AManda Abington has a great belief in manners. She and her ex-partner Martin Freeman taught their two children the importance of P and Q from the word “go.” “We are very warlike about it,” she says. “As her grandmother said, etiquette is free. I think it’s true.” Still, she can sometimes see the absurdity of British politeness. Unfriend, Steven Moffat’s new work. Appeared across from Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith.
Unfriend supervised by Mark GatissFollow a couple “dying in manners” after an American home guest turns out to be a potential maniac, as Abington’s character Debbie says. This play is an accusation of British social customs and is wrapped in a laughing play. “I’m not very good at saying’that’s enough now,'” Abington adds. “We tend to overwhelm people with their welcome, and so do I.”
Abington sits in a baguette during lunch break from rehearsals, but ironically, it’s polite to take out anything other than the occasional peck. “Please eat,” I say. “No, it’s okay,” she replied, tapping the sandwich that looked like a longing. She feels like she’s back in the theater for the first time in a while.Her last work she starred in Florian Zeller’s intense family drama The Son, In a kiln in London in 2019. In contrast, she laughs and is an example of “from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
Abington loves the exhilaration of the theater, but is best known for his work on Golden Time television shows such as Selfridges and Selfridges. Sherlock.. Unfriend, performing in Chichester’s Minerva, reunites her with Sherlock’s Moffat and Gatiss. They are all grafting hard, but laughing at their heads. “Everyone feels like the pressure valve has come off.”
The hinge of that central conspiracy of an American woman looking her way into a couple’s house to cause fear and danger is the suspicion of British outsider immigrants and the hypocrisy of a good couple with a huge house. Could it be a metaphor for? No, she says actively. It’s just a very entertaining play, nothing more or less. “Mark the other day when he was promoting the play a few years ago, he took it to a few producers who read it and said,’Is it just funny?’ Sometimes something is “just funny” and it’s okay without a message. “
Abington, who has done both comedy and drama, believes the former is difficult to pull off. “The actor needs to have an interesting bone-to be able to look at the text and understand where the beat is. Reese is a very nice comedy actor. When I look at him, which he is You can see that you know exactly what to emphasize a bit. It’s a beautiful learning curve. “
Does she feel that the arena has been leveled and the funny bones of the woman have been fully recognized? “No, it’s not a mile. But we’re there. Great women are coming, but I think the stigma that women are funny still remains.” She actually said that. I found it to be a turn-off for some men. “They’re gone,” oh, I can’t go out with you – you’re funny. I will be your friend, but I can’t date you. I think funny women scare men. It’s annoying them. “
Her own life is full of funny women, both Julie Walters, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and other women she respected and her close friends. “All my best friends are cheerful. One Daisy Hagard and another Rebecca Colored. We are full of funny women, but we have to fight for it.” So the choice is Is it funny or sexy? “Yeah, you definitely can’t be both-it’s unheard of. It’s ridiculous because all the women I’ve just mentioned are really sexy.”
Abington was an only child in Hertfordshire, his mother was a housewife, and his father was a photographer who founded a printing lab. She was bullied at school by “a group of girls who miserable my life”, which had a lasting impact. “It informed most of my life. When I entered therapy, I noticed. You never get out of your childhood unscathed, but you can handle it and get over it, You have to keep it and lead a bad life. “
But her childhood was passionate, and she first started dancing when her mother gave her the option to take lessons and ballet classes. “She said I couldn’t do both because we couldn’t afford it, and she said I’d much prefer to play ballet because it was cheap.” Did not feel like a natural dancer, but she loved it and dreamed of playing at the Royal Opera House. She auditioned for a cat around 17:00. “I did it about 8-9 times and it didn’t work. I’m very happy because I was moving in a completely different direction.”
One day she was badly injured during the split, and the drama teacher urged her to focus on acting instead. She attended a local drama school and was inspired by its principal, John Gardiner. She appeared in one of his plays and still found an agent among her students.
Being a mother and actor for years, which may sound modest, was juggling, says Abington. She puts her children on the school bus every morning at 7am, then travels from Hertfordshire to London for rehearsals and returns home by 7pm. How has her worklife navigation changed since she separated from Freeman? She says it’s okay. Children divide their time between homes. “He’s a great dad and we’re doing really well. We share childcare and above all make sure they’re okay.”
In the 2019 Desert Island Discs, Freeman talked about how difficult it is to play Dr. Watson in Sherlock, Abington’s on-screen husband. Was she hard for her too? “Yes, that’s right. We experienced a breakup a few months ago and kept it very quiet, so it was really difficult to do that.”
According to her, there is no rankol. “We spent 16 years together and had two great kids. We broke up for personal reasons but had a great time. Go on. He and Rachel I have a nice girlfriend called and I’m involved with the most amazing person. This is the second half of my life and I’m trying to do it with him. “
At the age of fifty, she feels the healthiest ever in every way. Her new partner is Jonathan Goodwin, a professional escapologist, stunt performer, and Daredevil until October last year. He participated in the series Dangerman: The Incredible Mr Goodwin. But two days before we met, Abington was after a serious accident during a stunt., Goodwin remained paralyzed forever.. When he was accidentally crushed, he was upside down 30 feet in the air and tied to a straitjacket between the two cars. He lost his kidney, broke his scapula, amputated his spinal cord, and crushed his legs. He almost died in an accident, and again on the operating table. The news came out a few months later when Abington spoke with Jay Reiner on a podcast. “We were just chatting and it came out. It will come out eventually as Jonathan comes in a wheelchair to the opening night of this play.”
Abington had only been in a romantic relationship with Goodwin for two months before the accident, but they knew each other as friends for years. When they realized they were both single (he divorced his 9-year-old daughter in the United States), they started talking on the phone for seven hours at a time, and he suggested to her within the first hour. Did the actual meeting.
How was it when you received the shocking news of his accident? “It was one of the worst calls. But Jonathan is very strong. He’s a good inspiration. He’s never moaned about it. He sometimes misses what he did. But at the same time it’s like “This is the next chapter in my life right now.” Many I know asked me, “Are you with him?” I was like “of course”. I can’t imagine a life without him. It’s very fun. He makes me laugh like anyone else. Even his accident never felt insurmountable. “
But that changed her outlook on life. “There was no way to predict what would happen to Jonathan. Now I don’t see much in the future or the past. It’s about being at that moment because you don’t know what will happen. Try to say “yes” to many things. Life is short. “