Post by yonny on Nov 9, 2010 9:21:17 GMT -5
These have been on my desktop for ages, figured I should put them up here for some sharing funtimes!
Anyway, a few (old) interviews and a little paragraph of praise at the end that I quite liked. First interview is great!
Touching Evil has made me a star . . but my love life is still a disaster;
Sue Carroll Interview, The Mirror (London, England) May 22, 1998
AS DI Susan Taylor in TV crime thriller Touching Evil, she is a lone female in a macho world.
But when filming is through Nicola Walker goes home to a house full of women.
For the past four years the 28-year-old actress has shared a house with three mates from her days at Cambridge University.
And, according to Nicola, they live a mad, crazy existence - a cross between a Wayne's World for women and Girls Behaving Badly.
"It's such a tip we think twice about letting anyone past the front door," she admits. "Especially men. We have to get them drunk before they come round.
"It's very hard to bring them into such a strong female household. Often they feel intimidated and find it all a bit noisy.
"At my age I suppose I should be thinking about buying my own place, but life's great as it is.
"I love the people I live with. When I open the front door there's usually at least one of them with a big bottle of wine just waiting to be drunk.
"We're all connected with acting. Sue (Perkins) presents Late Lunch, Sarah (Phelps) writes and Emma (Kennedy) is a comedian, so we support one another.
"Not that it's always harmonious. We're always arguing - real no-holds barred, chair throwing, cursing and swearing episodes."
Her parents live more quietly in a village in Hertfordshire though Nicola was born in London's East End where dad was a scrap dealer and her mum an interior designer.
"Mum likes doing houses up, so when I was a child we went from one rambling wreck to another.
"They've always been 100 per cent behind me, though they sensibly insisted that I went to university before I took up acting."
After taking her degree, Nicola trod the boards in fringe shows and at the Edinburgh Festival. An agent spotted her at a small theatre in London's Camden and plucked her from obscurity.
She says: "We'd been doing this show in a tiny 60-seater theatre and there were about 12 people watching the show that night, then a woman approached me who said she'd like to take me on.
"It was nothing short of a miracle - I hate the idea of selling myself because I find it all a bit embarrassing. I was even hesitant about posing for these pictures, I prefer to hide behind a character."
For an unknown actress to win a part in a major new TV series is almost unprecedented, and even now into the second series, Nicola finds it hard to believe she won the coveted role of Susan Taylor.
She says: "When I auditioned I expected absolutely nothing, especially as Robson Green was in it. I imagined they'd want a star.
"A week later I was asked to come back and finally, when I was at home with my parents, I got the call saying I'd landed the part.
"I couldn't believe it, my mum was running round screaming and I was shell-shocked - the only person to stay calm was dad."
The series is built around an elite squad called The Organised And Serial Crime Unit and means that DI Susan Taylor must be armed.
But holding a gun was something Nicola loathed. She was shaking as she gripped a pistol for the first time on the police firing range. She says: "I don't like guns but I thought I should look as if I knew what I was doing."
"But I was still shaking when I got in my car to drive home."
And in the current series Nicola doesn't play it cool when she falls in love and puts her life it risk.
She says: "There is a fair bit of passion, but the love scene was extremely tastefully done. You don't see a huge amount but you have a fair idea of what's going on.
"I don't mind doing scenes like that, again I'm not being me Nicola, but Susan Taylor." Of her own love life, there is no-one on the horizon. She says: "I've never lived with a man and there's nobody to speak of at the moment.
"Even if I met someone who blew me away I'd want to spend some time living alone before I got married.
"I tend to go out with people who have been friends, but when they become lovers it can be disastrous.
"I've never walked into a bar and chatted a man up, that's just not my scene. The idea of getting dolled up on a Saturday night to go out on the pull appals me, I'd rather watch the telly with a bottle of wine.
"If I ever did get wed then it would certainly not be the traditional job with a white dress, I'd prefer a jokey Las Vegas affair.
"I can't even see me having kids, I don't have that biological clock thing, my brother has three small children whom I adore, so perhaps that satisfies the maternal thing, for the moment."
As well as Touching Evil, Nicola has appeared as strident schoolteacher Suzy Travis in the BBC comedy Chalk, and again as a cop in Jonathan Creek, as well as in Moll Flanders.
But her first real taste of fame came when she played a small role in the hit movie Four Weddings And A Funeral.
She says: "I thought, `this is what acting's all about.' There we were filming at a beautiful country house and being paid for it. Seeing it on screen was amazing.
"I may be reticent about pushing myself, but I'm as vain as the next person. There are days when I think `I look foxy today' and yet other days I feel awful. I had a bad hair day this morning and chopped all my fringe off."
In a profession where ego is everything, Nicola is a breath of fresh air.
She says: "I know being an actress means you're on show. But I really do prefer to fade into the background.
"My ideal night wouldn't be a showbiz party, I prefer to be at home with my mates, watching videos, hurling abuse at the actors on the screen, drinking and staying up talking 'til 5am in the morning.
"I once tried to watch Touching Evil with the girls, but it ended up in carnage with them taking the mickey - I think we all went down the pub instead.
"I know life can't go on like this forever, one day I'll have to grow up and buy a flat.
"But I reckon I'll look back and think behaving badly and madly was the best time of my life."
Picture: MARK HARRISON/ STAY STILL
____________________________________________________
IT'S GOOD TO SLIP OUT OF MY CORSET!; Touching Evil (Tues, ITV, 9pm) Now Nicola can breathe again.
Stunning Nicola Walker breathed a sigh of relief when she won the chance to play a cop in a new ITV drama.
For the raven-haired actress had been left breathless after spending weeks trussed up in corsets during the filming of ITV's costume drama Moll Flanders.
Now Nicola, 28, says she's delighted to be wearing normal clobber
again as Detective Inspector Susan Taylor in Touching Evil.
"It was a really painful time," she jokes. "I thought it would be wonderful to wear a hand-made corset but it was unbearably tight.
"It was impossible to eat while I had the thing on, so I had to skip lunch for a month."
And Nicola, 28, was rather relieved, too, that her steamy lesbian sex scenes with Moll Flanders - actress Alex Kingston - were cut from the show.
"It's nice to play a modern woman my own age in Touching Evil," Nicola says. "My character's not butch, but nor is she too girlie.
Despite her delight at landing such a prestigious part, there were still hairy moments on set - especially when her boss, daredevil Robson (DI Dave Creegan), drove the duo through London at high speed.
"He had to drive like a lunatic at rush hour with a blue light flashing," she says.
"My knuckles were white as I clutched the dashboard and I was terrified.
"I was mainly frightened that a real policeman would arrest us for being imposters."
But Nicola is in such demand she has little to worry about. The Cambridge University graduate was born in the East End of London
and landed her first movie role in Four Weddings And A Funeral.
She is currently preparing for a second series of the BBC classroom drama Chalk in which she plays a young, idealistic teacher.
And that's after she's finished work on an episode of the hit BBC drama Pie In The Sky.
"Fingers crossed, but things could not be going any better at the moment," she says.
____________________________________________________
RICHARD WALLACE
IT'S not everyday a completely unknown actress is chosen to star opposite one of the biggest names in British TV - but that's what happened to Nicola Walker.
After various bit parts in TV and fringe theatre, she was snapped up to play the female lead in the crime thriller Touching Evil, opposite that thinking woman's bit of rough, Robson Green. Even now, as the show returns for a third series, Nicola still finds it hard to believe she won the coveted role of power suited, gun-toting, no-nonsense policewoman, Detective Inspector Susan Taylor.
"When I auditioned, I expected absolutely nothing to happen, especially as Robson Green was in it. I imagined they'd want a big name to star opposite him," remembers Nicola. "A week later I was asked to come back and finally, when I was at home with my parents, I got a call saying I'd landed the part.
"I couldn't believe it, my mum was running around screaming and I was totally shell-shocked."
Nicola's first taste of fame included small parts in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Moll Flanders and Cows - in which she spent two weeks filming in a pantomime cow outfit for the one- off Channel Four comedy show.
Landing the part in Touching Evil meant she really was hitting the big time.
The drama has been a huge success both with critics and viewers.
In the new series, the cases which the elite Organised and Serial Crime Unit have to investigate are as twisted as ever. The first episode sees Detective Inspector Creegan (Robson Green) defying orders and returning to his native Newcastle where a man isconvicted of murdering his wife. Creegan is convinced he is innocent.
Then there is another grisly murder and Susan Taylor follows him north to help hunt for the evil killer, much to the annoyance of the local police.
"Susan has to defend herself on all sides," explains Nicola. "She feels she has been cold shouldered by Creegan and has to deal with a local detective with an appallingly archaic attitude towards women in the force. There is a lot of pressure on her."
In another episode Taylor saves Creegan's life when he is set on fire by a depraved murderer. This brings them closer than ever. But even though the sexual chemistry between the two actors is intense, it seems Taylor and Creegan are set to be the BritishMulder and Scully - theirs is strictly a hands- off partnership.
"There's no romance between them, there never could be," says Nicola, who recently starred in ITV's `end of the world' drama The Last Train.
"Although Robson and I joke about what they would be like as couple, it would ruin their professional relationship."
As for off-screen, it's clear Nicola and Robson Green hit it off during filming.
"I love working with Robson. Even on the longest, most tiring days he has the ability to raise the mood on set - just by being there. He really understands how to get the best out of people," says Nicola.
"He's always winding me up or playing tricks, but I always forgive him. There's never a dull moment when Robson is around!"
While Mr Green's private life is scrutinised by the press, Nicola remains coy about hers.
Although Nicola admits she does have a partner, she won't spill the beans. She wants to keep her private life private, and who can blame her. With so many young actresses these days ready to sell their grandmothers to get more column inches, Nicola's priorities are refreshingly on target
________________________________________________
Byline: BAZ BAMIGBOYE
AUDIENCES have been packing into the National's Olivier Theatre to see Kenneth Branagh give one of his finest performances in the title role of David Mamet's searing play, Edmond.
Several Broadway theatre owners and producers have seen it and are eager for Branagh to transfer with the play to New York, where it is set.
Branagh should go - and he should take with him Nicola Walker, who plays a waitress who meets a nasty end. Her character is actually a would-be thespian who dreams of a life in the theatre.
Watching the actress (who plays cat-loving Ruth in Spooks on BBC1) explain why she wants to tread the boards made me understand why Ms Walker herself does what she does, and why she loves what she does.
Anyway, a few (old) interviews and a little paragraph of praise at the end that I quite liked. First interview is great!
Touching Evil has made me a star . . but my love life is still a disaster;
Sue Carroll Interview, The Mirror (London, England) May 22, 1998
AS DI Susan Taylor in TV crime thriller Touching Evil, she is a lone female in a macho world.
But when filming is through Nicola Walker goes home to a house full of women.
For the past four years the 28-year-old actress has shared a house with three mates from her days at Cambridge University.
And, according to Nicola, they live a mad, crazy existence - a cross between a Wayne's World for women and Girls Behaving Badly.
"It's such a tip we think twice about letting anyone past the front door," she admits. "Especially men. We have to get them drunk before they come round.
"It's very hard to bring them into such a strong female household. Often they feel intimidated and find it all a bit noisy.
"At my age I suppose I should be thinking about buying my own place, but life's great as it is.
"I love the people I live with. When I open the front door there's usually at least one of them with a big bottle of wine just waiting to be drunk.
"We're all connected with acting. Sue (Perkins) presents Late Lunch, Sarah (Phelps) writes and Emma (Kennedy) is a comedian, so we support one another.
"Not that it's always harmonious. We're always arguing - real no-holds barred, chair throwing, cursing and swearing episodes."
Her parents live more quietly in a village in Hertfordshire though Nicola was born in London's East End where dad was a scrap dealer and her mum an interior designer.
"Mum likes doing houses up, so when I was a child we went from one rambling wreck to another.
"They've always been 100 per cent behind me, though they sensibly insisted that I went to university before I took up acting."
After taking her degree, Nicola trod the boards in fringe shows and at the Edinburgh Festival. An agent spotted her at a small theatre in London's Camden and plucked her from obscurity.
She says: "We'd been doing this show in a tiny 60-seater theatre and there were about 12 people watching the show that night, then a woman approached me who said she'd like to take me on.
"It was nothing short of a miracle - I hate the idea of selling myself because I find it all a bit embarrassing. I was even hesitant about posing for these pictures, I prefer to hide behind a character."
For an unknown actress to win a part in a major new TV series is almost unprecedented, and even now into the second series, Nicola finds it hard to believe she won the coveted role of Susan Taylor.
She says: "When I auditioned I expected absolutely nothing, especially as Robson Green was in it. I imagined they'd want a star.
"A week later I was asked to come back and finally, when I was at home with my parents, I got the call saying I'd landed the part.
"I couldn't believe it, my mum was running round screaming and I was shell-shocked - the only person to stay calm was dad."
The series is built around an elite squad called The Organised And Serial Crime Unit and means that DI Susan Taylor must be armed.
But holding a gun was something Nicola loathed. She was shaking as she gripped a pistol for the first time on the police firing range. She says: "I don't like guns but I thought I should look as if I knew what I was doing."
"But I was still shaking when I got in my car to drive home."
And in the current series Nicola doesn't play it cool when she falls in love and puts her life it risk.
She says: "There is a fair bit of passion, but the love scene was extremely tastefully done. You don't see a huge amount but you have a fair idea of what's going on.
"I don't mind doing scenes like that, again I'm not being me Nicola, but Susan Taylor." Of her own love life, there is no-one on the horizon. She says: "I've never lived with a man and there's nobody to speak of at the moment.
"Even if I met someone who blew me away I'd want to spend some time living alone before I got married.
"I tend to go out with people who have been friends, but when they become lovers it can be disastrous.
"I've never walked into a bar and chatted a man up, that's just not my scene. The idea of getting dolled up on a Saturday night to go out on the pull appals me, I'd rather watch the telly with a bottle of wine.
"If I ever did get wed then it would certainly not be the traditional job with a white dress, I'd prefer a jokey Las Vegas affair.
"I can't even see me having kids, I don't have that biological clock thing, my brother has three small children whom I adore, so perhaps that satisfies the maternal thing, for the moment."
As well as Touching Evil, Nicola has appeared as strident schoolteacher Suzy Travis in the BBC comedy Chalk, and again as a cop in Jonathan Creek, as well as in Moll Flanders.
But her first real taste of fame came when she played a small role in the hit movie Four Weddings And A Funeral.
She says: "I thought, `this is what acting's all about.' There we were filming at a beautiful country house and being paid for it. Seeing it on screen was amazing.
"I may be reticent about pushing myself, but I'm as vain as the next person. There are days when I think `I look foxy today' and yet other days I feel awful. I had a bad hair day this morning and chopped all my fringe off."
In a profession where ego is everything, Nicola is a breath of fresh air.
She says: "I know being an actress means you're on show. But I really do prefer to fade into the background.
"My ideal night wouldn't be a showbiz party, I prefer to be at home with my mates, watching videos, hurling abuse at the actors on the screen, drinking and staying up talking 'til 5am in the morning.
"I once tried to watch Touching Evil with the girls, but it ended up in carnage with them taking the mickey - I think we all went down the pub instead.
"I know life can't go on like this forever, one day I'll have to grow up and buy a flat.
"But I reckon I'll look back and think behaving badly and madly was the best time of my life."
Picture: MARK HARRISON/ STAY STILL
____________________________________________________
IT'S GOOD TO SLIP OUT OF MY CORSET!; Touching Evil (Tues, ITV, 9pm) Now Nicola can breathe again.
Stunning Nicola Walker breathed a sigh of relief when she won the chance to play a cop in a new ITV drama.
For the raven-haired actress had been left breathless after spending weeks trussed up in corsets during the filming of ITV's costume drama Moll Flanders.
Now Nicola, 28, says she's delighted to be wearing normal clobber
again as Detective Inspector Susan Taylor in Touching Evil.
"It was a really painful time," she jokes. "I thought it would be wonderful to wear a hand-made corset but it was unbearably tight.
"It was impossible to eat while I had the thing on, so I had to skip lunch for a month."
And Nicola, 28, was rather relieved, too, that her steamy lesbian sex scenes with Moll Flanders - actress Alex Kingston - were cut from the show.
"It's nice to play a modern woman my own age in Touching Evil," Nicola says. "My character's not butch, but nor is she too girlie.
Despite her delight at landing such a prestigious part, there were still hairy moments on set - especially when her boss, daredevil Robson (DI Dave Creegan), drove the duo through London at high speed.
"He had to drive like a lunatic at rush hour with a blue light flashing," she says.
"My knuckles were white as I clutched the dashboard and I was terrified.
"I was mainly frightened that a real policeman would arrest us for being imposters."
But Nicola is in such demand she has little to worry about. The Cambridge University graduate was born in the East End of London
and landed her first movie role in Four Weddings And A Funeral.
She is currently preparing for a second series of the BBC classroom drama Chalk in which she plays a young, idealistic teacher.
And that's after she's finished work on an episode of the hit BBC drama Pie In The Sky.
"Fingers crossed, but things could not be going any better at the moment," she says.
____________________________________________________
RICHARD WALLACE
IT'S not everyday a completely unknown actress is chosen to star opposite one of the biggest names in British TV - but that's what happened to Nicola Walker.
After various bit parts in TV and fringe theatre, she was snapped up to play the female lead in the crime thriller Touching Evil, opposite that thinking woman's bit of rough, Robson Green. Even now, as the show returns for a third series, Nicola still finds it hard to believe she won the coveted role of power suited, gun-toting, no-nonsense policewoman, Detective Inspector Susan Taylor.
"When I auditioned, I expected absolutely nothing to happen, especially as Robson Green was in it. I imagined they'd want a big name to star opposite him," remembers Nicola. "A week later I was asked to come back and finally, when I was at home with my parents, I got a call saying I'd landed the part.
"I couldn't believe it, my mum was running around screaming and I was totally shell-shocked."
Nicola's first taste of fame included small parts in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Moll Flanders and Cows - in which she spent two weeks filming in a pantomime cow outfit for the one- off Channel Four comedy show.
Landing the part in Touching Evil meant she really was hitting the big time.
The drama has been a huge success both with critics and viewers.
In the new series, the cases which the elite Organised and Serial Crime Unit have to investigate are as twisted as ever. The first episode sees Detective Inspector Creegan (Robson Green) defying orders and returning to his native Newcastle where a man isconvicted of murdering his wife. Creegan is convinced he is innocent.
Then there is another grisly murder and Susan Taylor follows him north to help hunt for the evil killer, much to the annoyance of the local police.
"Susan has to defend herself on all sides," explains Nicola. "She feels she has been cold shouldered by Creegan and has to deal with a local detective with an appallingly archaic attitude towards women in the force. There is a lot of pressure on her."
In another episode Taylor saves Creegan's life when he is set on fire by a depraved murderer. This brings them closer than ever. But even though the sexual chemistry between the two actors is intense, it seems Taylor and Creegan are set to be the BritishMulder and Scully - theirs is strictly a hands- off partnership.
"There's no romance between them, there never could be," says Nicola, who recently starred in ITV's `end of the world' drama The Last Train.
"Although Robson and I joke about what they would be like as couple, it would ruin their professional relationship."
As for off-screen, it's clear Nicola and Robson Green hit it off during filming.
"I love working with Robson. Even on the longest, most tiring days he has the ability to raise the mood on set - just by being there. He really understands how to get the best out of people," says Nicola.
"He's always winding me up or playing tricks, but I always forgive him. There's never a dull moment when Robson is around!"
While Mr Green's private life is scrutinised by the press, Nicola remains coy about hers.
Although Nicola admits she does have a partner, she won't spill the beans. She wants to keep her private life private, and who can blame her. With so many young actresses these days ready to sell their grandmothers to get more column inches, Nicola's priorities are refreshingly on target
________________________________________________
Byline: BAZ BAMIGBOYE
AUDIENCES have been packing into the National's Olivier Theatre to see Kenneth Branagh give one of his finest performances in the title role of David Mamet's searing play, Edmond.
Several Broadway theatre owners and producers have seen it and are eager for Branagh to transfer with the play to New York, where it is set.
Branagh should go - and he should take with him Nicola Walker, who plays a waitress who meets a nasty end. Her character is actually a would-be thespian who dreams of a life in the theatre.
Watching the actress (who plays cat-loving Ruth in Spooks on BBC1) explain why she wants to tread the boards made me understand why Ms Walker herself does what she does, and why she loves what she does.
