Dame Harriet Walter Covers AMAZING Magazine | Issue 4

Dame Harriet Walter is renowned for her scene-stealing roles in some of TV’s biggest shows, having scored back-to-back double Emmy Award nominations for both drama and comedy thanks to her performances as the withering Lady Caroline Collingwood in HBO’s Succession and as AFC Richmond owner Rebecca’s mother, Deborah, in Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. Here, the award-winning Shakespearean actor talks to AMAZING about her extraordinary career, achieving global fame in her seventies and why roles for women still need to be more rounded.

There can’t be too many A-list actors, let alone ennobled ones, who would actively seek out their interviewer in a café by going up to strangers to inquire as to whether they were the person in question. However, that’s exactly what the extremely polite, self-effacing Dame Harriet Walter does on the day we meet – much to the surprise of the young woman who looks up from her laptop to see Lady Caroline Collingwood, arch matriarch of TV phenomenon Succession, smiling expectantly at her.

 

One of Britain’s most revered theatre actors, Walter, 73, has in recent years made a name for herself playing scene-stealing roles in a variety of television blockbusters, from Jodie Comer’s KGB handler in Killing Eve and Maggie Smith’s school friend in Downton Abbey, to Hannah Waddingham’s mother in Ted Lasso, Rebecca Ferguson’s mentor in Silo and even a cameo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

But it is her masterful performance as Lady Caroline, arguably the world’s worst mother to three mixed-up adult children in smash hit Succession, about the dysfunctional Roy media clan, that has catapulted her to the attention of the masses – a turn of events that a bemused Walter is still coming to terms with.

 

“Well, there’s a lot more recognition, you do get that,” she concedes, once we locate each other and are settled in a quiet corner of the café near her home in west London, where she lives with her American actor husband Guy Paul. How does she find that? “A mixed blessing because there is something flattering about people noticing you and remembering you; that’s nice, but it can have its downsides, particularly around here where I’m trying to buy a loaf of bread in my pyjamas. I can’t do that anymore,” she laughs. “I’ve just been in Budapest and Istanbul and got spotted. They rush over and say, ‘Can I have a selfie?’ Honestly, I’m not complaining. It does alter the quality and quantity of job offers and I don’t have to audition anymore; usually now people know if they want you or they don’t. That makes life easier.”

For Dame Harriet's full interview and shoot, order your copy of AMAZING issue 4 now. The House of Bernarda Alba is at the National Theatre until 6 January; nationaltheatre.org.uk. Archie is now showing on ITVX as a box set. The drama will also air at a later date on ITV1.