Hayley Atwell’s first professional acting job was in a Pringles advert. It’s appropriate, because ever since she popped out of Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2005 she hasn’t been able to stop. While the only lines her contemporaries have had to learn have been of the “Would you like fries with that?” variety, this 24-year-old’s career is rocketing.
Barely out of college, Atwell notched up brilliant notices as the fragile rich kid Catherine Fedden in BBC Two’s The Line of Beauty. She made a similar impact in the theatre as Io in Prometheus Bound and as a sexy Bianca in Women Beware Women for the RSC, and is now about to return to the stage in George Etherege’s Restoration comedy The Man of Mode at the National in London.
Perched over a mid-rehearsal salad in a backstage office, Atwell is — and there is no delicate way of putting this — absolutely ravishing. Perfect teeth, clear skin, well-spoken. In The Line of Beauty her hair was often scraped back and her outlook troubled. In the flesh she is assured, friendly and sports a heavy fringe. The hair is for the part. The 18thcentury action is updated to the modern media world of Soho — Atwell plays Belinda, a high-flying PR who becomes entangled with the womaniser Dorimant (Tom Hardy).
Nicholas Hytner, the director, was blunt about how Atwell should play the part, she tells me. In the updated script it talks of Belinda not being prepared to “f***” Dorimant until he has ditched his current mistress. Whatever happened to romance? “I asked Nicholas, ‘Why does Belinda feel the need to f***, what’s the underbelly?’ and he just said ‘You want to f***, you’re on heat, that’s it.’ I wanted it to be love, but it is instinctive, animalistic, hot-blooded and just driven. It is all about sexual power and the games that people play. It is also pure entertainment, so great fun.”
As she talks, Atwell exudes a sexual charge that she may not even be aware of. But directors have certainly picked up on her appeal. Her next major role is as another seductress, this time in Woody Allen’s recently completed movie Cassandra’s Dream, in which she plays Ewan McGregor’s girlfriend.
Atwell could not believe it when she landed the job after filming an audition piece she thought was so bad she considered giving up acting.
And then there were some comically crossed wires when she phoned Allen’s office: “I rang them to say how much I liked the script and they said, ‘Well it will change now the role is cast.’ I didn’t realise they meant they’d chosen me!” She has since signed with a US agent, and has made it clear what kind of work she is interested in. “I never want to take a job for the money or because it would be good for my career. I want my heart to be in every piece of work.” She swiftly lists her female role models, sounding as if she has swallowed a chunk of the Internet Movie Database — “Bette Davies, Judy Davis, Julia ‘Nighty Night’ Davis (she appeared alongside her in BBC Four’s Fear of Fanny), Parker Posey, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman.” I don’t recall any of them starting out by plugging crisps, but Atwell is quick to explain that the Pringles ad was an early job to pay her college fees.
Cassandra’s Dream was filmed in London last summer. Atwell’s character is an actor who becomes involved with Ewan McGregor’s car mechanic. He maintains a charade of leading a glamorous life to keep her interested and with his brother, played by Colin Farrell, is sucked into a criminal underworld: “I’m the catalyst for the trauma he goes through.” Atwell has a similar femme fatale role to the one Scarlett Johansson played in Match Point. How does it feel to be Woody’s new Scarlett woman? She suppresses a giggle. “I don’t feel it. I still go back to my flat in Highgate and make beans on toast.”
The only Allen film she was previously familiar with was Match Point. She played catch-up by watching old DVDs, but steered clear of being too influenced. “I tried hard to be myself and not just think about Annie Hall and go ‘What would Diane Keaton do here?’ ” Working with Allen was an education: “He made me feel comfortable. He’s very specific, he did an impression of the way I held my mouth and asked me not to do it.”
While she is happy to take advice, she has firm views on nude scenes. “I find it quite funny; it’s not so much what I feel about my own sexuality, but with so many films, the minute you see a bit of bum crack or a bit of nipple it just loses something. Particularly English films — the French and Italians do it so much better than us. In The Man of Mode you just see a bra strap and a bit of leg. It’s sexier because of what you don’t see.”
Atwell’s intriguing blend of forthright maturity and innocence may be connected to her upbringing. Her parents led an alternative, bohemian lifestyle and, even though they separated when Hayley, an only child, was 2, the unconventional life continued throughout her early years in West London. She regularly sees her part-Native American father, originally a photographer, who moved back to America after the split and has become a passionate advocate of alternative therapy.
“He’s like a motivational speaker, a nicer version of Tom Cruise in Magnolia.” Her mother retained a similarly spiritual outlook. “There were no boundaries,” she remembers. At 9 she was taken firewalking and learnt to stand barefoot on burning embers. In the Mojave desert with Dad? “No, in Gloucestershire with Mum.”
She was a precocious child, invited to sit around with adults and talk philosophy from an early age: “I was born with a lot of nervous energy. I’d write letters to my future self — ‘Dear Hayley, now that you are 18 have you written your first novel yet? Have you made your first film?’ I had an obsession with my future. I stayed in reading when friends partied.”
At her tough Ladbroke Grove comprehensive she was something of an outsider, mocked for being posh even though she wasn’t. With such liberal roots she had to find her own way of establishing an identity. “I rebelled against rebellion.” At 17 she was offered a place at Oxford but turned it down. “I only applied to see if I could get in. I didn’t really want to go. I felt like a fraud and that someone else deserved the place more than me.” Instead she applied to Guildhall, graduated with a BA and has barely paused for breath since.
As well as the National and Allen’s work there is more of Atwell in the pipeline. She co-stars with Billie Piper in ITV’s new version of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and in a lowbudget movie, How About You, with Vanessa Redgrave and Imelda Staunton. For now, though, all she cares about is The Man of Mode. After working in front of a camera where if you don’t get it right you get to do it again, it feels like a tougher challenge altogether. “It is very different. The camera comes to you on television — on stage you have to go to the audience. You have to be able to talk to a thousand people every night. I’m terrified.”
The Man of Mode, Olivier Theatre, London SE1 (www.nationaltheatre. org.uk 020-7452 3000), previews from Jan 29, opens Feb 6
