What do Shakespeare, Ibsen and Lucy Prebble all have in common? According to this year’s Olivier nominated actresses, who radiated modesty as they chatted to us over champagne and canapés at the Haymarket Hotel, the three playwrights have a lot to do with their nominations for this year’s Olivier Awards with MasterCard.
Hattie Morahan, who has already picked up the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for her performance in A Doll’s House at the Young Vic theatre, believes that “it’s partly the phenomenon of the play itself” that secured her this third nomination for her performance as Nora Helmer. “It’s just the most exciting play. There really aren’t that many parts like that written for women. It’s 1870 and it’s one of the most classical pieces of drama I’ve ever done.”
Fellow nominee and star of The Effect, Billie Piper described Prebble’s drama about sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine as “an intense play”, describing her experience on stage at the National’s Cottesloe theatre as “a tough one but probably the most fulfilling job I’ve ever been part of and definitely the best material I’ve ever worked with.”
For Cush Jumbo, whose performance in Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female production of Julius Caesar earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, the Bard’s words were a huge inspiration. “I’m obsessed with words and always admired speeches like the ones Marc Antony has. You never ever ever ever think you’re going to get to speak those words in front of an audience. And she [Lloyd] gave me the opportunity to do that. It was one of the most amazing life-changing experiences that I’ve ever been through. I wasn’t the same afterwards. Every production is different but this was something really quite transformative. I think I discovered parts of my spectrum that I hadn’t realised were actually there because we don’t often, as women, get cast as people who start wars, murder or have masses of rage.”
