by Standing on stage at the curtain call on the opening night of The Hills of California last week, Ophelia Lovibond was euphoric. “It was joy, a glorious feeling,” she tells me the next day. “My agent said she saw me shouting like the cat that got the cream.”
Returning to the West End for the first time since 2016, the experience reminded her that “there’s a thrill in being on stage, you can’t be anywhere but in the moment. I like to go cliff jumping. The only thing that compares is the thrill of jumping into the sea.”
Lovibond, who has won fans for her breakthrough turn in W1A, contemporary show Sherlock Holmes Elementary and most recently as Carrie Johnson in This England, says, “I’m a Londoner, there’s something special about appearing on stage in London.” It probably helps that the show is one of the most anticipated new works of recent years.
That’s because this story of four sisters returning to their childhood home in Linndubh and their mother dying upstairs is written by Jez Butterworth, who has two of the most acclaimed plays of the 21st century. on her work: Jerusalem and The Ferryman. But it is clear that the 37-year-old Lovibond did not see either. “I don’t think Jez knows that,” she laughs. “I was away filming during one and the other I couldn’t get tickets. I remember telling people, ‘I’ll sell a kidney!’”
As we chat in a noisy restaurant in Fitzrovia, Lovibond, relaxed in jeans and a light brown jumper, gives the playwright strong praise as he talks about the rehearsal process. “It’s like having Chekhov in the room … it’s extraordinary, it’s extraordinary writing. Not a word is wasted.”
If Butterworth was like Chekhov in the room, director Sam Mendes gave a different vibe, certainly in the pep talks he would give the actors before the early shows – that of a certain manager leaving Liverpool. “We called him the Jurgen Klopp of the theatre, because we have those talks very well. Well, Leanne [co-star Leanne Best] Said… she’s from Liverpool.”
The play begins in the long, hot summer of 1976, as the sisters reunite and look back on the past, and the secrets they kept from each other slowly emerge. It then goes back to 1958 with them as young girls; their mother wants to drill them into a group like the Andrews Sisters who are good enough to win the London Palladium. “It is a play,” says Lovibond, “under the burden of hope.”
Lovibond plays the confident Ruby who then struggles to come to terms with his preconceptions about her broken family. She immediately connected with the actors playing her grown-up sisters – Best, Laura Donnelly and Helena Wilson – as well as the actors playing their younger counterparts and says Butterworth’s portrayal of the family feels spot on.
She says, “I can’t see myself getting tired of that feeling. For standing on stage with so many women. And they are such rich characters; not the wife, the girl. It is our story. The fact that a show like this is still great is a big concern.”
There are dark secrets in the family and some critics have described it as a post #MeToo play, a theme that is handled nicely. “It shows that something like that is not an isolated event,” says Lovibond. “It may be for the perpetrator, but for the survivor and the rest of their life … it changes your molecular makeup. That’s good to explore.”
Since the start of the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns in 2017, Lovibond has regularly spoken out about improving conditions for women in the entertainment industry and strengthening protections. “It’s not gone. There are flare ups when these big things are in the news, but it’s important to keep people talking about it and to propose change.”
She’s going to a #TimesUp meeting the following week, she says. “It’s very much going on. It is about implementing guidelines and practices. It definitely got legs. There would be a time when I would be afraid to say anything if it happened to me or if I saw anything. Now I wouldn’t hesitate.”
When she landed her first role at 12 in Channel 4’s The Wilsons, she found ways to protect herself on set. However she was also spoken to – “not one director would call me by my name; He was ‘babe’ or ‘sweetheart’ and he only stopped when I started calling him ‘toots’ and ‘sweet cheeks’, which was considered unacceptable. That wouldn’t happen now” – to a scene where the actors were told to run into the shot, change their clothes on camera and run out.
The director promised that they would only be filmed from the shoulders up. So, using a charcoal pencil, she and the other actors drew smiley faces and peace signs all over their bodies and legs. The director was not happy: “I said, ‘You’re not going to see it so why does it matter?’ He lied, they were going to show everything.
“I knew he was lying. Because I was on set, you trust your instincts. There are many things like that. Now, I would have confidence in the process because there is a solidarity coordinator, everything like that is agreed in advance and signed, so that people are not saying, ‘You are holding up the team, go ahead and take your top, is ‘Don’t you want to be a naughty actress?’ There would be none of that.” She said, “I’m glad things are changing.”
Her mother Lovibond – who lives in Hornsey with her actor husband Henry Pettigrew – raised her two sisters on a housing estate in west London, after separating from her parents when she was young.
From her name, I found out that it is often assumed that she comes from a privileged background. She rolls her eyes. “Well I’m bloody good aren’t I.” She continues, “I understand, because I’m well spoken and I have a silly name, but the reason I’m angry is because I’ve worked hard for this. I was not born to a famous parent, or a producer parent. I grew up on a housing estate. I speak like this because I won a drama scholarship to a public school [Latymer Upper School] and this accent was visible from attending school with people who spoke like that.
“In terms of having a fast track through wealth and connections, not true. I worked hard and I think that’s why I don’t have imposter syndrome. I earned my stripes. I don’t mean to be arrogant but I’m proud that I’ve done it, it wasn’t given to me.”
By her name, it is clear that she has never played with Ophelia. “It’s quite a small part,” says Lovibond, laughing. “I would do Hamlet though.”
Lovibond found acting in a drama club called YoungBlood on her estate, for which her mother was charged 50p a term. It no longer exists and she focuses on closing down many similar clubs. “I wonder if I would be able to do this if I were starting out now.”
The lack of support for the arts from the government is a cause for concern and she was outraged by the announcement of a dancer retraining for a cyber job. “When the government said that I am, however, ‘How dare you’. The UK is world renowned for its storytelling and culture. It’s so weird to me.”
Recent roles have put her at the center of Boris Johnson’s government. The first was in This England, which ran on Sky last year, in which she played Carrie Johnson opposite Kenneth Branagh’s Boris in a series that chronicled the former prime minister’s response to the Covid crisis.
She did not contact the real Carrie in preparation for the role, and did not hear back from the couple. “I was curious though… I bet they were looking at it.”
She says before taking on the role, “I didn’t really give it much thought. I don’t think it was right that she was weighing in on things, she’s not an elected official. But I thought the way she was represented in the press was quite sexist, it was so childish.”
Lovibond is clearly no fan of the government – “Their actions speak louder than any words I can say” – but has Carrie Johnson’s performance changed her mind about the couple? “No,” she said.
That role was followed by Partygate, a Channel 4 drama about the parties that went on in Downing Street during the lockdown, in which she played a special adviser, an amalgamation of real people. “It was just unbearable,” says Lovibond. “It wasn’t just a couple of drinks in the garden, there were people vomiting, red wine on the walls – I attended a long-ago funeral and there was hardly anyone there. It still makes me angry.”
Before Lovibond has to leave to start preparations for this evening’s performance at the Harold Pinter Theater I ask her if a story I read about a run-in with a casting director was true. This was her first time in LA, for the pilot season, and she was just 22.
“Yes. She said, ‘You’re too stupid to ever play guide. You could play the friend.’ I stood up, shook his hand and said, ‘I look forward to proving you wrong.’ And I left.”
At a young age, ten years in the business helped to protect her from comments like this. “I thought, “This is a good job I’ve been doing for a long time. He was obviously hurt but I thought, ‘Well that’s just your opinion, I’m not going to be defined by one person’s opinion.’ God that was strange. I never met her again.”
And it’s a testament to Lovibond, her strength of will and her talent, that she proved the casting director wrong time and time again.
The Hills of California runs at the Harold Pinter Theater until June 15; book tickets here
