The stage, television, and film actor on embracing change and putting nature at the heart of popular culture.
I’ve always had a double life between the countryside and the city. In my early childhood, I lived with my Mum and Nan and Grandad in a flat in North London. We had no garden, but every weekend and holiday we would travel to Lincolnshire to visit my cousin and Aunt in the countryside.
There were cats, dogs, goats, and geese. We rode fat ponies in our jeans and wellies. My mum and I reminisce now about the abundance of nature at the time; the scattering of rabbits on a walk, the butterflies seemingly everywhere, the blizzard of moths and insects in headlights at night. It’s all changed now.
I remember when we used to have weeks of snow, getting snowed in, building snow families that would sit on the lawn until February. Now, those little bumps in the grass where snow people used to be just don't occur anymore.
Like many people, I’m guilty of wanting my cake and eating it. I want beautiful and familiar landscapes, and hate to see a tree cut down or a piece of earth built upon. But I want the creature comforts of modern life too. I appreciate that we need to exist and survive. I can’t bear change, but we’ve changed nature, and so we have to adapt. It’s a balancing act I don’t think we’ve worked out yet. We can sometimes demonise ourselves as a species, but we need to acknowledge we're part of our environment.
Wildlife's resilience should inspire us to create spaces where nature can thrive, even in a bit of rubble.
Later, my mum and I moved to a cottage in Rutland, and I lived a rural life until I left home. As an only child, I spent a lot of time wandering lanes and fields, fossicking, tree climbing, feeling connected to nature and the seasons. As I grew up and worked, that connection faded without me realising it.
I can still enjoy nature in my small London garden now. I count species and call myself a nature watcher, not really a twitcher, particularly. But I’ll watch birds for hours and find that stalking instinct both enthralling and calming.
It seems everything is focused on screens and the present moment. Things pass us by quickly; it feels like it was just Christmas, and now it's spring. I do notice the birds and seasons, but life moves fast and we forget so quickly. Like complaining about the rain and then wondering where it went during a summer heatwave and hosepipe ban. We're such immediate creatures.
My industry perpetuates this. There's always a drive to complete a project and move on to the next. And the process always seems to be at odds with the elements. We’re always fighting the light, the temperature, the weather.
The End We Start From, which is partly about flooding, was filmed during a heatwave. This meant we were always battling the elements – trying to look cold when it’s boiling hot, and when it did rain at the wrong moment - ignoring the rain for the camera. But ultimately the project felt beautiful and uplifting. The End We Start From is about motherhood and survival, it connects to nature deeply; reproducing, protecting, surviving.
There are opportunities for popular culture to incorporate nature into its messaging. Jurassic Park is a huge, blockbuster of a franchise that also brilliantly discusses ecosystems and the consequences of tampering with nature; how it can literally bite your head off. It’s terrifying and thrilling to see ourselves as part of the food chain. More films should show humans as part of nature, and the repercussions when we overstep.
But you can’t be too on-the-nose or doom-laden or you’ll turn people off. But then the message rarely comes through because the disconnect is so huge. We’ll root for the chickens in Chicken Run only to eat some poor factory-farmed animal straight afterwards.
In an ideal world, I'd definitely seek out more projects like The End We Start From. For one, it’s such a beautifully written novella. But also, it's not a typical disaster movie. Even in its depiction of rain, water, and the chaos and fear, there's an otherworldly, ethereal beauty to it. The water isn't demonised; it's not us against the water. Instead, it's about humans coping, or not coping, with what's happening. I won’t deny it’s a terrible vision of things to come, but it has this note of optimism, which combined with the very female-centric story of resilience and strength and instinct, made it very appealing.
More films should show humans as part of nature, and the repercussions when we overstep.
I would like to see the aftermath of a story like The End We Start From a year later to see if any real change occurred or if they simply reverted to old habits, much like how quickly we returned to pre-COVID norms. We saw how quickly things can change for the better; the quality of our air, the health of our water, the sound of birds. But we fall into this cycle of learning and forgetting straight away. We experience brief moments of clarity where we see evidence of an improved environment, but quickly fall back into old patterns because it seems too difficult not to.
“Nature finds a way”. Even in the harshest conditions, life persists and adapts. When we inherited our tiny garden of rubble, there was nothing. Within months of giving it space and not using any pesticides, it became a haven for wildlife; slow worms, toads, insects, birds, bats. This resilience should inspire us to create and protect spaces where nature can thrive, even in a bit of rubble. Whether it’s a tree by the side of a motorway or an urban garden, we can find joy and hope in the perseverance of life and doing our part to support it.
Will we be okay? It depends on how we define "okay." And okay for whom? Change is inevitable, as we’ve knocked the world out of balance. And while I might long for things to stay the same or revert to an earlier state, we must adapt and evolve.
Humans have moved faster than nature, and while that has its benefits, it means we have to change our relationship to it. Ultimately, embracing change as a positive force while striving for a cleaner, healthier environment for everyone is crucial, and will balance our desires for comfort and beauty with the need for a sustainable future.
As told to Edward Owen-Burge on 3 April 2024. This conversation was edited & condensed for clarity.
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