HOWZAT

The film wasn’t a commercial success, but it opened doors. She was whisked off to Hollywood, where she was lined up to read for the unlikely part of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife in True Lies.

“I spent a sweaty day trying to get ready for it,” she remembers. “I got myself dolled up, got a little rented car. I was driving round some freeway, trying to find this studio lot, and I suddenly thought, ‘What am I doing? I don’t like this material. I don’t like these kinds of films, I actively disapprove of them. It was racist. It was violent. I didn’t like anything it stood for, I’m not gonna get it anyway.’ So I turned the car round, went home, rang up and said, ‘I’m not going.’ People find it pretentious. I don’t think it’s pretentious. I don’t want to do stuff I don’t value.

“There are some fantastic, wonderful films coming out of America, and I’ve had an absolute ball working there,” she adds, lest it sound like USA-bashing (she made Infamous and Mona Lisa Smile there). But the return home produced a catalogue of dramas on stage and screen, including The Secret Rapture, The Politician’s Wife, Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, Pierrepoint, Breaking and Entering and The Secret of Moonacre, that have established her as the actress we know today. She sighs: “I’ve had a really lucky ride.”

Funnily enough, for all the heavyweight work, the part she gets most recognised for is Keira Knightley’s fussy suburban mum in Bend It Like Beckham, anguishing (naturally) that her daughter might be a Sporty Spice. “My only passport to cool,” she grins. “When I went to look at schools for my daughter, I’d walk into a classroom and it was, ‘Ohmigod.’ Then I realise what impact the film had. Great film. I loved it.”

There are more on the cards. After this play, and a holiday, will follow Desert Flower, about the Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie, who suffered and has campaigned against female circumcision. There’s the thriller Triage, with Colin Farrell. But now it is time to be Stephanie Abrahams. An assistant comes in to heat up the hair rollers; a limp sandwich (ham and cheese) is proffered for restorative purposes. Soon she’ll whack on some mood-setting violin-playing — Jascha Heifetz and Itzhak Perlman — new discoveries after her diet of Bob Dylan and the Eagles. “I’m quite a rock’n’roll girl, really.”

Two days later, Stevenson is on the phone. Having watched the Saturday matinée, I’m a little concerned that, at the end, taking her bow, she didn’t look very happy, not basking in the glow of adoration as one might expect, fairly itching to get off. Was it this particular matinée crowd, who, heavy on the senior contingent, seemed a little shocked at some of the profanity? Heavens, was it something I said? No, when it comes down to it, she’s never really liked that bit — the standing there, the applause, having to suddenly rip off the mask or, in this case, rise like Lazarus, shattering the illusion. “It does feel a bit weird having to jump out of the wheelchair and hold out your hat,” she muses. “I just find curtain calls slightly embarrassing. I’m very gauche at them.”

Can drive you a bit barmy, this acting lark. “Well, I am a bit bonkers some of the time, of that I can assure you,” she laughs. “My family would probably vouch for that.”

Duet for One, Vaudeville, WC2, until August 1

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