Tome raider - Keeley Hawes

The Stage
By Liz Thomas
2 March 2006

Keeley Hawes has tackled 18th-century novels, contemporary spy drama and now she’s voicing a video game. Liz Thomas hears how she likes to keep her life varied but balanced

Proving that versatility is central to forging a successful career as an actor, Keeley Hawes has played everyone from Diana Dors to Lady Macbeth and is now set to provide the lofty cut-glass vowels for globe-trotting adventurer Lara Croft.

Hawes is providing the voice for the virtual heroine in her new cyber adventure Tomb Raider Legend and is pretty pleased to be trying something a little different. As with radio drama, it has the added bonus of allowing her to handle other projects as well, so fans can rest easy - Hawes will be back on screens next month in new ITV1 thriller The Best Man.

The two-part production, which also features Coupling star Richard Coyle and Toby Stephens, looks into the dark side of male friendships.

She says: “It is great to work on a psychological thriller. I think the script treats the audience with intelligence. It is a bit like reading a good novel, usually you try and second guess things but with this the surprises do just keep coming.”

It is the third time Hawes, who attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School and counts Emma Bunton and Denise Van Outen among her contemporaries, has worked with Coyle.

She laughs: “I first worked with Richard on Wives and Daughters years ago but only for one day, so I remember him much better from our time together in Othello. We have both come so far since then and are so much more confident and sorted in our lives. Both he and Toby are great and absolutely hilarious and it made a difficult shoot very easy.”

Although she is best known for her role as spy Zoe Reynolds in popular BBC1 MI5 drama Spooks, Hawes first won acclaim in Dennis Potter’s TV drama Karaoke, with Albert Finney, before going on to land roles in The Beggar Bride, Our Mutual Friend and Tipping the Velvet. Children and fans of the nineties Britpop era may have spotted her on the music videos for Suede’s Saturday Night and She’s a Star by James and there have also been film credits including The Avengers, Complicity and most recently Michael Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story alongside Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

Despite such a varied CV, Hawes readily admits it was her stint in Spooks that elevated her into popular conciousness. It was while working on the popular show that she met second husband Matthew Macfadyen with whom she has a daughter. She also has a five-year-old son from her first marriage to cartoonist Spencer McCallum.

She says: “We have been quite lucky, in the past year I have been filming while Matthew was working at the National so one of us is always around to look after the kids. I think it is important to try and keep that balance if you can. In this industry it is quite easy to work and work and get your priorities mixed up.”

It might prove difficult to stick to such ideals though as Macfadyen’s career is going equally well, particularly after playing Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice alongside Keira Knightley. Hawes is jovial about what has been dubbed ‘the Darcy effect’. She concedes: “Doing something like that is bound to have an effect. Actually it has been quite extraordinary the amount of scripts that suddenly have started to arrive. But he still has a lot of integrity about what he takes on. He is currently working on a small-budget film in Northern Ireland called Middletown. He plays a priest and its hopefully going to Cannes and a few of the film festivals.”

Hawes too is insistent on the importance of integrity when deciding on projects. She is just about to start filming on her next project - another drama for ITV1. Called After Thomas, it is based on a true story about a couple struggling to bring up their severely autistic son.

She says: “It is a difficult one - it is a drama with a big responsibility and although at times I’ve wondered if perhaps the script was being a little over-sentimental, because its true and the family have been involved in the development, you realise that it can’t be really. What is great is that Sheila Hancock is playing my mum.”

Musing about future projects she suggests she would like to star in a horror film in the next few years but before she can line that up she is planning a stint in theatreland.

Hawes explains: “I’m in talks about a couple of projects for the summer.” Having recently appeared in the BBC’s modern version of Macbeth, alongside Bafta-winning young actor James McAvoy, Hawes says she would love to reprise the role on stage.

She says: “I would love to do Lady M on stage. The problem is that when you do a lot of telly or film, people in theatre sort of assume you don’t want to work on stage. So you have to keep saying, ‘Hello’.”