Anne Reid
Issue #20
British actress shows female libido never ages in The Mother
By Rebecca Flint-Marx
Published: June 1st, 2004 | 12:00am
“It’s not just about an old woman taking her clothes off,” Anne Reid says of The Mother. Her statement seems less a disclaimer for her new film than a challenge to the attitudes of any number of studio executives.
The Mother, in which Reid stars as its titular protagonist, flies in the face of the countless celluloid stereotypes of older women as little more than asexual sources of baked goods and dotty wisdom. While May, Reid’s character, does turn out a well-rounded meal or two, she is more concerned with the erotic attentions of Darren (Daniel Craig), a man 30 years her junior who, besides being her son’s builder, also happens to be her daughter’s boyfriend. In the process, the recently widowed May learns as much about raging family dysfunction as she does about her long-dormant sexuality.
Given both the film’s topic and the complexity of its title character, it’s something of an understatement to say that Reid relished the opportunity to get involved. “I thought, what a great part; they don’t come along like that for older women very often,” she says. “And,” she adds with a laugh, “I always quite fancied doing something opposite a young man.”
Although Reid’s performance made her a critics’ darling in her native England (ironically, she was the only non-American actress nominated for a British Academy Award), her success was hardly an overnight phenomenon. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Reid (whose age falls north of 50 and south of 70) spent years on TV, doing a nine-year stint on Coronation Street, the ne plus ultra of British soaps, and lots of comedy. Following the death of her husband, she took 15 years off to raise her son and returned to acting in the mid ’80s. Reid continued to make a name for herself in both television and theater; it was thanks to her stage work that she met Roger Michell, The Mother’s director. Michell happened to attend a play Reid was starring in in London’s West End, and was sufficiently impressed to send her the script for his new film. “I just never thought I’d get it,” Reid says of the role. “I thought they’d go for a name in the film world. I was quite jolly about it!”
Not quite as jolly was the prospect of doing the film’s sex scenes. “You just put it out of your head and say, I’ll worry about it tomorrow,” Reid reflects. “But I was quite scared and got very upset the night before [they were filmed]. I called my son and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ He said to get on with it.” And after “a lot of champagne,” that’s just what she did.
What helped — aside from the champagne — was working opposite Craig, an actor who “didn’t make silly jokes and behaved beautifully,” as well as the story’s larger context. “To me, it’s about a woman whose life has passed her by and she realizes she hasn’t got long left,” Reid explains. “She wants to grab what she can; it might be her last chance.”
It’s a desire that resonated with many of the women Reid spoke to in preparation for the role, and that she hopes will help end the still prevalent double standard. “I’ve been referred to as a granny, but they don’t call Clint Eastwood a granddad,” she says. “There are so many feisty actresses — Streep, Keaton, Hawn — who are getting to an age that they thought was old when they were young, and now they’re thinking, to hell with that. I sense a sea change.”
While Reid’s happy to be part of that change; she’s even happier to be working so steadily at an age when many actors slow down. In addition to singing and dancing onstage in a Cole Porter musical (“a brand-new adventure,” she enthuses), she’s also eager to do more film roles. However, she remains realistic about the limited ration of good screen opportunities. “I’m not expecting leading parts,” she says. “Judi Dench gets them all anyway.”
Whatever parts come her way, it seems safe to assume that Reid will relish the unpredictability that accompanies them. “Noel Coward used to say, ‘Don’t come out of the same hole twice,’" she says. “I’m only just getting going.”
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