![]() What difference does it make? I just I find it really baffling. But it definitely makes me feel quite sad. Why do you think people respond to that almost as a negative, giving her a same-sex relationship? But you can bet your life that if Francis Lee had chosen to pair her with a man, no one would have said anything. It's interesting, isn't it? Because there is no historical documentation about Mary Anning's love life, none whatsoever. The latter is the most important part of all of it. It's just a story about two people who fall in love - the fact that they are women is never addressed or mentioned in any way or explained or justified. I love that we just normalise this love story, this connection between these two women, by keeping all of those other elements well away. Often with same-sex love stories of a period nature, the fact that they may have been perceived as wrong immediately becomes a part of the narrative. There's nothing socially forbidden about it within our narrative. One of the things I appreciated so much about our narrative is that it is completely devoid of hesitation or fear - there's no secrecy around the relationship between Mary and Charlotte. I think you've really hit the nail on the head there. What about sexuality? Mary has the relationship with a woman, played by Saoirse Ronan, and this relationship vitally isn't about shame. I come from a pack of impoverished, out of work actors who spent more time digging roads, laying tarmac and being postmen than actually acting. I certainly enjoyed being a part of that with him, it really felt good to give her that power. It was very important for Francis to sing her praises, and to celebrate her. They even tried to say that they were a hoax, or that she was a freak- she was subjected to such extraordinary scrutiny just because she was a working-class woman. Just because Mary was a woman, people questioned her mind, they questioned her scientific discoveries. How important do you think it is to show alternate working-class stories on screen?įrancis absolutely wanted to show the profound brilliance and mind of a woman who’d never had recognition. It was wonderful to play someone like Mary who did feel much closer to my own upbringing than some of the other period roles I've ever played. ![]() They certainly never made a living from it. ![]() I'm deeply proud of where I come from I did absolutely come from a working-class background. I think it's not so much “forget” as perhaps “don't really know”, and I definitely think it’s because I have played these beautifully pulled-together, composed women in period films, who have spoken very well - certainly in my early twenties. Do you think people sometimes forget, because you speak beautifully? But you do come from a working-class background. It’s extraordinary that you've never played a working-class woman in period, which probably speaks to the fact that there aren't loads of those characters. I found her to be a very powerful, quite unique individual. So, to step into her skin and try my best to become who I believed she was, with all of her formidable skills and remarkable determination in the face of such harsh judgement was amazing. They actually bought them from her and claimed they were theirs! And to me, that's not right. The world of geology was dominated by men, and they took her finds and reappropriated them as their own. More importantly, she was dealt such a rough hand, particularly by men, because she lived in a patriarchal society. I felt admiration for Mary Anning, given that she was none of those things. So often, I've played the period women who are in corsets and really pulled together, whose only motivation is to take some nice walks, and maybe do a bit of poetry, but whose objective in life is absolutely to be wooed by a man, be married off, and financially taken care of. You’re no stranger to period dramas, but what was different about Mary Anning, for you? ![]() To hear the interview in full, subscribe to the Empire podcast. Winslet stopped by the Empire podcast this week to talk to Empire Editor-In-Chief Terri White about making the film, her working class roots, and the strange taboo around same-sex love stories. That is until the arrival of Charlotte (Saorise Ronan), a married woman come to convalesce by the sea, with whom she begins an intense relationship. Francis Lee's stunning follow-up to 2017's God's Own Country sees Kate Winslet star as British palaeontologist Mary Anning, who, overlooked by her male-dominated profession, scours the coast of England looking for fossils to sell to tourists.
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