{"id":780960,"date":"2026-09-24T10:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780960\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T10:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:32:08","slug":"my-first-screen-kiss-was-in-a-cowshed-lesley-manville-on-her-greatest-roles-and-why-sex-scenes-for-over-50s-are-booming-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780960\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My first screen kiss was in a cowshed!\u2019 Lesley Manville on her greatest roles \u2013 and why sex scenes for over-50s are booming | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is high summer and, while Lesley Manville may be suffering a bit with hay fever and the heat (\u201cI\u2019m so white, all I do is burn\u201d), she doesn\u2019t do wilting. Soon to head outside to tend to the ailing garden of her London home, she is enjoying a rare period of rest after six almost unbroken months of Oedipus<\/a> on Broadway and then Les Liaisons Dangereuses<\/a> at the National. She keeps, incidentally, the Tony she won for playing Jocasta in Oedipus on a shelf by the computer, \u201cnext to its friend, Larry Olivier\u201d \u2013 an Olivier awarded for the same role.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t go into a job thinking about awards,\u201d she says, before grinning conspiratorially. \u201cListen, you don\u2019t say to an Olympian, \u2018Oh, is it OK that you didn\u2019t win?\u2019 Yes, you like to win!\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markOedipus and Les Liaisons Dangereuses were both highly sexualised pieces of theatre and I love that<\/p>\n

Manville has done a fair bit of winning recently, and not before time. The last 15 years have seen her graduate from widely respected actor to garlanded star: since 2011 there has been that Tony, two Oliviers, an Oscar nomination for Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s Phantom Thread, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and seven Bafta nominations. Her cinematic collaborators have included not only PTA but Luca Guadagnino, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n and Joel Coen. This relatively late blooming has come as a relief.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019d like to win!\u2019 \u2026 Manville was Oscar-nominated for Phantom Thread, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, in 2017. Photograph: Focus Features\/Zuma Press\/PA Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so glad I was never flavour of the month,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause it\u2019s so hard to maintain. No one went to LA for pilot season when I was young \u2013 we were just interested in doing the work. But you\u2019re right, there has been a shift. Winning the Olivier for Ibsen\u2019s Ghosts<\/a> in 2014 took me somewhere else, theatre-wise. An Oscar nomination makes a difference. A whole sequence of high-profile television, not least The Crown, which obviously wasn\u2019t all about Princess Margaret but boy did Peter Morgan write me two astonishing episodes. Mrs Harris Goes to Paris brought me to a new audience, and Mum<\/a> is the thing I still get stopped about most.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are just some of the most recent projects from an amazing body of work, one of which Manville \u2013 whose combination of wry wit, warm intelligence and stern savvy keeps me on my toes throughout our conversation \u2013 is rightly proud. Marble Hall Murders, her new TV series, starting on BBC One this week, completes Anthony Horowitz\u2019s trilogy of ingenious Susan Ryeland mysteries. It may be one of her lighter pieces, but it\u2019s no less satisfying for that.<\/p>\n

Manville was willingly cajoled into returning as publisher-cum-crimebuster Ryeland by Horowitz, who offered to write a third book if she\u2019d do a third series. Susan is back being single, back in London and back in publishing \u2013 albeit reluctantly \u2013 when a young writer proposes to conclude the bestselling saga of fictional detective Atticus P\u00fcnd. As before, many of the cast take dual roles as fact and fiction intertwine, and P\u00fcnd\u2019s investigation into the murder of a publicly beloved, privately monstrous children\u2019s author in Corfu is reflected by events in Susan\u2019s world, where her sparring partners include Mark Bonnar and Rupert Penry Jones. If it is indeed the end, Manville will miss Susan immensely.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cShe feels closer to me than a lot of other parts I\u2019ve played. I like to think I don\u2019t conform to a received notion of how one should be when one reaches a certain age. I love the fact that she wears these fabulous clothes, drives an open-top red sports car \u2013 I used to drive an MG in my 20s, although it broke down all the time \u2013 and doesn\u2019t put up with any shit. Like her, I\u2019m very clear about who I am. I\u2019ve found myself at this point in my life. And although I\u2019m absolutely terrible at guessing whodunnit, I\u2019ve caught out a few boyfriends in the past, so my detective work hasn\u2019t been all bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manville, now 70, grew up on a council estate in Hove, a seaside town in East Sussex, one of three daughters of lifelong Labour supporters. \u201cThose principles stay with you. My early influences were very leftwing, working at the Royal Court with actors and playwrights who felt the same way.\u201d These included Andrea Dunbar and Caryl Churchill. \u201cI really want the Labour party to be everything it could be, and under Andy Burnham, we might have a glimmer of hope that happens. I\u2019ve got a lot of time for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manville was a gifted performer from a young age, albeit not in the art form she would go on to conquer. \u201cI had a really good, classically trained voice when I was young,\u201d she says. \u201cI could have been an opera singer, but something about it felt formal and stiff, so my 15-year-old brain went, \u2018OK, I\u2019ll go and do musicals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Like an extreme sport\u2019 \u2026 with Aidan Turner in a publicity shot for Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Photograph: Alexandre Blossard<\/p>\n

Thanks to a council grant she commuted daily to London\u2019s Italia Conti stage school<\/a>, and, after O-levels, studied dance, singing and drama. \u201cFrom my first job in a musical when I was 16 until I was 22, I did every job I was offered. I was a presenter. I did two pantomimes, a musical, a telly play, everything, but I never thought about playing characters. I just played me. Meeting Mike Leigh was the lightbulb moment, not just because he told me I was good but because I played someone a million miles from me. And I thought, \u2018This is what I want to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That was in 1979, and Manville has now worked with Leigh more than any other actor, their eight films together producing what were, for years, her defining screen roles. Lonely daytime drinker Mary in Another Year<\/a>, and the nervy, vulnerable breadwinner Penny in All or Nothing<\/a>, in particular, condensed so much of what makes her great: the precision of characterisation, the deep dredging of despair, the dogged resilience. She still values Leigh\u2019s opinion more than almost anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

She even turned down an offer to join Arlene Phillips\u2019<\/a> dancing troupe Hot Gossip. When I suggest she could resurrect her dancing on Strictly, she gently corrects me, explaining that she never really let it die. I should have guessed from her enviably upright deportment. \u201cI\u2019ve spent every night of the last three months dancing with professionals in Les Liaisons Dangereuses,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt like an extreme sport and it\u2019s been wonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Meeting Mike Leigh was the lightbulb moment\u2019 \u2026 Manville with David Bradley in Another Year. Photograph: Cinematic Collection\/Alamy<\/p>\n

She pauses before taking a brief, impassioned detour. \u201cThank God, just because we\u2019re over 50, we don\u2019t have to have walking sticks \u2013 or not be thought of as sexual any more. We are! Oedipus and Les Liaisons were both highly sexualised pieces of theatre and I love that. Anyway, if I\u2019d been asked to do Strictly 15 years ago, I might have said yes. Now, I\u2019m not available much.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has been busy ever since her breakthrough TV role back in 1975, in ITV\u2019s then new daytime soap Emmerdale Farm. \u201cMy first screen kiss was in a cowshed!\u201d she says, hooting with laughter. \u201cMy character was younger and adored an older man. It was more affectionate than passionate. I\u2019ve been kissed in more glamorous locations since.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with so many actors, soap opera gave her an \u201camazing grounding\u201d in the technique and discipline of screen acting. \u201cBut I knew it was time to go. I remember a lot of the cast saying, \u2018Oh, you shouldn\u2019t leave. It\u2019s great money. You\u2019ve got security.\u2019 I just thought, \u2018I know, I hear you, I\u2019ve learned a lot, it\u2019s been amazing. But I\u2019m off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I learned a lot\u2019 \u2026 Manville as Rosemary Kendall, with Frazer Hines as Joe Sugden, in Emmerdale Farm in 1975. Photograph: ITV\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

At times, her work rate frankly boggles the mind. For 10 weeks in 2018, for instance, she spent her days filming the costume drama Harlots in Watford and her evenings on the West End stage for Long Day\u2019s Journey into Night. Where did this all come from?<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to keep going. You\u2019re either that person or you\u2019re not. I\u2019m very good at looking after myself. Just crack on with it is very much my philosophy and not a lot fazes me. If there was an Olympic event for multitasking, I\u2019d win! When I was a single mum, I went back to work because I had to.\u201d Gary Oldman, her first husband, left her, and the UK, three months after their son Alfie was born in 1989. \u201cWhen I had too much to do, a play to learn and a baby who needed feeding and bathing and stories, I allocated my time much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alfie is now a father of three and a cameraman who has worked on projects with both his parents. \u201cMy friend Alan Rickman was on Harry Potter,\u201d Manville remembers, \u201cand he said, \u2018Alfie, I\u2019ll get you through the door [as a runner], but the rest is up to you,\u2019 which was exactly right. Now if I see Alfie at work I\u2019ll think, \u2018What are you doing here?\u2019 What a privilege. And he likes me. I like him. So it\u2019s a win-win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manville\u2019s work ethic and eye for quality endure: days after we speak, it is announced that she will star with Anna Maxwell Martin in a new production of the American tragicomedy August: Osage County<\/a>, and she is currently filming a new Prime series called Escorted, playing a Manhattan nightclub singer opposite Brett Goldstein as her son. There will be no slowing down for this formidable performer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got as much energy as all of those dancers I\u2019ve just finished working with,\u201d she says matter-of-factly. \u201cI really am a bit like Susan Ryeland. I couldn\u2019t give a fuck how old I am!\u201d<\/p>\n

Marble Hall Murders is on BBC One on 26 September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is high summer and, while Lesley Manville may be suffering a bit with hay fever and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-780960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}