| Clare
Holman talks about the incredible thriller why-dunnit Fallen Angel
Clare plays Wendy
For her role as Wendy Appleton in FALLEN ANGEL Clare Holman had to play the character in her 30s, 40s and 60s.
This was the biggest challenge for me, playing the three different ages, starting at 62 supposedly going to 47 and then down to 34 which are quite significant differences in ages. And because it’s television, not theatre, it’s how to make it believable on screen," explains Clare.
The oldest role was definitely the most difficult. I slowed her up and used the consequences of my actions to inform my behaviour – I had to keep re-reading the third episode to inform how I act in the first!
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It was very interesting to see what might happen to me in my 60s. I didn't want to stagger about theatrically being old but what surprised me was how invisible you become when you get older. It was horrible, really horrible.
I took in a photograph of my mum and they copied the hair and everything, but what you discover is that people ignore you, if you have grey hair people ignore you - so I made a vow that I would never have grey, permed hair.
Filming a story in rewind means the cast are constantly making decisions about their characters without having played scenes from their earlier life.
Says Clare: There is a stripping away of knowledge. We become more and more innocent. For Wendy that journey backwards is a broadening one. She made a mistake early on and has to live with the consequences of that for the rest of her life.
I think everything that happens to her from that point on means that she behaves in a very guilty way and when you’re guilty you try to hide that guilt, so it makes you behave slightly more angrily than you would normally.
Your response to things is slightly more extreme, or defensive. She’s got a secret which she can’t expose. Because Wendy is always governed by the secret, it dictates everything she does. In film three, where we see her at her youngest, for me it was the most expansive. The character was, in a way, broader because she was uninhibited, she hadn't yet hidden that secret.
In Andrew Taylor's trilogy of novels, upon which Fallen Angel is based, Clare's character Wendy only appears in one book (the third). Peter Ransley’s scripts laced her through all three time frames.
Wendy is like a chorus figure. She’s taking the audience through the three time frames very directly with her, observing quite a lot as well. In Films One and Two, you see her in the background quite a bit, watching, listening. David Drury, the director, told me when I was cast, it’s a bit like the Yorkshire phrase see all, hear all, say nowt. Wendy’s like that…
Talking about her character, Clare expands: If I talk about her journey in chronological order, as opposed to the way it is being shown I would say she starts off as quite political. I think she has probably always been quite anti-religion, and going to stay in a religious household, seeing the consequences of that, is what tips her over into a more extreme stance. She sees her best friend being repressed by Christianity I suppose, and thinks it is making her very unhappy, so she reacts strongly to that.
She disapproves of David, played by Charles Dance, from the beginning. It's almost a feminist issue for Wendy, she can’t stand the male dominance and male hierarchy of the church and what it represents and can’t stand how women are treated as a consequence. I think David bears the brunt of that, but at the same time they go on this bizarre journey together. Through this long and very extreme process they find themselves meeting, crossing, having to work together and then falling out – and at the very last, coming together again.
Clare continues: Wendy is an outspoken person. But her driving force is her humanity, despite her rather abrupt and controlling nature. When we meet Wendy in Film Three, there is a hole in her life. She is childless and has separated from her unfaithful husband. But she is one of those people that can’t mind her own business and is always trying to help other people, quite often resulting in interference.
Her naive curiosity and fascination with the dark and macabre is as damaging in some ways as those people who are dark. Because she’s actually attracted to something in it she pokes her nose in and gets burnt. As a result, she suffers and does learn a terrible lesson.
Wendy's relationship with Rosie/Angel is integral to the drama. Describing that, Clare says: It is a relationship of hate and love at the same time. Wendy is deeply curious about this very strange, angelic looking girl. She is fascinated with her and gets pulled into her world. On one level Wendy loves her because she loves her mother, her best friend Janet, and because she’s a complicated child but on the other hates her because of everything she’s done and everything she represents (including her own childless state). It’s quite a complicated relationship.
It is very cleverly scripted because there are times when young Rosie’s character manipulates Wendy, and even Wendys need for a child. So she’s very clever even at the age of five, she’s pulling this person along to love her then to reject her, and I think Wendy’s very much pulled in by that.
I think it is hard to say whether what happens to us makes us or whether we are like that anyway. There is a very strong central argument of nature versus nurture in the drama. Could that girl have been stopped from becoming a murderer? Could Wendy have stopped her? I don't know the answer and that really is the issue here.
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