series.

Asked by Digital Spy if the deal was sealed, she said: “Yes. I think so. I think everyone knows that. Right? Yes.

“I’ve said yes anyway. They might not write me in it.”

The only teaser she was able to drop was: “It’s good.”

She also said she has found the surge in interest in her “scary”, and not necessarily for positive reasons.

She said of the shift: “[It’s] quite scary. Different and scary. And not necessarily in a good way.

“Everyone said you must now be inundated with work. I think in reality everyone says, ‘She must be really busy, let’s not bother sending her the script’. So things haven’t really changed in terms of the work coming in.”

She also admitted that Broadchurch made her stop using public transport, because of the amount of viewers who demanded answers.

“I’ve done lots of jobs, where I thought it was great and I hoped that people liked it, but nothing that has gone nuts like that before,” she said. “I was pleased that people liked it as much as I did, but that many people liking it, was a bit weird.

“It’s quite hard to get used to. I ended up not getting on the bus and train because I just couldn’t handle people wanting to know who did it and only being able to reply, ‘I’m not allowed to say!'”

Source: entertainmentwise.com – Olivia Colman confirms she’s signed up for Broadchurch 2

Olivia Colman plays down Dr Who rumours

108239589 Olivia Colman has laughed off rumours that she is set to become the new Doctor in Doctor Who.

The actress, who is best known for her roles in Broadchurch, Tyrannosaur and Peep Show, advised fans not to ‘put any money’ on her being cast as the Doctor, a role in need of being filled following Matt Smith’s announcement that he will leave at the end of the year.

‘My brother sent me a text saying, “Congratulations, they’ve released odds on you being the new Doctor Who” – which we thought was very funny,’ Colman is quoted by Digital Spy as saying.

‘It’s all on Twitter, isn’t it? I don’t have Twitter. It is all on Twitter, isn’t it?

‘No-one’s ever asked me about it. I assume they would have to ask me for it to be true.’

Speculation has been rife that Doctor Who bosses want to cast the first ever female Timelord, with Dame Helen Mirren also said to be in the mix.

Other names being thrown around include Rory Kinnear, Ben Daniels and Ben Whishaw.

Colman is next set to appear on screen in Run, which airs from Monday, July 15 to Thursday, July 18 on Channel 4.

Source:metro.co.uk – Olivia Colman plays down Dr Who rumours

Olivia Colman says she gets recognised more from Broadchurch than Peep Show

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Bafta winner Olivia Colman says her newfound recognition makes her embarrassed when she steps out of her house.

The 39-year-old star, of everything from comedies like Peep Show to heavy dramas like Tyrannosaur, has admitted she finds it difficult to adjust to her raised profile since appearing in ITV’s whodunnit hit Broadchurch.

Colman, soon to be seen in Channel 4 drama Run, said she even puts off going to the shops until she has to.

She said: “Previously I’d normally get somebody every day going ‘I like Peep Show’, or something. And now that happens quite a lot more, to the extent that I get quite embarrassed.

“I only do journeys that I really have to, because I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a bad experience, it’s just funny. Someone knows your face, but you don’t know theirs. It’s a bit peculiar, and I’m sure I’ll get better at it.

Colman was a double-winner at the Baftas earlier this year – bagging the Best Supporting Actress award for Accused, and Best Female Comedy Performance for Twenty Twelve.

But she said she was a bit overawed by the occasion and wanted to head home early and relax.

“I still haven’t really registered that it happened,” she said.

“It was all a bit overwhelming, so straight after dinner I asked my husband ‘Can we go home? I want to put my socks on’. So we snuck off.

“My mates know I’m the last one to leave a party. But stuff like that is just a bit too much, a bit too overwhelming.”

In urban drama Run – which begins on Monday, July 15 – Colman plays one of four apparently unconnected people who face life-changing decisions.

Source:independant.co.uk – Olivia Colman says she gets recognised more from Broadchurch than Peep Show

Olivia Colman Joins BBC Two’s ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ In Leading Role

Olivia+Colman+Broadcasting+Press+Guild+TV+abaMHF86xeqx EXCLUSIVE: It’s hard not to be impressed with the cast that BBC Two and Heyday Films have assembled for their upcoming 90 minute one-off drama The Thirteenth Tale. I’ve just learned that Broadchurch alum Olivia Colman has been cast in the drama in a leading role. According to my sources, Colman has been cast as Margaret Lea, the biographer to whom ageing novelist Vida Winter recounts her life story. The news of Colman’s casting comes after TVWise previously broke the news that Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave, Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones), Gordon Winter (Friday Night Dinner), Antonia Clarke (Lightfields) and Robert Pugh (Game of Thrones) have all been cast in the drama.

Based on the novel of the same name by Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale tells the story of the residents of Angelfield House and follows ageing novelist Vida Winter (Vanessa Redgrave), who enlists young writer Margaret Lea (Olivia Colman) to finally tell the story of her life – including her mysterious childhood spent in Angelfield House, which burned to the ground when she was a teenager. The project has been described to me as a “chilling ghost story which examines family tragedy.” The adaptation was written by Christopher Hampton, who previously adapted Doris Lessing’s novel Two Mothers and Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. Heyday Films is producing with David Heyman, Norma Heyman and Rosie Alison serving as producers. Inside Men helmer James Kent is attached to direct.

TVWise initially reported back in March that BBC Two Controller Janice Hadlow and the BBC’s Controller of Drama Ben Stephenson had commissioned a one-off adaptation of the novel and that there were rumours circulating that The Thirteenth Tale would be a key part of BBC Two’s Christmas line-up. The BBC has yet to formally announce or confirm any of this, but I’ve now confirmed with my sources that this drama will be part of the BBC’s Christmas schedule. Production on The Thirteenth Tale is slated to commence later this month.

Source:tvwise.co.uk – Olivia Colman joins BBC two’s The Thirteenth Tale in leading role

What will Olivia Colman do next after Bafta and Broadchurch success? Quite a lot, actually

142384248GALLShe was the toast of the Baftas but what will Olivia Colman do next?

Quite a lot. She has already shot Run, a drama set in Brixton, which will run over four consecutive nights on Channel 4 in July. And she is currently shooting The 7.39, a “love story for grown-ups” written by David Nicholls (One Day) for the BBC. She plays the wife of David Morrissey, who falls for another woman (Sheridan Smith) on his commute.

Next year, she returns to comedy with Mr Sloane, a six-part 1960s sitcom for Sky Atlantic, in which she plays Mrs Sloane to Nick Frost’s hapless hero. She will also play Frost’s sister in Cuban Fury, a comedy film about salsa-dancing, due for release in January 2014.

Meanwhile, Locke, a British thriller by Dirty Pretty Things’ Steven Knight, in which she co-stars with Tom Hardy and Ruth Wilson has just been snapped up by Lionsgate films. And the second series of Broadchurch goes into production early next year. In other words – plenty more opportunities for awards.

Source: independent.co.uk – what will Olivia Colman do next after Bafta and Broadchurch success, quite a lot actually

Double Bafta winner Olivia Colman: “Being naked on screen was the worst, then not getting work”

Olivia+Colman+Press+Room+British+Television+5wr8c-bx41lx As she took to the stage to claim her second Bafta award of the night, Olivia Colman could scarely believe her luck.

Swearing and apologising in equal measure, the actress beamed with delight at the recognition she had finally received before celebrating in style, drinking until after 3am with her husband and close friends.

And it’s no wonder she was so overjoyed – only four years ago she was close to throwing in the towel altogether after the offers dried up and she found herself out of work for nearly half a year.

The accolades have been hard-earned.

Having decided she wanted to be an actress at the age of 16, Olivia was put off many times, training first as a secretary and then as a teacher, before finally making it onto an acting course.

Much of her early work consisted of adverts, including one for Danone Actimel yoghurt, another for The National Lottery and a voiceover for Andrex.

But by far the most memorable – even if you may not have recognised her until today – was the 2003 commercial for AA Car Loans in which she played two versions of a woman named Bev, one upmarket with a flash car (because she’d taken out a loan) and one downtrodden in a banger (because she hadn’t).

The script went: “Kev? Bev? Bev? Kev?” and was widely agreed to be one of the most irritating adverts ever made.

As a struggling actress she took on bit parts as well as adverts to earn a living but it was rarely easy and, in 2006, she agreed to do the low-budget Brit flick Confetti in which Colman and Robert Webb played a naturist couple who were getting married in the nude.

She has since described the film as “the worst experience of my life” and says she was betrayed by the film-makers who had lied about how much of her naked body would be seen in the final edit.

“I now know there are some people who are just bad,” she has said. They even started legal proceedings against the film-makers but abandoned them after deciding it was better to just pretend it had never happened.

It was a particular low-point for the actress but things were to get even worse before they got better.

After Olivia, now 39, gave birth to her first son, Hal, she suffered post-natal depression but explained recently. “I knew I loved my baby – I’ve always been able to see what I have in my life.”

She has had her moments of worry and despondency, emotions which seem scarcely conceivable considering her current success.

But just four years ago – in 2009 – the work had dried up to such an extent she was starting to look for a new career. “I had five months off,” she explained at the time. “Scary. I started to look up midwifery courses.”

Fast forward a few years, however, and Olivia couldn’t be more in demand, with work lined up for the whole of this year and next year already. She admits that the earlier struggles have made her accept almost every offer, because she needs to “make hay” while she can.

It is typical of a woman who has struggled to make it big since her teens.

Born Sarah Caroline Olivia Colman, she changed her name after trying to register with Equity and discovering that a Sarah Colman already existed. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem for her nearest and dearest. “To friends and family – including my parents – I’ve been Colly ever since I got the nickname at primary school,” she explains.

Brought up in Norfolk, her father was a chartered surveyor and her mother was a nurse. They sent her to an all-girls private school, where she first discovered the acting bug aged 16, playing Miss Jean Brodie.

“The first time I did a school play, was the first time I felt I was good at anything at all. I just loved it. I suddenly felt really at ease, and at home. Of course, at that age you keep it to yourself.”

Her parents, however, weren’t convinced and insisted she did a secretarial course – she is still rather proud of her ability to touch-type. School didn’t help and at one point she took a computer careers test. “It told me I’d make an ideal HGV lorry driver, because I’ve got 100% spatial awareness.”

But luckily she was encouraged by her godfather who told her that, as Brodie, she was “amazing, f***ing brilliant”.

Despite this, before hitting 20 she was persuaded to enrol on a teacher training course in Cambridge. Her heart wasn’t in it, “I would have been a terrible teacher,” she has since laughed.

She dropped out after attempting to join what she thought was a local amateur dramatics group, and discovering she’d actually auditioned for a Footlights production. Once involved she met Cambridge undergraduates David Mitchell and Robert Webb – the key to her early success.

“I owe Rob and David so much — they gave me my first job. I might not be doing this at all if it wasn’t for them. And they’re lovely friends.”

She also ran into her husband Ed Sinclair, which she says was like being struck by “a thunderbolt”. “He was gorgeous, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” she claims. “I stuck with him and made him realise he could only be happy with me. I still feel I’m punching above my weight.”

She knew instantly that they would get married. “I absolutely threw myself in – I didn’t play it cool. I had to work on him. I remember, about three months later, him saying: ‘What are you thinking?’ And I said: ‘I love you.’

“We married seven years later and we’ve been together 19 years. He’s the best person in the world.”

Always disparaging about her own looks, she claims that she “laughed him into bed” and says people still give them odd looks when they are out together because Ed, a writer who has just finished his first novel, is so tall and dashing.

Their relationship is so strong, that they recently agreed to leave this mortal coil together, after watching the film Amour. “We said if one of us is incapacitated Olivia+Colman+Broadcasting+Press+Guild+TV+abaMHF86xeqxwhen we’re old we’ll make a suicide pact.”

Ed had enrolled on a course at Bristol Old Vic and at first Olivia went with him and earned a crust by taking a job as a B&B cleaner. Later she enrolled too and found that she was quite good. In typically self-depracating style she says: “I do think it helped that I was so s*** at everything else.”

Her breakthrough role came in Channel 4’s Peep Show, in which she played Sophie Chapman, the love interest for Mitchell’s Mark. Since then she has appeared in a constant stream of comedy TV shows and films including Hot Fuzz, Black Books, Green Wing, Look Around You.

Later came Bafta-winners Rev, in which she starred opposite Tom Hollander and last year’s Twenty Twelve. But her real breakthrough to another level of fame came earlier this year, as her role as Ellie Miller in Broadchurch led to instant calls for her to win a Bafta in next year’s awards.

Some might say there is a danger she will now be over-exposed. Having just finished in Broadchurch, this weekend she starred in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. “You make things, and they’re delayed for ages, and then they all come out together,” she explains.

There’s no getting away from the fact that she works an awful lot. In 2012 she got just one break, in December. Now she’s looking at back-to-back projects.

At the moment she is filming a romantic drama for BBC1, alongside fellow Bafta-winner Sheridan Smith. Called The 7.39, she plays the wife of David Morrissey, who starts an affair with Sheridan’s character on a train.

Later there will be another series of Rev and also Bad Sugar, written by Sharon Horgan for Channel 4. Next year, almost certainly, she will be making the follow-up to Broadchurch.

She might be on top of the world not but it almost wasn’t to be as she nearly didn’t take the Broadchurch role, alongside David Tennant, after worrying how her sons Hal, now seven and five-year-old Finn, would cope without her.

Before filming commenced, she worried: “It’ll take four months, and I’ve never been away that long. I keep getting teary about the possibility of the boys waking up in the night and me not being there.”

Despite all the success and recognition now being heaped upon her, Olivia is unlikely to ever stop putting her family first. “I just couldn’t see the point without Ed or the kids,” she says. “I couldn’t do it without them.”

The family live perfectly normal lives with weekends spent walking the dog around their Peckham home and watching DVDs. Those who know her well, praise the actress’s down-to-earth attitude – she recently got all overcome after meeting Ant and Dec. “I’ve always loved them on I’m A Celebrity so I was sweating and blushing. But they’re lovely.”

And, like many people, she spends her spare time thinking about home improvements. “I dream of an open-plan kitchen with a huge table. Two years of saving and I’m still not there,” she said recently.

You can’t help thinking Olivia should treat herself now – she certainly deserves it.

Source: mirror.co.uk – Olivia Colman: being naked on screen was the worst then not getting work