The Mirror Interview (2014)

The Mirror Online By Nicola Methven
April 3rd 2014

Wading into the cold Atlantic ocean, waves crashing over her head, her lips slowly turning blue, there were moments when Jessica Brown Findlay feared for her life.

The actress known around the world as Downton Abbey’s elegant Lady Sybil found herself gasping for breath as she filmed the BBC’s gritty new three-part adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn.

Yet despite the danger and discomfort, she was having the time of her life playing headstrong Cornish girl Mary Yellen.

“Filming in the sea was ridiculous,” she tells me, she tells me with her distinctive, throaty laugh.

“It was exhilarating and special because you were able to get to a place so far beyond where it feels ‘pretend’. It was very real and there was a certain level of fear. You were in the sea, everyone disappeared and you may drown.

“The waves were so big – you’d go under and for a few seconds you couldn’t see which way was up.”

Burly lifeguards had the job of hauling the cast back on to their feet.

“Someone was like, ‘There you are, you’re fine. Stop being dramatic’,” she says. “I’ve never worked in that way before and it was great to be allowed to.”

It’s a period drama but this new role has little else in common with the comfortable world of aristocratic Downton.

Jessica, 24, goes bare-faced and Mary’s floor-length dresses are almost permanently dripping wet and caked in mud.

“We had no hair and make-up – everything was incredibly minimal. We wanted to look cold, which often meant a red nose, blotched cheeks and blue lips. That’s fantastic. It looks how it would have done.

“It would be ridiculous if everything else was right but we were clearly wearing make-up and mascara.”

“We actually had mud added. I was grubby for seven weeks. I don’t know how many people would like that, but I did. I was very dirty for the whole shoot.”

That led to some funny looks when she popped into a chemist’s between scenes.

“I had mud all over my face and a cut lip and they said, ‘Do you pay for your prescriptions?’ When I said I did, they said, ‘Are you sure?’ Later I looked in the mirror and I understood why…”

The mud outside Jamaica Inn itself was thick and deep. Crossing it was a challenge in itself.

“It changes how you walk. Whoever invented these dresses, I don’t know what they were thinking!” says Jessica.

Since leaving Downton – Lady Sybil died in childbirth in a storyline which broke hearts of the nation in 2012 – Jessica hasn’t stopped working, first as a13th century French woman searching for the Holy Grail in Channel 4’s Labyrinth, then in A New York Winter’s Tale with Russell Crowe and Colin Farrell.

It was slated by critics last year. But Jessica has not given up on a film career. She has already made family drama Lullaby with Enchanted’s Amy Adams. Next is an adaptation of British play Posh, then Frankenstein with major-league British stars James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe.

Though it was Downton that brought Jessica to public notice. these days she doesn’t much like being reminded of her former role and she is trying to put the whole thing behind her.

“My idea of a perfect day is pottering around with friends, sitting down in the pub and having a pint,” she says. “If someone came along and said, ‘Lady Sybil!’ that might just ruin my drink.”

And she declared last month: “I’m praying the reason I’m able to get a job is because I’m good enough, rather than because of being in another show. I would hate that.”

Jessica, who grew up in Berkshire with mother Beverley, a teaching assistant and father Christopher, a financial adviser, trained as a ballerina before injuring her ankle and turning to acting.

She met her former boyfriend Thomas Campbell while studying fine art at St Martin’s College in London. They split after two years and he sold a ballet painting that she’d inspired, earning himself £7,500.

After auditioning for her role in Jamaica Inn, she was “elated” when she heard she’d got it.

“I really, really, really wanted it because the story is led by a heroine, by a woman. It’s so exciting – not just fluffy, girly, boring stuff. I’d never read anything like it. It so was dark.”

Producer David Thompson adds: “This is an incredibly dangerous, sexually-charged, emotionally overwhelming story and Jessie seemed to have that sort of strength and power and solidity.

“Also, and this will embarrass her, she has beauty – which is very important because this is a heroine who has to hold the screen for three hours.”

Wading into the cold Atlantic ocean, waves crashing over her head, her lips slowly turning blue, there were moments when Jessica Brown Findlay feared for her life.

Yet despite the danger and discomfort, she was having the time of her life playing headstrong Cornish girl Mary Yellen.

“Filming in the sea was ridiculous,” she tells me, she tells me with her distinctive, throaty laugh.

“It was exhilarating and special because you were able to get to a place so far beyond where it feels ‘pretend’. It was very real and there was a certain level of fear. You were in the sea, everyone disappeared and you may drown.

“The waves were so big – you’d go under and for a few seconds you couldn’t see which way was up.”

Burly lifeguards had the job of hauling the cast back on to their feet.

“Someone was like, ‘There you are, you’re fine. Stop being dramatic’,” she says. “I’ve never worked in that way before and it was great to be allowed to.”

It’s a period drama but this new role has little else in common with the comfortable world of aristocratic Downton.

Jessica, 24, goes bare-faced and Mary’s floor-length dresses are almost permanently dripping wet and caked in mud.

“We had no hair and make-up – everything was incredibly minimal. We wanted to look cold, which often meant a red nose, blotched cheeks and blue lips. That’s fantastic. It looks how it would have done.

“It would be ridiculous if everything else was right but we were clearly wearing make-up and mascara.”

“We actually had mud added. I was grubby for seven weeks. I don’t know how many people would like that, but I did. I was very dirty for the whole shoot.”

That led to some funny looks when she popped into a chemist’s between scenes.

“I had mud all over my face and a cut lip and they said, ‘Do you pay for your prescriptions?’ When I said I did, they said, ‘Are you sure?’ Later I looked in the mirror and I understood why…”

The mud outside Jamaica Inn itself was thick and deep. Crossing it was a challenge in itself.

“It changes how you walk. Whoever invented these dresses, I don’t know what they were thinking!” says Jessica.

And she declared last month: “I’m praying the reason I’m able to get a job is because I’m good enough, rather than because of being in another show. I would hate that.”

Jessica, who grew up in Berkshire with mother Beverley, a teaching assistant and father Christopher, a financial adviser, trained as a ballerina before injuring her ankle and turning to acting.

She met her former boyfriend Thomas Campbell while studying fine art at St Martin’s College in London. They split after two years and he sold a ballet painting that she’d inspired, earning himself £7,500.

After auditioning for her role in Jamaica Inn, she was “elated” when she heard she’d got it.

“I really, really, really wanted it because the story is led by a heroine, by a woman. It’s so exciting – not just fluffy, girly, boring stuff. I’d never read anything like it. It so was dark.”

Producer David Thompson adds: “This is an incredibly dangerous, sexually-charged, emotionally overwhelming story and Jessie seemed to have that sort of strength and power and solidity.

“Also, and this will embarrass her, she has beauty – which is very important because this is a heroine who has to hold the screen for three hours.”

And director Phillipa Lowthorpe said filming on the Cornish coastline was essential to capture the look and mood of the classic original novel.

“We spent five days filming in and out of the sea with waves very high. It was exhilarating,” she said.

Those scenes were filmed at Holywell Bay, a surfing beach near Newquay on Cornwall’s rugged north coast.

In the story Mary is horrified that almost the entire local community relies on smuggling because there is no other way to survive.

Joining in reluctantly, she discovers that the crimes involved are worse than she could ever have imagined.

She finds herself falling for Jem Merlyn, brother of her brutal uncle Joss, although she fights those feelings all the way.

The love story between Mary and Jem is a slow burner. Jessica, who confesses to being a hopeless romantic, says: “She hates herself for it and suppresses her attraction to him hugely. Despite her best efforts she is drawn to him and then various things come into play.

“How good is he? How bad is he? What will it mean for her life to follow her heart?”

On screen her performance is captivating – she even manages a convincing Cornish accent.

“I loved Mary’s stubbornness,” she says. “She’s always off on some stomp somewhere and then reluctantly going back and saying, ‘Yeah, I was wrong’.

“I love that she trusts her gut, goes with it and comes out at the end of it embracing the fact that it may not be for the better. She’s really flawed.”

Ultimately she wouldn’t have changed anything about the role. “It was the best job in the world,” she sighs. “I can’t detach myself from it at all.”

Even being pitched about in the sea?

“At the end of the day you get to go home and have a nice cup of tea and a warm dinner,” she says. “It was fine.

Jamaica Inn runs on BBC1, on Easter Monday, Tuesday April 21 and Wednesday April 22