Joanna Lumley: ‘I love Ireland as much as you can if you're not an Irish person'

Irish Times

14 hours ago

There are few surprises more pleasant than
Joanna Lumley
popping up on Zoom and offering a quick tour of her art collection. 'The Princess of the Circus' she declares, tilting her camera to reveal the 1946
Jack B Yeats
watercolour that has pride of place on the wall of her home office. 'Ooh-la-la, I never thought I'd get that. When I did, I danced the Highland fling.'
Lumley is great fun – full of joie de vivre whether discussing her passion for Irish art, her disapproval of
Dublin's
Molly Malone statue
(more of which later) or her enthusiasm for
Netflix's
Wednesday
, in which she has a starring role as irreverent Addams family grandmother Hester Frump as the blockbusting show returns for a second season on August 6th.
In the case of Wednesday, the former Bond girl and Absolutely Fabulous star was delighted at the opportunity to return to Ireland, the official Wednesday Addams HQ following the relocation of production from Romania to Ashford Studios in Wicklow. She explains that she has worked in Wicklow before, filming Ella Enchanted at Ardmore opposite Anne Hathaway and Minnie Driver in 2002.
'To come back to Ireland, where I'd done films at the Ardmore Studios before, and the story of the Addams family, it was magic,' she says.
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She was furthermore thrilled to reconnect with
Tim Burton
, having collaborated on his 2005 stop-motion feature Corpse Bride. She was also drawn to Wednesday's spooky setting of Nevermore Academy, which, in a roundabout way, reminded her of her own childhood.
Lumley was born in India into a military family in the final years of the Raj but lived in Hong Kong and Malaysia until she was eight. When she thinks back to her early life she remembers endless summers and giant flowers that would bloom overnight and disappear just as quickly. She recalls, too, the upheaval of moving to Britain for school: the gloom, the damp, the chill that got in your bones and never left.
'I found Britain unbearably cold,' she says. 'The horror of it was that I could never get warm. But what was so lovely was that, having come from a tropical place – massive storms and no seasons, everything was always green, no leaves falling and different colours, different lengths of days, all that. And I began to love and value that about our countries – looking forward to spring, seeing the buds coming up, is part of this thrill of life.'
She was reminded of all of this when she was in Wicklow for Wednesday. As the show returns for its second season, woebegone Wednesday (
Jenna Ortega
) has come back from her summer holidays for a new term at the forbidding Nevermore Academy, a place of darkness, mystery and things going bump into the night.
Cold rooms, creaking corridors and enigmatic teachers all conspired to bring Lumley back to her own youth and the draughty boarding school in Hastings, Sussex to which she was sent aged 11. The difference was that, rather than Wednesday's cast of witches and wizards, her instructors were Anglican nuns.
Joanna Lumley in her recent travel series Joanna Lumley's Danube. Photograph: Burning Bright Productions/ITV
'They were Anglo-Catholic, as opposed to Catholic. They were what we would call blue stockings in that they were great teachers,' Lumley recalls. 'They taught French and Latin and ancient Greek and chemistry and physics and things. And they didn't try to make us too holy. They wanted us to turn into being good people, interesting people.'
There wasn't much luxury – none at all, in fact. Yet she feels the richer for the experience. 'It was a poor school. It didn't have any money. So we had very cold corridors lit by gas lamps and cold little dormitories and little thin iron beds and the windows propped open at night-time. And sometimes you'd wake in the morning, there'd be snow on the floor of the dormitory, or leaves have blown in overnight. The food was pretty grim. But it was such a happy place. It was fine. That sort of not-hardship, but it was quite hard, you know, quite sort of tough. It sets you up for life. Because then it's a hotel you're staying in, if isn't it up to scratch, it's not as bad as school.'
School was followed by a stint in modelling and an exciting life in swinging London. Her life on screen began in 1969 as a minor Bond girl in George Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It was the start of a career which included Hammer horrors, soaps (she featured in eight episodes of Coronation Street in 1973 as Ken Barlow's girlfriend) and the fantastically weird 1979 BBC sci-fi drama Sapphire and Steel, in which she was winningly chilly as a mordant time traveller.
It was 1992, however, before the world realised she could be funny when Jennifer Saunders cast her in Absolutely Fabulous as ghastly fashionista Patsy. A huge hit, the show revealed Lumley to be a gifted comedian – a talent she showcases dazzlingly in Wednesday, where she holds her own against the deadpan Ortega.
'I was always the sort of the clown of the family. So it was quite odd, actually, when I started acting, never to be cast in funny parts – always to be some strait-laced, pretty girlfriend or something,' she says.
'So boring, so awful. So you can imagine when Absolutely Fabulous came along, and one was allowed to let rip, it was fantastic. The more Jennifer and I made each other laugh, the more she would write madder and madder scenes. The more ghastly the women became, the more we loved them.'
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
Wednesday series one was a huge global hit for Burton and Netflix in 2022; it made a star of Jenna Ortega and scooped multiple Emmys. The show remains in the same deliciously glum groove in season two, for which production has shifted from Romania to Ashford. The cast has expanded, too, to include Steve Buscemi (as Nevermore's new principal) and Lady Gaga (whose part is shrouded in mystery).
But these starry newcomers will have their work cut out outshining Lumley's impish Hester – mother to Catherine Zeta-Jones's Morticia Addams and grandmother to Wednesday.
Lumley is a whirlwind unleashed upon unsuspecting Nevermore and, at 79, retains her comic timing. Ever the eager-beaver girl scout, she threw herself into the production and enjoyed every moment – even the long hours in the make-up chair.
'The care that they took to make this brand new character, a grandmother – mother of Morticia, grandmother of Wednesday – to make her look the way they wanted it,' she says.
'I had two wigs. They prepare your hair so all your hair has gone, gone, gone away. Scraped and waxed and pin, pin, pinned back, and then a wig cap on. Then the first wig was white, and then the next wig was black, on top of the white one. I can't tell you the time and brilliance they did. Doing it every day like that. So it was fantastic. And then the clothes are quite corseted and these heavy boots you're pushed into.'
Hester is a naughty older confidante to Wednesday – encouraging her granddaughter's rebellious streak to the disapproval of the more sensible Morticia. Lumley sees something of her teenage self in Wednesday – a kindly soul but a bit of a rule-breaker too.
'I was polite, so I wasn't horrid. But I was probably quite naughty. Naughtiness in those days, breaking bounds, meant staying out after lights or going beyond the games field where you weren't supposed. So it was all quite humble stuff.'
She said yes to Wednesday on the spot, drawn to the spooky material and keen to collaborate once more with Tim Burton. The other big attraction was the chance to work again in Ireland and explore her passion for WB Yeats and his artist brother Jack.
The love affair with Irish culture is a long-running one. She recalls crossing paths with Edna O'Brien at dinner parties in the 1970s and grows starry eyed discussing her fondness for the country's most famous poets.
'I met Seamus Heaney once,' she says. 'I was trembling so much I could hardly get my copy of Rattle Bag out. And I said to [English poet] Ted Hughes, who I knew slightly, 'Do you think Mr Heaney would sign this?' And he said, 'Well, just go and ask him. He'll only sign if he wants to.' With shaking hands, I went up and he signed my book for me.'
She has fond memories of visiting Sligo in June 2015 to participate in the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats's birth. She cut the ribbon for the Yeats garden at the Model arts centre and read from his work at Hargadon's pub. She is every bit as keen on Jack B Yeats – as she demonstrates when tilting her camera to reveal The Princess of the Circus. 'WB, I have poems stuck everywhere. I have some of them by heart. Jack Yeats, who I came to quite late – I was simply blown away.'
Joanna Lumley at the Chelsea Flower Show in London in May. Photograph:for The King's Trust
To her delight Netflix put her up at the Merrion Hotel – across the road from the National Gallery, with its collection of Yeats's paintings. She took in other landmarks – including the Molly Malone statue, the 'notorious Tart with the Cart' whose appendages are enthusiastically – and controversially – fondled by tourists. This is a subject close to her heart.
'Oh, look, Ed, can you write this? Please? This really meant something so much to me, because I love Ireland as much as you can if you're not an Irish person. When I eventually saw the statue of Molly Malone and her very low-cut dress and everyone touching her ... Listen to the song: 'In Dublin's Fair City ... she wheels her wheelbarrow.' Now she was a little fishmonger. She was as pretty as a picture, but she probably had a shawl around her head. Little girl up from the docks, smelling of fish, with a little narrow waist and a little white beautiful face – that Irish colour, sheet-white with black hair, green eyes. She wasn't a blousy great woman with a dress down to here. So the statue is wrong.'
She pauses for emphasis. 'Okay, this is my long, long-winded way, Ed, of saying: make a proper Molly Malone statue.'
Wednesday Addams's dorm room sits in magnificently creepy silence. It is dominated by that famous spider-pattern window, with its melodramatic views over Nevermore Academy. To one side, Wednesday's typewriter is set on a table next to a bare-boned bed. The walls at the opposite end are festooned in colour – the favoured style of Wednesday's quirky best friend and roommate, Enid.
To reach Wednesday's inner sanctum and her boarding school, Nevermore, the traveller must take a long and winding road, the M11, which stretches from Dublin's M50 into deepest Wicklow – and which leads to Ashford Studios, where cameras have rolled on one of the world's biggest TV shows since early 2024.
Wednesday series one was shot in Romania. But Ireland was always the first choice for showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and when studio space finally became available, they enthusiastically upped sticks. Ireland was more accessible than central Europe, and much further from Ukraine, which Russia invaded when the production team was putting the final touches to the first season.
'We shot our last series [Into the Badlands] here. So we've been to Ireland before. We love it so and it's been fantastic,' says Gough.
The nice thing about being in Ireland, which I completely appreciate about the Irish, is that they don't give a damn about celebrities
—
Showrunner Alfred Gough
He is speaking to The Irish Times from his production office on the first floor at Ashford – next door to the dressingroom of
Catherine Zeta-Jones
(who plays Wednesday's mother, Morticia Addams) and up the stairs from the studio space housing Wednesday's dorm and Nevermore's gleefully grotesque new science lab – in part inspired by Dublin's 'Dead Zoo' aka the Natural History Museum on Merrion Square.
It's a 'closed set', meaning journalists are not allowed within gawping distance of the cast. So there is no opportunity to watch Jenna Ortega reprise her part as woebegone Wednesday or executive producer Tim Burton return to direct four of the eight episodes in his distinctively baroque style. Nor is there confirmation of the presence of
Lady Gaga
, rumoured to have flown in to Wicklow to shoot a cameo the previous week.
Gough is avuncular in that gosh-darn American way. He is also a proven hitmaker, as demonstrated by series such as Smallville and Into the Badlands, the Wicklow-filmed fantasy caper that has a loyal cult audience. Wednesday, however, is a success on an entirely different scale. When it launched in 2022, it became one of the world's most beloved binge watches more or less overnight, propelling Ortega to instant stardom.
'Do you anticipate that? No,' says Gough. 'We thought the show was good. And we thought it would appeal to the audience everybody thought it would appeal to [ie Addams Family and Burton fans]. Then when it kind of became this other thing ... That's a combination of factors.'
He feels Wednesday is the perfect heroine for troubled times. While outwardly hostile and aloof, underneath she is vulnerable and unsure of herself – an introvert in an extrovert's world. Coming out of the pandemic, millions identified with a shy young woman who wanted nothing more than to be given the space to be herself. Gough nods. 'It was the right show at the right time, where, clearly, everybody identified with Wednesday and feels like an outcast.'
Joonas Suotamo, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jenna Ortega, Isaac Ordonez and Luis Guzmán in series two of Wednesday. Photograph: Helen Sloan/Netflix
Several factors contribute to a hit such as Wednesday, he continues. Ortega was a star in the making, having appeared in Netflix's You and Yes Day, while Burton, director of the 1989 Batman movie and of Beetlejuice, has a significant following. And the Addams Family has brand recognition – largely thanks to the early 1990s films starring a young Christina Ricci as Wednesday. But sometimes it's all down to luck, feels Gough.
'That's just when you hit the culture at a certain point. We had that experience with Smallville,' he says, referring to the all-American Superman prequel which celebrated the wholesomeness of small-town life.
'Smallville came out in 2001, a month after 9/11, and it was suddenly like comfort food for the American soul. Everybody needed a hero and that. Some of these things you can't predict. But then I do think it speaks to the power of Netflix and the power of that platform.'
[
Wednesday: The Addams Family gets a Gen Z twist – and Tim Burton gets his mojo back
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]
Wednesday is set in rural Vermont – for which Wicklow was the perfect stand-in. The producers made full use of dark and mysterious forests around Roundwood – and of 18th-century Powerscourt Estate, which it repurposed as the palatial residence of Hester Frump, Wednesday's impish grandmother, played by Lumley. A favourable tax regime helped too: Ireland recently improved its Section 481 film and TV incentives, raising the cap on eligible expenditure from €70 million to €125 million (each of Wednesday's eight new episodes carries a reported budget of around €17 million).
'We tried to get here in season one, and it was right after the pandemic, when the world, at least the film world, was opening up again,' says Gough. 'And literally between Brexit and the rush of other productions, we couldn't. There was no stage. Our last show was called Into the Badlands. And the old warehouses that we had shot in, I think, had become Covid test centres or, like, package depots because of Brexit. So we ended up in Romania season one, which worked out great. It gave us all the space that we needed, but it wasn't conducive for a long-term television show. When we had the opportunity to come to Ireland, we all jumped on it.'
Gough acknowledges there is pressure – after Stranger Things and Squid Game, Wednesday is Netflix's bigger franchise. The streamer has doubled the budget for series two, but there are also concerns over whether its audience has remained loyal; after all, the 14-year-olds who went crazy for Wednesday's goth chic in 2022 will be 17 in 2025 and may have moved on. Gough tries not to get bogged down in any of that. He quotes Quentin Tarantino's mantra about film-making: ultimately, you have to create something you yourself would wish to watch.
'If we don't love it, how are we supposed to expect anyone else to love it?' he says. 'We have a very high bar for ourselves. It's harder, obviously, with all the noise, and it obviously affects the actors and other things. And you know, we're not some little show in the middle of eastern Europe this year.'
Amid the hype, he feels Ireland has kept everyone grounded – one final magical ingredient sprinkled into Netflix's bubbling, boiling bingewatch cauldron.
'If we had been in America trying to shoot the show, or even in the UK, we'd have a lot of paparazzi. There'd be a lot of spoiler pictures. We've had very little of that,' he says. 'The nice thing about being in Ireland, which I completely appreciate about the Irish is that they don't give a damn about celebrities. You do not care.'