“Finally, it’s me wafting around in a big dress, in love, in a corset!” The Olivier-winning Irish actor Denise Gough – best known in recent years for playing Imperial lieutenant Dedra in Andor and for scooping up Olivier awards for People, Places and Things and Angels in America on stage – is being sarky on Zoom, wearing a jumper over her pyjamas in her bird-wallpapered living room in Hackney. She’s in a week of final previews for the new West End adaptation of the American western High Noon, in which she stars opposite Billy Crudup, a production brought to the stage by Hollywood screenwriter Eric Roth (known for Forrest Gump, Dune and the Lady Gaga A Star Is Born).
Despite being a charismatic blonde like Grace Kelly in the 1952 movie, Gough insists she would not be the first choice for such a role. “For a start, she was 18!” Gough, 45, leans into the camera. “And I’m clearly not 18! And she was a sort of beautiful wife character, and that’s not me either.” Her character is now “a woman fighting for her own beliefs in a lawless time”, she says, “a peace activist, a Quaker, when Quakerism was a progressive thing for a woman to be a part of, and a widow who’s travelled across the country on her own, who represents the kind of thing that women throughout history have had to do – give up a lot of what they believe in.”
Gough’s passion echoes the political drive in her personal life. A vocal activist against the injustices in Palestine, a country she visited as part of a delegation in September, she’s also spoken openly about her experiences of being groomed and raped as a young teenager, which led to addiction and homelessness in her late teens. “A lot of things that happen to young people and to children especially are shrouded in shame, so the more we talk about the truth of these things, the less easy it will be for predatory people to get away with treating young people or children the way that I was,” she tells me.
Denise Gough (Amy Fowler) and Billy Crudup (Will Kane) in High Noon. Photo: Johan Persson
Later this month, she will be seen in H Is for Hawk, a beautiful screen adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s prize-winning memoir. Gough plays Christina, the best friend of the protagonist (Claire Foy) who learns to train a hawk while grappling with grief. Gough says the wildlife scenes were “extraordinary” to film. “The set had a real gentle feeling to it because we couldn’t scare the bird. Although, of course, when I got there on the first day, I was suddenly, like: oh shit, I've got to hold it!”
Gough loved meeting the real-life Christina – and how the film made her think about friendship and bereavement. “There was something really beautiful about playing somebody allowing her friend to go through their process of grief – not trying to get them to go through it any quicker or differently or in a prettier, tied-up, nice way. In life, I just think we’ve got to let each other be uglier than that.”
Now, onto the rest of our questions…
What do you wish you had known at 18 that you know now?
That everything would be OK. At that age, I was just a child, standing outside theatres begging for money, so to think of that little girl crying on Shaftesbury Avenue, and now I walk into the theatre every night to work … I keep looking back and thinking about what I was holding back then.
What is the first thing you would do if you were made prime minister tomorrow?
Well, first of all, I’m Irish, so I can't be prime minister! If I was, I’d sort out the hunger strikers and get them out of prison. I would ensure that their lives are saved, so they can go back to living full and valuable lives as young activists that we need in the world.
Who is your hero/heroine?
Amed Khan, who I’ve recently been introduced to, who used to fundraise for the Biden administration, and now spends his time in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, getting food and aid into these places. And Victoria Rose, the brilliant plastic surgeon, who works in Gaza. I have lots of heroes, and most of them are working on the front lines of warzones.
What do you always carry with you?
My glasses, which I’ve had for the last two years. They’re for long distance, and if I don’t have them with me, and go out to see something, I can’t see it! It’s funny, because when I was a child, I desperately wanted glasses – and braces, because I wanted a lisp. I would put a wine gum on the roof of my mouth so that I spoke like I had braces. Why? Because I’m an actor! I also wanted to be French …
What or who brings you joy?
My nieces and nephews. One of them, who’s also my goddaughter, was here recently with her boyfriend, and I keep thinking of when I was first with her, an hour after she was born, in the hospital up the road from where I live now in Hackney. I’ve also got a new niece who’s recently arrived, and we’re all very excited about that.
What is your favourite swearword or phrase?
The one beginning with C, which I use daily at work. I have great fun with it – I think I called Billy Crudup a C-word yesterday. It’s fun to use it in America, too. When I did People, Places and Things in New York, and there’s a scene where I call my mother a cunt, the reaction was so different!
I'm really enjoying my 40s in terms of how I feel about myself as a person, but in terms of the world, it’s a shitshow
Do you have any regrets?
I'm sure I do. Maybe I regret not telling a few people to fuck off, but I've usually told people to fuck off that I want to fuck off. Also, I heard a Trevor Noah podcast recently – he’s got a hell of a story – and he said that that question is always sort of asked to people who've gone through a lot, and the expectation always is that you say: “I don't regret anything”. Everything has made me who I am, and that’s lovely, but actually, what if those things hadn’t happened? I maybe could have been even better.
What’s your favourite decade?
If we’re talking ages, I'm really enjoying my 40s in terms of how I feel about myself as a person, but in terms of the world, it’s a shitshow. I was also talking to my hairdresser yesterday about the 90s, and we got to do a lot of stuff that we would not be able to do now, like a lot of ecstasy [laughs]. But the 90s were a mess as well – politically, everything is a mess all the time. Maybe the next decade is the one!
What’s more important – romance or sex?
Oh, I like a bit of both. When things are at their best, they tend to go hand in hand.
Where do you tend to have your best ideas?
When I wake up, in that kind of liminal space. I find that when I’m walking around, a lot of good internal conversations happen, too. I put earbuds in that aren’t switched on, so I can have actual conversations with myself!
If money and travel were no object, where would you live?
I love London. I might move to Hampstead if I want to live in the country. I remember something [the author] Edna O’Brien said to me before she died, when I’d gone to visit her. I hadn’t been working for a bit, and I said “I think I might move to the countryside” and she said: “Don’t you dare, darling, don’t you dare. You’ll die there.” We both come from the same place in Ireland, and we both ended up in London. I just need to get really wealthy and move near the heath!
Name a piece of art that’s inspired you recently
Oh Jesus, a piece of art? I’m watching The Real Housewives of New York at the moment – I’ve gone back to season two! Can I mention an artistic person instead? Who’s inspiring me constantly right now is Billy Crudup. Truly, working with him is a really special experience. We never stop working on something – the scenes are always sort of moving around. He’s also a laugh and he’s a great company leader. He treats everybody really well, and that’s not always easy when you’re a Hollywood movie star.
If you were given £1m to do good, how would you spend it?
I would give it to Amed Khan, and let him use it for whatever he thinks is the right thing to use it for in Gaza right now.
How do you relax?
I hang out in my house. I still can’t believe I have a house, and I’ve renovated and decorated it exactly the way I wanted. And I relax when I clean it on a Sunday, then I light candles. I really, really love it.
Interview by Jude Rogers
High Noon is playing at the Harold Pinter theatre, London SW1, until 7 March. H Is for Hawk is released on 23 January. Portrait by Jeff Spicer/Getty