Alex Kingston: ‘My favourite TV series? ER — it really holds up’
Category: Interview
EXCLUSIVE: Strictly’s Alex Kingston details ‘silly snobbery’ that saw her banned from BBC show
EXCLUSIVE: TV and film and stage actress Alex Kingston says she’s long hankered to take part in Strictly, but was held back by fears it would damage her theatre career
Alex Kingston says she’s wanted to do Strictly for as long as she can remember(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC/Ray Burmiston)
Alex Kingston has revealed she’s been desperate to appear on Strictly Come Dancing ever since her role alongside George Clooney in ER came to an end in 2004 – but was banned by her agent.
Now the actress, who played Dr Elizabeth Corday in the hit US medical drama, says she believes the “silly” snobbery around serious stage actors taking part in reality TV is finally breaking down.
And Alex, also known for her role as Doctor Who’s iconic recurring character River Song, was delighted when she finally got the go-ahead to sign up for the BBC ballroom show.
“It’s funny because I’ve been asked in the past and my agent always sort of said, ‘No, you can’t do it’, she explained. “Now I think it’s just that I’ve got to a certain stage in my life where he’s like, ‘If you want to do it, Alex…’ because I’ve been wanting to do it for 20 years.
“For a long time I think there’s been a sort of stigma around Strictly and popular television. And if you’re a theatre actor, theatre actors don’t participate – which is silly. And it’s not true. I think it’s changing now, I really do. I think people are more generous in terms of their opinions about Strictly.”
Asked why that might be, she mused: “Maybe because it’s been going for so long? Or that you’re seeing more actors just going, ‘sod it, I want to do it’. I mean I really don’t know!”
And she added that being a theatre star shouldn’t mean she only performs for a certain elite group of people. “Just because I do Shakespeare, Shakespeare wrote populist plays, you know?” she points out. “He didn’t write for a certain level of society. So it’s a way of connecting with your audience.”
Seeing her close pal and fellow actor Sarah Hadland take part last year – and reach the final – only made Alex want to do it more. “My friends have all said, ‘you’ve been banging on about it – thank God you’re finally doing it.’
But the Surrey-born star, who wed third husband Jonathan Stamp in 2015, says she did pause for thought at the last moment – especially when Sarah told her how demanding the whole experience could be. “I know that it’s going to be really challenging, and we’re all going to be pushed really to the edge, and beyond, of our comfort zone. But that’s what life’s for, isn’t it? Just jumping in, going for it. Doing things you’ll never regret.”
Alex Kingston: “The thing that my mum gave me, right at the end, was she showed me how to die.”
Currently starring as an irascible tabloid newspaper editor in the ITV comedy Douglas is Cancelled, and former star of the global smash hit medical drama ER, British actress Alex Kingston talks candidly about the most challenging – and rewarding – role of her life….as a carer.
Born in Epsom in 1963 Alex Kingston joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after three years at RADA. She made her big screen breakthrough in 1989’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, followed seven years later by her starring role as Moll Flanders opposite Daniel Craig. In 1997 she relocated to LA to play Doctor Elizabeth Corday in the globally successful medical drama ER, where she stayed for 14 years. Twice divorced – from Ralph Fiennes and Florian Haertel, with whom she shared 23-year-old daughter Salome – she married third husband Jonathan Stamp in 2015.
You’ve just finished performing in The Other Boleyn Girl at the Chichester Theatre. How did that go?
It was actually a very intense time as my father died during the middle of the run so I had to just park the grief and get on with the play. By the time the play finished, I was pretty burnt out actually so right now I’m just starting to let go and feel a bit more like myself again.
Suspending your emotions like that must have been incredibly difficult.
It’s just kind of what you have to do. I managed it literally, by having to just put those emotions into a box and know that I would have to deal with them later.
Because the character I was playing was so hard-nosed I think that in a funny sort of way it enabled me to do that. If I was playing a character, or going on a more emotionally raw journey in a play, that would have been more of a struggle.
Your mother also passed away only three years ago so did that initial loss make your secondary loss any less traumatic to deal with?
In a funny sort of way, it did prepare me for the loss of my dad. The good thing was that I had been with my mum when she died as my sister was stuck in France during Covid because of the restrictions, but this time my sister was with my dad.
I was in rehearsals, and we knew he didn’t have long but I thought he’d have at least 16 hours and I’d be able to get there in time but he actually went very fast so that was some sort of comfort, before I got there.
And just sitting with my sister and holding his hand and talking to him still and being very conscious and aware that he was somehow still there, his spirit was still in his body and his body wasn’t just a vessel yet, was comforting.
We spent three hours sitting there sharing stories about him and that was important. And then I had to go back into the world of the play but at least I felt like I’d had some sort of communication, some sort of signing off with my dad but actually processing it couldn’t happen until later.