THE FLIM INTERVIEW

From sitcom standout to Oscar-winning heavyweight, Olivia Colman has made her journey to national treasure status look easy. But, ahead of the release of searing, awards-attracting dementia drama The Father, she tells Total Film she’s never had a gameplan.

INTERVIEW MATT MAYTUM MATT PORTRAITS HOLLYOAK

“YOU OFTEN HAVE MORE FUN ON A REALLY GRITTY DRAMA, AND SOMETIMES COMEDIES CAN BE TERRIBLY SERIOUS.”

CAMERA PRESS / MATT HOLYOAK

I t’s November 2020, and Olivia Colman is promoting her new movie from the comfort of her living room. Total Film is joining her via (what else?) Zoom, and she’s enjoying one of rare upsides of pandemic life. “I much prefer it to having to get up and go out,” she smiles. “That’s not what I’m meant to say, is it?”

Colman – Collie to her nearest and dearest – has never done things by the book. In person, she comes across just as you’d hope: unaffected, unpretentious, ‘normal’. She’s also far more selfdeprecating than you’d expect an Oscar and four-time Bafta winner to be, both about her craft and her interview skills. “I’m not the most eloquent person,” she laughs. “Which you’ll find out!”

As you’ll have no doubt witnessed in countless sitcoms and powerhouse dramas, it seems like there’s not much Colman can’t do when it comes to acting. She’s on fine form again in her upcoming drama, The Father. With director Florian Zeller adapting his own play (co-writing with Christopher Hampton), Colman stars opposite – and more than holds her own against – Anthony Hopkins at the top of his game.

The film (and play) is a compelling, disorientating portrait of dementia from the inside out, feeling at times like a family drama, and at others like a mystery thriller. “I remember reading it and loving it because I’d never seen anything from that point of view before,” says Colman. It’s already attracting awards attention, having been nominated for six BIFAs and shortlisted by several critics’ bodies (Colman has already picked up the Golden Eye award from the Zurich Film Festival).

Even with all that silverware, she remains remarkably down to earth. Perhaps its because success wasn’t exactly overnight. After falling in love with acting on stage, her career got off to a slow start, but friends Robert Webb and David Mitchell found work for her, most notably in Peep Show, which provided her with a steady job as she was slowly getting a foothold in the industry. “Thank God Sam [Bain] and Jesse [Armstrong] kept writing it, and people kept watching,” she says, appearing relieved. “It kept us all going for quite a long time.”

Film and TV roles were regular, but it was being cast in Paddy Considine’s short, Dog Altogether, which led in turn to Tyrannosaur, that really demonstrated Colman’s dramatic potential. Since then, she’s enviably switched between broad comedic turns (Rev., Fleabag) and prestige drama (Broadchurch, The Crown) and things that hover somewhere in between, like Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster and The Favourite. The latter, of course, earned her the Oscar, and she wells up recounting an  awards anecdote about her castmates Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

There’s something relatable, too, about her unwillingless to over-analyse what she does. “You try not to think about it,” she laughs. It’s time to get into it with a star who genuinely classifies as British acting royalty (not that she’d ever admit to it…)

A PEEP AT THE START Peep Show was Colman’s first high-profile TV gig.

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What was it like working with director Florian Zeller, who was adapting his own play for The Father?