Anna Chancellor on Her West End Double Bill and Memories of Playing 'Duckface' in Four Weddings and a Funeral

It’s been almost 20 years since Anna Chancellor shot to attention as Henrietta (a.k.a. “Duckface”) in the hit film comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. Since then, the raven-haired actress has come to great prominence on the London stage. Seen on Broadway in 1997 in Pam Gems’ Stanley, the 47-year-old Chancellor has headlined plays at the Donmar, National, and Hampstead theaters and is currently starring on the West End in a double bill of David Hare’s new one-act play South Downs and Terence Rattigan’s 1948 classic, The Browning Version. Broadway.com recently spoke to the warmly intelligent actress about juggling two plays in a single night, her attempts to make it in L.A., and a certain novelist to whom she just happens to be related.

What’s it like to play a glamorous actress in David Hare’s South Downs, followed by a spiteful wife in The Browning Version?
They seem like two completely separate jobs. Although I don’t come on stage for about 40 minutes in David’s play, I spend the time getting dressed and acquiring a suntanned look, then I go on stage and execute the whole thing in about six minutes. It takes me much longer to get ready [for South Downs] than it actually does for me to play it!

Is it difficult doing two plays—one old, one new—for two different directors?
It had its elements of stress. We were never quite sure how it was going to work out, and of course David didn’t know whether he was going to be favorably or unfavorably compared to the Rattigan. And the two directors [Jeremy Herrin and Angus Jackson] work in different ways, so there were times when you thought, “I don’t know if this is going to work.” In fact, I love how it’s all happened: David’s play to me feels intensely personal and rings entirely true, and the Rattigan is a slice of genius, so the problem is: How can you serve this genius?

It’s always interesting when actresses play actresses, as you are doing in South Downs.
I know, and I personally have a great interest in and admiration for actresses; I’m just totally embroiled and enmeshed in the history of our profession. I also find myself terribly attracted to the entire concept of the actress—to the extent that I would never call myself an “actor” as so many women these days do.

Hare’s one-act builds to a sweet encounter between this beneficent older woman and the anxious schoolboy, John Blakemore [played by Alex Lawther], to whom she is able to offer both a slice of cake and emotional support.
As I see it, Belinda has a very attractive son of her own who she’s inordinately close to, which is probably unusual for that time, and he tells her that there is this very odd boy at school who’s extremely clever and is also a fan of hers. Any actress is going to prick up her ears when told that she has an oddball admirer, so I reckon she says to her son, “Let me speak to him, I’m sure I can sort him out.” She meets him and finds that he’s a bit odder than she thought and that he challenges her.

After the intermission, you switch gears to play Millie Crocker-Harris in The Browning Version. How do you physically manage the turnaround?
Immediately after the first play, I get dressed all over again, this time as Millie, and put my makeup back on. But the awful thing is that as I start becoming Millie, I become very critical, as she would be. I’m forever fussing with my dresser about [the character’s] wig and saying, “Would you mind if it was a bit wider.” She’s so patient that she has ended up taking the wig home to alter it.

Well, Millie isn’t the loveliest character ever written!
[Laughs.] The audience don’t like her, obviously: She’s a brazen adulterer who treats her husband very badly indeed; she’s incredibly naughty. And it can be hard to walk on stage with that in mind, especially in a play where the ranks are closed against women. I didn’t know the play before, but when they sent it to me, my heart started to race and my blood pressure went up. Although it can be quite grim, in some ways it’s theatrically very palatable.

Watching you in it, I got the sense that you’d make a great Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
That’s who I’d like to play next! I’m trying to encourage Dominic West to play it with me, because we know each other from [the hit UK TV series] The Hour. I just need to persuade Dominic to do it before we take it to a producer.

Your next gig is a revival of Private Lives at the Chichester Festival Theatre south of London, where this production began last year, as Amanda opposite the Elyot of Toby Stephens.
I’d been chatting with Rupert Everett about doing it and that fell through and I thought, “Oh, I guess my chance is gone.” Then when I was at Chichester last year, [director] Jonathan Kent came over and he said, “Anna, I just wondered if you’d be interested…” and I said, “Of course I’m interested!” [Laughs.]

As you know, Toby’s parents [Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens] famously co-starred in the play when he was a boy.
I’m just waiting for the night when Maggie comes to see us; I’m nervous already [laughs].

You’re doing more and more theater in and around London, but what about Hollywood? Have you ever felt tempted to try and crack that world?
Just once, and it was the most hopeless foray. I ended up staying in a wooden house in Laurel Canyon that had a tree growing through it, and I was completely broke and could hardly get an audition. [The agency] ICM were representing me in London, so I went to see them there [in L.A.]. After the interview, they said, “Anna, you’re obviously charming and funny but we’re only interested in low-hanging fruit.” And I thought, “Right, OK!”

That’s extraordinary. But I bet your association with Four Weddings and a Funeral continue to this day, even though the film came out 18 years ago.
You do get people who want you to sign the cover of the DVD so that they have everyone’s signature, which can be a great coup. I totally understand that Four Weddings was the big leg-up for me. My career, like many people’s, could have gone nowhere, since so much of it is luck, and I feel so lucky as I approach 50 that my career seems to be going well.

And is it true that you are a direct descendant of Jane Austen?
Jane Austen was my aunt six generations back. What’s funny is that people ask me to expound on her work until they realize how not particularly well-versed I am; I’m not an expert. On the other hand, I like to think that she’s a conscientious aunt and a caring one, too. Maybe she’s looking down on me now. Who knows?