{"id":352996,"date":"2026-06-09T11:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T11:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T11:50:13","slug":"with-alice-and-steve-nicola-walker-is-getting-a-u-s-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352996\/","title":{"rendered":"With ‘Alice and Steve,’ Nicola Walker is getting a U.S. spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nicola Walker is not new to being famous. She has been a stage and television actor in the U.K. for 30 years and a star for more than 20. A performer of deep humanity who can take a character from cheeky humor to gimlet-eye resolution as quick as a weather change on the English coast, she has won an Olivier award<\/a> (for \u201cThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time\u201d) and received multiple BAFTA nominations for her work in television.<\/p>\n

In 2015 alone, she headlined three hit series (\u201cLast Tango in Halifax,\u201d<\/a> \u201cUnforgotten\u201d <\/a>and \u201cRiver\u201d<\/a>) and a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller\u2019s \u201cA View From the Bridge.\u201d (\u201cEven my own family members were getting tired of seeing my face,\u201d she says.) Since then, she has starred in a National Theater production of \u201cThe Corn Is Green\u201d as well as the TV series \u201cMarriage,\u201d \u201cAnnika,\u201d \u201cMary and George\u201d and \u201cThe Split.\u201d <\/a> <\/p>\n

So Walker knows the business. What she didn\u2019t know, at least until she did the new comedy \u201cAlice and Steve,\u201d which dropped on Hulu on Monday, was a Disney-owned-streamer level of publicity. The set-visit stories,<\/a> the many interviews, the debut on La Croisette at Canneseries festival (where \u201cAlice and Steve\u201d won multiple awards,<\/a> including best series) and a recent press trip to New York (where I spoke with her, via Zoom.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a different level,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you do press for the BBC or ITV or production companies in England, you\u2019re led into a small dark room with some sandwiches and awful coffee and 10 people come in and talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

This may explain why her name recognition is perhaps not what it should be in the U.S. Not that Walker cares \u2014 she\u2019s thrilled that streaming has made it possible for 20-somethings to approach her on the Tube to gush about her role in the early aughts series \u201cMI6\u201d (formerly known as \u201cSpooks\u201d).<\/p>\n

But those of us who have loved her well and long from across the pond do; it\u2019s about time Walker got some good old-fashioned American adulation, which, with any luck, \u201cAlice and Steve\u201d will provide.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Nicola Walker as Alice in Hulu\u2019s \u201cAlice and Steve,\u201d which won best series at Canneseries this year.<\/p>\n

(Lara Cornell \/ Hulu)<\/p>\n

A gasp-laugh-cringe-inducing comedy of betrayal and vengeance created and written by Sophie Goodhart<\/a> (\u201cSex Education,\u201d \u201cRivals\u201d), \u201cAlice and Steve\u201d chronicles the epic fallout between two longtime besties after Alice (Walker) discovers that Steve (Jemaine Clement<\/a>) has slept with, and wants to keep seeing, her 26-year old daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith).<\/p>\n

Over-the-top doesn\u2019t begin to describe Alice\u2019s feelings of betrayal or her escalating attempts to break up the couple and punish Steve for his betrayal, which is precisely what drew Walker to the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t really read a script where a woman at my age was so recognizably full of love and rage and joy,\u201d she says. \u201cThose shades of anger that we experience as we get older? Women are not meant to show those levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the pre-debut coverage has fixated on Walker\u2019s \u201cleap\u201d to comedy. Though her screen debut was as part of the quirky folk-singing duo in \u201cFour Weddings and a Funeral,\u201d quickly followed by a role in Steven Moffat\u2019s 1997 school sitcom \u201cChalk,\u201d Walker\u2019s career leans heavily toward dramas, including many crime various police investigations. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome journalist recently counted how many cops I\u2019ve played and it was a terrible number,\u201d she says. That terrible number is eight, though, as mentioned above, two aired in the same year, prompting the Guardian to run a comparison under the headline \u201cWho\u2019s the best new TV cop, <\/a>\u2018River\u2019s\u2019 Nicola Walker or \u2018Unforgotten\u2019s\u2019 Nicola Walker?\u201d<\/p>\n

But, she says, back in the 1990s, \u201cif you weren\u2019t the hot girlfriend or the young wife, which I just wasn\u2019t, there really was only police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, even when dealing with corpses, Walker\u2019s characters can deftly deliver a one-liner or a bad pun when the mood needs lightening; she doesn\u2019t really think along drama versus comedy lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re looking for a good script and I don\u2019t know any actor who views a script like that,\u201d she says. \u201cI do know people who are very well known for comedy \u2014 people who have funny bones like Jemaine. I don\u2019t pretend for a second to have that. I\u2019m looking for a person to believe in, and it\u2019s light and dark. It\u2019s always a mixture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t view it as such a big deal,\u201d she adds with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s only now people are saying it that I\u2019m thinking, \u201cOh, crikey, maybe it is a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Jemaine Clement and Nicola Walker in \u201cAlice and Steve\u201d: \u201cI do know people who are very well known for comedy \u2014 people who have funny bones like Jemaine. I don\u2019t pretend for a second to have that. I\u2019m looking for a person to believe in, and it\u2019s light and dark. It\u2019s always a mixture.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Lara Cornell \/ Hulu)<\/p>\n

Comedy or drama, Walker was excited to play a woman who really lets go.<\/p>\n

Alice, she says, \u201cfeels like the mad woman shouting in the middle of the room who everyone is trying to shut up, but she feels like she\u2019s right. And she\u2019s proven right, in my opinion,\u201d Walker adds, \u201cbut maybe she should have found a better way to go about it. She definitely needs some therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an actor, however, the role felt surprisingly healthy. Walker often plays professional women forced to button down their emotions more than occasionally, in part because the struggle not to cry is considered more powerful, and interesting to watch, than the tears themselves. \u201cAs a result,\u201d Walker says, \u201cyou\u2019re keeping hold of this emotion through the day, the week, two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alice, on the other hand, lets it all out, leaving Walker feeling \u201clight as a feather. Everything that woman felt went down the lens, so in the end, I actually felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Walker says she is not often asked to play women who can be as \u201cselfish and cruel\u201d as Alice, her characters often find themselves making bad choices while caught in a maelstrom of love and fury. <\/p>\n

In the U.S., the actor is probably best known for \u201cLast Tango in Halifax,\u201d for which she received two BAFTA nominations. The series chronicles the joining of two very different families after a youthful romance between two grandparents \u2014 Alan Buttershaw (Derek Jacobi) and Celia Dawson (Anne Reid) \u2014 is rekindled.<\/p>\n

Walker plays Alan\u2019s daughter Gillian, a sheep farmer with a troubled past who often clashes with Celia\u2019s daughter Caroline (\u201cHappy Valley\u2019s\u201d Sarah Lancashire), the headmistress of a posh private school. Their scenes of fracture and forgiveness become as strong an emotional spine as their parents\u2019 late-in-life romance.<\/p>\n

For Walker, working with Jacobi, Reid and Lancashire, was the golden ticket. \u201cThose three, who are titans of British theater and screen, carry all that ability and public renown so lightly on their backs,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know how they did it, but they made the rest of us so relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

During what she calls her favorite afternoon on any set, the four of them were waiting to go on, when someone suggested they name the ways they\u2019ve died on screen. \u201cDerek had the longest list, obviously, but I\u2019ve met some appalling ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was was young, Walker says, she thought acting would involve a lot more running and jumping, which, by in large, it hasn\u2019t (unless you count walking across London\u2019s Millennium Bridge countless times in high heels as she did in \u201cThe Split\u201d). <\/p>\n

\"Three <\/p>\n

Nicola Walker, Josh Bolt and Sarah Lancashire in a scene from \u201cLast Tango in Halifax.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Matt Squire \/ PBS)<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Tango,\u201d however, did provide her with what she calls her \u201cTom Cruise stunt moment.\u201d Walker had learned much about handling sheep and farm equipment, but when a scene called for her to back up Gillian\u2019s 1970s tractor, a stunt double appeared. \u201cI was mortified. Then she tries about three times and walks off saying that the tractor was too old,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut I knew that tractor, so I said, \u2018That\u2019s OK, I can do it,\u2019 and I backed it up around a corner in the first take.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the one time I felt really cool, my version of Tom Cruise hanging on a plane with no ropes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlice and Steve\u201d also required her to do a few stunts in a series of intense scenes toward the end of the series, which Walker found exhilarating and worrisome. \u201cI say I love doing stunts, but I was thinking, \u2018Please don\u2019t be the middle-aged woman who breaks her ankle jumping from a small height.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With 30-odd years in television, Walker has benefited from, and anguished over, the many changes in the industry, including the increasing number of female producers and executives.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Producer] Jane Featherstone got me the job on \u2018Touching Evil.\u2019 Then she started a production company that did \u2018Spooks\u2019 and then another that did \u2018River\u2019 and \u2018The Split.\u2019 I very much owe my career to her moving up, so I saw that change in the business where women were moving into positions of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streaming too has increased the reach of her shows, but she\u2019s personally torn about the binge model. <\/p>\n

\u201cI keep thinking, all this fabulous effort, months and months of work, and someone like me, I will binge something in two nights,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The one thing that has her, and many people, truly worried is AI. Walker snorts when discussing a recent AI-generated \u201cannouncement\u201d that she and Cillian Murphy would be starring in a noir thriller \u2014 \u201dWouldn\u2019t that be great?\u201d she says \u2014 but last year, she was one of thousands who signed an open letter demanding more transparency about and protection against body scanning.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one has ever tried to scan me,\u201d she says, \u201cbut that\u2019s because I\u2019m much older and they wouldn\u2019t. What Equity [the British performing arts union] was pointing out is that young actors thinking they have to allow it, which they don\u2019t. I feel it\u2019s really important to protect the generation that\u2019s coming in now.\u201c<\/p>\n

Amid the flurry of publicity for \u201cAlice and Steve,\u201d Walker isn\u2019t sure what comes next; the series ends with a very dramatic cliffhanger, which could set up a second season. Or not. Walker is definitely game, though she\u2019s happy either way. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were going to leave everything on the dance floor with this one,\u201d she says, \u201cand it works as a stand alone. We would love to do more, but if we never hear from them again, it will be one of the favorite endings of anything I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she says, she\u2019s looking for the next job. What about making real that hallucinated series with Cillian Murphy? <\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t it be awful,\u201d she says, laughing uproariously, \u201cif that they tracked that thing down and it came from my IP address?\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nicola Walker is not new to being famous. She has been a stage and television actor in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[26020,84954,6193,144140,2242,144137,48,52,51,144139,47,50,49,54272,592,16425,2489,144141,132788,144138,1557],"class_list":["post-352996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alice","tag-betrayal","tag-character","tag-comedy-line","tag-drama","tag-good-series","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-tango","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nicola-walker","tag-people","tag-river","tag-scene","tag-split","tag-steve","tag-television-actor","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}