“Don’t be ridiculous,” barks Glenda Jackson down the phone. “Are you kidding me?”
Oh dear. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Glenda Jackson. The 84-year-old double Oscar-winning actor and ex-MP is the national treasure of national treasures; as renowned for speaking her mind as she is for airing her politics. Indeed, as a Labour MP she famously threatened to challenge Tony Blair if he didn’t resign over the Hutton inquiry into Iraq. So she’s hardly likely to take any nonsense from some scruffy journalist who has just asked her if she would consider a return to politics.
“I’m 84 years old. You think I’ve got the energy to go pounding around the pavements again?” she says. How about if they just instantly promoted her to prime minister, I wonder, out loud, by accident, with immediate regret.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I took being an MP very seriously. Questions like that don’t sit well with me.”
Insubordinate questions aside, Glenda Jackson is lovely; like any octogenarian who has spent their career in the public eye, she dishes out as good as she gets. She doesn’t do Zoom, and sensibly isn’t taking in visitors at the moment, but otherwise she’s more than happy to accommodate. (“This is your interview, my dear,” she reassures. “You choose what we talk about.”) She’s Glenda all over, but the only Glenda I get to appreciate today is that voice: velvet, austere and with the throaty rasp of smoking a lifetime’s stash of fags.
We’re speaking today because Jackson is back on our screens for the first time since 1992, and back in the running for awards in spite of the fact that she’s already won them all, from Emmys, Golden Globes and Oscars to Tony Awards. (“I’m not ungrateful,” she says nonchalantly, “but that isn’t what you work for. I was just grateful for getting the job. The idea of something on top was way down the list.”)
This time she’s up for a TV Bafta for the BBC drama Elizabeth is Missing, screened last Christmas and based on the 2014 novel by Emma Healey. The Guardian awarded it five stars, praising Jackson’s “magnificent form in a poignant murder mystery that doubles as a study of the sorrows of dementia.” Jackson herself has been nominated for best actress at the ceremony, which takes place on 31 July. (“I’ll be watching in my living room, on Zoom, or whatever it’s called…”)
Is she enjoying the limelight again?
“I mean, there’s very little limelight in my small flat. I assure you of that.”
Jackson lives in a basement granny flat in Blackheath. Her 51-year-old son – Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges – lives upstairs with his wife and 11-year-old son, Jackson’s only grandchild.
“I haven’t been out of my front door for three months,” she says. “Fortunately, my flat is garden level. The sun is shining. The rest of my family live upstairs, so I do have people looking after me, which is nice. I have lost all track of time. Time is an endless river, but I never know which day it is. It was my birthday in May. My grandson came downstairs and said, ‘Happy birthday’. I didn’t know it was my birthday. I’d completely forgotten. But then I’ve never been a birthday person.”
And how does she think the government has been coping with this terrible pandemic?
“I mean, they’re not, but you wouldn’t expect me to have any other reaction to a Conservative government. But in fairness, this is such an extraordinary interruption to life that I think we can be critical when we should be, but supportive when we have to be. I think Keir [Starmer] is doing very well. But at the moment, party politics are way down the level of national concern.”
The major political event since Jackson’s political retirement has of course been Brexit, to which the conversation naturally flows. Where did she stand?
“Well, I’m a Remainer,” she says. “I went to bed the night of the referendum hearing that the verdict was going to be remain. I woke up in the morning to discover we were coming out. I said to my daughter-in-law, ‘We’re going to have to emigrate to Scotland!’”
Only 27% of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted, voted to leave. But 60% of over-65s who voted, voted to leave. Does Jackson have any theories on why Brexit was so successful at securing the so-called grey vote?
“Was it really 60%?” she queries. “I can certainly see how it was a generational thing, looking through rose-tinted spectacles, saying, ‘We can be an empire again’. But do you seriously think Canada, New Zealand and Australia are going to say, ‘Please govern us again’? I think most young people are still shocked at the idea of coming out of Europe. Negotiations are still ongoing. We still don’t know what kind of deal we’re going to get and we won’t until the pandemic stops pushing it off the front pages.”
As part of its pandemic measures, the government earlier this month announced its £1.57bn investment to protect Britain’s cultural, arts and heritage institutions, having left much of the industry up the proverbial creek since March. What does Jackson say to this scheme?
“I say, ‘Thank you very much indeed.’ But the problem, certainly for the performing arts, is that generating money is vital. The problem remains: will audiences be confident enough to come back? The idea that performances now can take place outdoors is very positive. We’ve always had outdoor summer performances, even when it pours with rain. It’s good, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
Considering that the arts is Britain’s second biggest economy after finance, is £1.57bn enough? By comparison, the government’s furlough scheme is thought to have cost £14bn a month since March.
“The word ‘enough’ is meaningless, really,” Jackson continues. “Some productions require a great deal of money. Others can be very small. But it’s good to know that at least the validity of the arts, of our culture has been acknowledged and there is money to keep at least several arms and legs afloat. But I go back to my previous point. When will we, as people, feel confident enough to sit in theatres and concert halls? We’re still in this uncertain area. Have we actually crushed this pandemic? Or is a second spike going to come next week?”
So how would she feel about venturing out of the house for the first time in three months to put her Most Excellent Order of the British Empire bum on seat?
“As a member of the audience? I would seriously think about it. I was thinking about this earlier and wondered if it would be possible to stage something where you could see the stage, but any potential germs might be prevented by… a very fine net or something. I know it sounds ridiculous… Fortunately, we’re talking about the acknowledged creative aspect of a society. So people will come up with ideas.”
Anyway, she doesn’t particularly like going out. “I’m not good at dressing up. I don’t particularly like going out to parties. I think I’m an antisocial socialist, actually.”
So, not a big schmoozer? “No. I’m no good at it. I can’t do it. It’s just not my style. There’s always the element that you have to sell the product. But for me, it’s only the work that’s interesting.”
Isn’t schmoozing just acting? Can’t she just act schmoozey? “Oh, come on. That isn’t what it’s about. The demands are very different.”
Jackson found fame in 1970s Academy Award-winning romantic dramas Women in Love and A Touch of Class, then quit a stellar acting career for politics when she was elected Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992. She was junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 and stood down in the 2015 general election, two days before her 79th birthday.
The next year, she returned to the stage for the first time in 25 years, as King Lear at the Old Vic and later Broadway. Her performance was touted as “magnificent” and Jackson was nominated for an Olivier. Was she confident in returning to acting? What if she’d forgotten how to act?
“That’s what someone said to me when I was doing Lear at the Old Vic,” she says. “I was talking to a friend and I said, ‘My God, I might have forgotten.’ And she said, ‘It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.’”
Jackson was cast sex-blind as King Lear because King Lear is, more traditionally – and definitely according to Shakespeare – a bloke. Sir Ian McKellen (age 81) has just been cast as Hamlet (age 30) in a similar age-blind role.
“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? If we’re all living longer, that includes actors as well, I hope,” says Jackson. “It will be interesting to see what he does with it.”
You’ve done sex-blind. Could you do age-blind, I ask? Could you be a Juliet?
“Are you kidding me?” laughs Jackson. “Come on! One of the things I’ve found most curious – given we’re not equal by any means as far as women in the world are concerned – is that contemporary dramatists still don’t find us interesting. Very few contemporary dramatists place a woman as the central dramatic. And I find that bizarre. I’ve been banging on about it for a very long time, but nobody takes any notice.”
But you’re Glenda Jackson! They should listen to your every word!
“Oh, come off it!”
How about Margaret Thatcher? Could you play her, um, politics-blind?
“I would find it very hard. I’ve always tried to abide by an unbreakable rule that you have to look at the world through the eyes of whoever you are playing. And I would find it very, very hard to see the world that Thatcher wanted us to inhabit.”
She’s played Elizabeth I, a role for which she famously shaved her head. Could she play Queen Elizabeth Version 2.0?
“Oh, well anybody can play the Queen. I mean, God, if ever a woman’s kept herself to herself, it’s the Queen. Who knows what she’s like? You know what she’s like as the Queen. What’s she like as a person? That is one of the best kept secrets in the world.”
Does Jackson watch her own TV shows and films?
“No.”
What happens if one comes on telly, would she change the channel?
“Well, it would be on very late at night, wouldn’t it? I’d be in bed and fast asleep.”
Is she critical of her own performances?
“I certainly don’t enjoy them. My reaction is completely subjective. I think, ‘Why did you choose to do that? Why didn’t you do something different there?’ But it’s all too late. It’s pretty much part of the sadomasochistic streak, which I think is in all actors.”
In Elizabeth is Missing, Jackson plays a widowed grandmother living with Alzheimer’s – something she thinks we ignore at our peril. “Despite the pandemic, we are – along with all other western democracies – living longer. And the big black hole that no one really has examined – is, how do we actually pay for those extra years when people may not have a family to support their inability to look after themselves, because of Alzheimer’s and dementia?
“We need to have that discussion: how do we pay for it? We’re beginning to see the first ripples in what will be a fairly big stream of how to provide the requisite care as a society. But this is not something that can be solved by individual practices. It is something that we, as a society, have to put on the table and think about seriously. For example, people have said that the care sector should be equated with the NHS. This is something that has to be looked at.”
I wonder if Jackson feels vulnerable herself? Does she feel her own mortality?
“Well, by virtue of my age and of the time we’re living in, I mean, of course one does. I’m not overtly religious, but when things get bad, I’m constantly calling on God. I’m grateful for the other dimensions that are there for all of us. I do believe that we’re more than flesh, blood and stone. I was partially raised as a Welsh Presbyterian and that runs quite deep. I do have a spiritual side.”
Has she ever met anyone else called Glenda?
“I did, actually. A woman came up to me. It was years ago. My mother was torn between two Hollywood stars – Glenda Farrell and Shirley Temple. I think I’m quite grateful she opted for Ms Farrell.
And has she taken up any bonkers hobbies during lockdown, to help pass the time?”
“No,” she chuckles. “But I do have the tidiest knicker drawer in the world.”
Elizabeth is Missing is available to stream on Acorn TV from 31 July
