Rose Leslie and her child son have Covid. “Day three. It's pretty grim,” she says. You’d by no means guess: she’s perky and brilliant in a stripy T-shirt, endlessly affected person and accommodating when our Zoom collapses, greeting my each trite commentary with enthusiasm (“You’re so proper, Emma”). It’s laborious to not really feel she has “trouper” stamped via her like a stick of seaside rock.
I ponder if that preternaturally cheery thoughtfulness is a part of the explanation Leslie accumulates plum roles in status TV franchises like Brownie badges. After successful a Scottish Bafta straight out of drama college for her portrayal of a naive Hebridean pupil at midnight comedy, New City, she was solid in Downton Abbey as formidable housemaid-with-notions, Gwen Dawson. In Recreation of Thrones – of which, inevitably, extra later – she’s insolent, mocking, rabbit-skin-clad Ygritte, the wildling who captivates Jon Snow, performed by Harington, her future real-life husband. She holds her personal within the glitzy, formidable authorized drama The Good Combat, reverse the likes of Christine Baranski and a gleefully OTT Michael Sheen. Most just lately, she performed Suranne Jones’s quietly gritty colleague and love curiosity in 2021’s bonkers however pleasing BBC submarine thriller, Vigil.
Now – that is what has pressured her from her sickbed – she’s the titular Time Traveler’s Spouse, Clare, in HBO’s new six-parter, tailored by Steven Moffat from Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller. Theo James performs Henry, the time traveller, who revisits his life – and Clare – with chaotic penalties. Leslie is an emotionally clever, steadying presence, with sufficient spine to be attention-grabbing, however I’m undecided it’s probably the most enjoyable function of her life: as her character says, “I wait and I fear.”
I can see why she took it on, although. In spite of everything these ensemble reveals, The Time Traveler’s Spouse is indubitably a step up. Its success or failure activates the 2 leads: does that create an additional nervousness? “There was a second – it wasn’t originally of the shoot – nevertheless it type of dawned on each of us that if folks don’t like what both of us are doing, then we’re type of screwed,” she says. “There was that added ingredient of strain, nevertheless it was one I made a decision to not learn an excessive amount of into. Noticing that it was there, but additionally realising it wasn’t going to be serving me in any respect.”
I like that commentary: it will have been straightforward to say “Ooh, sure, I wasn’t certain I used to be worthy.” However Leslie is 35, 12 years into her profession, and had a child simply earlier than filming began. She was eight months pregnant through the audition course of, which meant “I felt like I used to be in a win-win scenario, which is a rare place to be in. I’ve by no means actually felt that earlier than strolling into any audition. On the one hand I felt, what a unbelievable character to play on prime of the truth that with our new little household, what an journey to go out to New York for six months! Then, bizarrely, on the flip facet, I nearly felt that I’d achieve bonus time with our boy had I not managed to get the half. I used to be type of relieved of a bit little bit of the strain and nervousness that does get you thru an audition, however can tend to tip me over the sting.”
Leslie acquired the half, and she or he and Harington upped sticks from their London base for New York when the child was 10 weeks previous. A lead function, a mind-meltingly complicated shoot and a new child will need to have been brutal, however Harington, she says, knew the rating. “My husband and I had been nicely conscious that with this endeavor he could be doing the evening shifts. How sensible is that? A loving husband being, like, ‘No, don’t you are worried, each time he cries, it’s going to be on me.’” She’s usually chipper about this – she had “a beautiful little smug smile each time he did cry” – however there have been clearly different emotions at play in her hectic expertise of recent motherhood. Working laborious via that point, “There’s a part of me that feels I’ve blacked out the primary three months of our boy’s life,” she says.
That was on prime of the standard maelstrom of feelings of delivery, which blindsided her. “I had solely ever come throughout the narrative of ‘When your new child is in your arms, or when he’s positioned in your chest, your function is right here and every part is sensible and this little mild is every part that you simply’ve ever wished for,’” she says. “Going into labour, I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t await this magical second!’ I'm not taking something away from that second – clearly it’s magical – nevertheless it was many different feelings as nicely. And it took me some time to course of what they had been, and due to that, I believe it’s fairly necessary to discuss it. As a result of I’m not the one one who feels this manner. You are feeling such as you’re one way or the other already on the again foot for those who’re experiencing something however love.”
Leslie’s son had a really completely different begin in life from her personal. Born Rose Arbuthnot-Leslie, she grew up in rural Aberdeenshire at Lickleyhead Fortress, ancestral seat of her father, Sebastian, the Leslie clan chieftain (and someday Tory councillor and pro-Brexit campaigner; Leslie herself campaigned for the Scottish Tories in 2015); her equally aristocratic mom, Candida, is descended from Charles II. A lot has been manufactured from this, however for a Briton who has watched loads of these actuality TV reveals the place cash-strapped aristos are pressured to promote a Gainsborough to redo the fortress roof, it primarily sounds chilly. (“Bone-deep chilly,” she confirms. “Folks can’t wrap their head across the truth we couldn’t double glaze.”) The center of 5 youngsters, “tremendous subconsciously” she wonders if the urge to carry out got here from being eager to differentiate herself from a sporty brother and a tutorial sister; it was additionally an atmosphere that demanded extroversion. “There have been loud booming voices from all of us: you needed to very a lot make your self be heard for those who needed your level to be put throughout, in a really loving, accepting method.” On prime of that, with the closest neighbours a 25-minute drive away, they had been bored and carried out to amuse one another. “We had been caught with each other. We did quite a lot of mucking about,” she laughs. “Basically making an attempt to kill time. I used to be simply glad my dad and mom had as many children as they did.”
Leslie went to Lamda. Did drama college put together her for working consistently since commencement, which certainly isn’t typical for many younger actors? She hasn’t labored as relentlessly as her CV suggests, she says. She thinks it’s proper, too, that drama college prepares college students for “a aggressive business the place you’ve acquired recent meat churned out each single 12 months: it’s not such as you’re the darling buds for years and years after you graduate.” However she agrees a superb run of roles creates its personal stresses. It’s about “Preserving that momentum going. You’re making an attempt to work out, is that this a personality I’ve by no means performed earlier than, will this present me in a unique mild?”
She’s navigated that skilfully: certainly getting Recreation of Thrones so younger was the jackpot. She agrees. “I couldn’t consider my luck: I used to be standing on the sting of a fantastic mountain with this unbelievable panorama forward of me and a digicam crew behind me and I used to be, what, 24? I used to be having the time of my life.” It’s additionally the place she met Harington: she’s the one with the well-known “ nothing, Jon Snow” line. They married in 2018, in Aberdeenshire at one other Leslie clan fortress. They’re beautiful on display screen collectively: humorous, and heat. Has the hysteria died down? Can they exit with out Thrones heckles? “I really feel like I’ve all the time been in a position to do that. I really feel very lucky to have the ability to stroll down the street and never get requested to say ‘ nothing’, however as a result of it occurs so not often, if I ever do get requested, I’ll be like, ‘Sure, in fact!’” Primarily, she says, persons are “Respectful of the actual fact you’re going into Sainsbury’s”. The pair had been within the information just lately for discussing Harington’s prior alcohol habit. “This was in 2019,” she advised Harpers Bazaar, “so we’re now a number of years into his sobriety.” Would they work collectively once more? In the event that they do, she says she’d “sabotage your entire course of” by laughing. “We all know one another too nicely. However who is aware of? By no means say by no means.”
InThe Good Combat, Leslie’s Maia Rindell has probably the most satisfying arc, from put-upon junior lawyer to defiant in gold-heeled boots and shades. Her ultimate scene is driving off into the sundown with Michael Sheen’s reprobate Roland Blum in his Rolls-Royce: it’s air-punchingly joyful. She deflects my reward into reward for others: Robert and Michelle King, who created the present, and Sheen, “He’s probably the most unbelievable particular person to work reverse. He was calm and picked up and reassuring.” Then for Christine Baranski: “I am keen on that lady. It’s an actual pleasure, but additionally comforting, seeing her look her greatest and being, like, ‘You’re a badass bitch, you’re so cool and also you’re charging into that room with a Gucci jacket.’ I find it irresistible.”
From Sheen to Phyllis Logan, she usually works with performing royalty. I ponder what’s she realized from them about navigating the occupation. She singles out Suranne Jones. “Seeing how she balances her work life and household life, being probably the most unbelievable mom to their son, but additionally having an understated aura on set, a relaxing, reassuring aura. She was in a position to juggle all these completely different parts with understanding you set the tone for your entire set as primary, and she or he did that via simply being herself.”
It’s apparent why that resonated, as she navigates capturing “a stability that works for all of us”. For now, being a father or mother comes first: “I felt like I had type of short-changed my expertise as a mum within the early levels of his life by working as laborious as I did,” she says, so, “Once I completed in October, I simply dedicated to being mum. I actually have accomplished nothing however that and I’m very glad to be presently residing it.” Her and Harington’s initiatives have dovetailed nicely thus far, however she is aware of it’s non permanent. “I’m certain there shall be a time down the street the place we’ll each see a undertaking that we each individually want to do and there shall be a coin toss.”
She describes herself as self-critical: “Self-doubt appears to hold round, doesn’t it?” she says at one level. However she’s strikes me as quietly stuffed with hard-won self-knowledge. “Having a child is a hell of a distraction from your individual neuroses!” Her perspective to work has shifted basically: “Work is unbelievable, however it could possibly’t be the be-all or end-all to my self-worth. And when that type of clicked into place I used to be like, oh shit, nicely, OK, now I can strive different issues with out debilitating myself.”
“Different issues” embrace the couple’s current transfer to rural Suffolk, a whippet pet and knitting. “I like to knit. I can’t do a cardie, however I can do a hat. Are they good hats? Who is aware of?” A undertaking should be particular now to pique her curiosity: she’d like to strive comedy, however positively not a musical (“I'm so tone deaf. I used to be dying inside,” she says of a singing scene in The Time Traveler’s Spouse). “I’ve been in a position to work for the final 12 years or so, that has quietened down the destructive voice that I’m by no means going to work once more. Oh God, that is going to sound ridiculous,” she says, embarrassed. “But it surely’s extra, I hope that I can work with a sure customary of writers and administrators.” It doesn’t sound ridiculous in any respect.
The Time Traveler’s Spouse is on the market on Sky Atlantic and the streaming service Now
Styling by JoJones; hair by Halley Brisker utilizing Shade WOW; make-up by Justine Jenkins utilizing Seeds of Color; nails by Michelle Class utilizing Sally Hanson; vogue assistant Roz Donoghue; digital tech Andy Mayfield; photographer’s assistant Alfie Bungay
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