by Stage and screen star Denise Gough has called on leading actors to be wary of fellow cast and crew members in an industry where misconduct remains rife.
Gough is set to reprise her role as an actress with a breakdown in 2016’s Olivier Award-winning play People, Places and Things, which has been transferred from the National Theater to the West End and New York was one of the last. his most acclaimed stage performances in a decade and led to Gough’s high-profile roles on television. As a leading actress, the Irish star said she has a special duty to look out for her colleagues.
“I’m considered ‘important’ now so I’m treated very well all the time,” said Gough. “But then around me I see that people who are not considered important are treated badly. I think if you get any power at all, especially as an actor, if you’re number one or two on the call board, you have a responsibility. I know you have to do your acting and everything but you also have to make sure everyone is okay on your set. I don’t see a lot of that. I see a lot of actors who go into positions of power, put shiny things on their heads and do nothing to change the system.”
Gough said that, particularly in film and television, she continued to notice bad behavior not being tolerated but even rewarded – although she also “disliked the younger generation who put things out”. However, actors are often warned that they are easily replaced if they engage in bad behavior and she advised young people to “find an ally from an older generation who can support you”. She added that in her experience, “when you speak up, everyone hides – and that can be really depressing”.
In recent years there has been an increase in mental health support provided in an industry that has a poor reputation for protecting its workers. Gough highlighted a new generation of producers, such as Wessex Grove, who partnered with the company Applause for Thought to facilitate mental health awareness for the cast and crew of the West End A Little Life, which included James Norton, who discussed with traumatic content. . Drama schools should now focus on training actors “to ask that their needs be met” as they enter the industry, she said, stressing that misconduct did not only affect actors . “They are whole teams of people who need to be treated better. I would like to highlight makeup artists who are often treated very well.”
Gough was born in Ennis, Co. Clare, and received a scholarship to study acting at the Academy of Live and Recording Arts in London. She had been performing on stage for almost a decade when she was named best newcomer at the Evening Standard theater awards in 2012. After enduring a run of rejections, sexism and abusive treatment, she was on wanted to quit acting, but she landed there. the life-changing role of Emma, an actress in addiction recovery, in People, Places and Things, written by Duncan Macmillan and co-produced by the National Theater and Headlong in 2015.
“It was very difficult for it to take so long to achieve financial security, because I didn’t come from money,” said Gough, who has since appeared in major TV series including The Fall, Guerrilla and, in the title role, Paula. , written by Conor McPherson. The pressure on today’s emerging actors is “to get famous very quickly and that’s not sustainable,” she said. “I don’t envy young actors. I’m glad I came up when I did. I wish I had come up in the previous generation [when] People really took the theater seriously.”
The new series People, Places and Things, at Trafalgar Studios from May, is her first London theater role since Angels in America at the National Theater in 2017. She starred as Portia Coughlan in the 2022 production of a play by Marina Carr at the Abbey theater in Dublin. Her stage experience was invaluable for the Star Wars TV show Andor, in which “the language was so muscular and intense”. Having been given the sci-fi series “theatre in space”, she said it was an opportunity to work alongside big stage stars such as Kathryn Hunter and Fiona Shaw.
Her character in People, Places and Things was so rewarding that it overshadowed some of the projects she was offered later. “What part do you play next? I would read parts and think: this won’t even fill me up to my waist!” She has been keen to return to the character since she last played her at St Ann’s Warehouse in New York in 2017 . It’s a very demanding part, but Gough said: “You’d be surprised how easy it is when the writing is that good. . When the writing is bad, it’s hard work. In theater it’s I’ve rarely had to do bad writing. I feel safe in the theater and I’ve never felt safer – or happier – doing a play than People, Places and Things.”
In reprising the part, for a production that will once again be directed by Jeremy Herrin, Gough follows in the footsteps of other actors who have been drawn back to the same role. Glenn Close played Norma Desmond in the Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard in 1994 and again in London in 2016. Mark Rylance reprized his role as “Rooster” Byron in the West End in 2022, 13 years after starring in the first time in Jerusalem in the Royal Court. There will come a point, said Gough, when she will consider herself too old to play Emma and will give the role to another actress. And now? “I’ll play mom.”
