None of us are strangers to the unique intrigue of biopics and historical drama – the success of Netflix hit The Crown and the hype surrounding upcoming Marilyn Monroe drama Blonde attests to it – but how do we feel about a TV show telling a story that is still unfolding?
Actor Ophelia Lovibond has been tasked with telling such a tale. She has brought Boris Johnson’s wife Carrie Johnson (née Symonds) to the small screen in Sky's TV drama This England out this Wednesday, 28th September. Also starring Kenneth Branagh as the former Prime Minister, the show follows the monumental events that occurred after the Covid-19 outbreak at the beginning of 2020, as well as the government’s handling of the “first wave” of national lockdowns.
Ophelia catches up with GLAMOUR as the world is reeling from the passing of Queen Elizabeth II – we speak the day after her death was announced. “I was cycling back from yoga this morning, past all the digital billboards of the Queen. It’s surreal to be living through,” she says. “We’ve witnessed so much history the past few years.”
The actor talks confidence, mental health, and her new film See How They Run.
She describes feeling “curious” about how This England will be received by audiences as a different moment in history, seeing as the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed are still felt keenly by all. “It's still so current,” she says. “People have got such strong opinions… [and] might already have made their minds up about [those] involved.”
The thought of the real Carrie watching This England has crossed her mind, Ophelia admits, especially because of the decision she made not to contact the Johnsons while preparing for her role. “Typically, playing a real person is a gift,” Ophelia says, referring to the opportunity to ask questions. “But I felt that speaking to Carrie would’ve made me less objective.”
After going back and forth, she decided to only speak to some people who knew Carrie from her school days, so as not to let too many opinions disrupt the formation of the character. “There's so much written about Carrie in the tabloid press that is inherently unreliable,” Ophelia explains. “I thought it would be more even handed to do as much of my own research as I could and take the facts as they are.”
Kenneth and Ophelia’s physical transformation into the former PM and his wife is really quite extraordinary – a true masterclass by make-up artist Vanessa Martin, who has worked on huge titles such as Bridget Jones’s Diary and Gravity. Ophelia sent a picture of herself as Carrie to her mum, who immediately assumed it was an IRL picture of Mrs Johnson (“I thought to myself ‘okay, that’s a good sign!’”).
She also describes the strange atmosphere conjured by the presence of a Boris and Carrie on set, with passersby and crew alike acting “deferential” to herself and Kenneth even between takes.
And while there was no chemistry read between herself and Kenneth, Ophelia calls the memory of the first time meeting him as Boris an “arresting image”.“I didn't meet Ken, I met Boris,” she explains.
“When I first came into the room with [This England writer and director] Michael Winterbottom, there was Boris and the cameras. [Ken] was doing the voice and the physicality.” The duo began improvising their characters together that day, with filming beginning in early 2021 while lockdown was still in place. This was an odd experience for all while filming, she says.
“Carrie and Boris would be on the front page of newspapers that people would leave lying around on the set,” she explains. And even now, This England will air as we continue to grapple with the shockwaves that the Covid-19 pandemic has sent across the world.
“There’s such an awareness that everything is still unfurling,” Ophelia says. “This is not an event that has finished, [This England] is not a historical piece. It is very much a current affair.”
While Carrie and Boris’ story may be the essence of the show, the experiences of those who lost loved ones during those first tender months of the pandemic are also honoured and told as stories in their own right. Winterbottom has spoken about “anonymising and fictionalising” real-life stories of Covid-19 tragedy that he found in his research, and Ophelia insists that these stories will be the most difficult parts of This England to watch.
“People said, ‘we're all in this together’,” she says. “But we didn't all have exactly the same experience, even though it was a global pandemic. The experiences within it varied. And I think the show depicts that.”
A storyteller of many talents, Ophelia has also recently starred in a different tale in history – one of female sexual identity and liberation. She plays buttoned-up journalist Joyce in HBO's TV comedy Minx, which charts the efforts of a ragtag team making the first pornographic magazine for women in the 1970's. Chemistry sparks between Joyce and porn publisher Doug, played by New Girl sweetheart Jake Johnson.
Time on set sounds like a party – think “assless chaps” and women jumping out of cakes – with many of the more out-there gags being led by the show’s creator Ellen Rappaport. “She would walk around the set twirling dildos,” Ophelia laughs. “She’d stick them in random places on set, and you’d have the continuity team warn us ‘the dildo is in shot’.”
Laughs aside, though – and there are plenty, the show is hilarious – the mission behind Minx was to tease out the tensions between the burgeoning feminist movement in the 1970s and the awkwardness and stigma that existed around female sexuality.
While describing Joyce as a “prude”, Ophelia explains it goes deeper than that. “She’s all for, in theory, fighting for these feminist rights, but in practice she’s quite intimidated by it. She’s frightened, upset. But throughout the show, you see her lean into a kind of sex positivity. Being around people who are more free thinking, she frees herself too.”
The normalisation of male nudity on screen was a major aim for both Minx and Ophelia, as well as increasing focus on the female gaze and not just viewing a woman’s experience of sex as passive. “Sex is often spoken about as something that happens to a woman,” she says. “I hope that Minx shows that this is not the case.”
As This England hits screens in the UK, Ophelia is preparing to return to LA to film Minx’s second season. It was tapped up for another outing just weeks after its US launch earlier this year, leaving her deep in research mode. Burying herself in 1970s glossy magazines is key to her return to playing Joyce, she explains, in order to “furnish the character with a kind of inner life”.
She is quick to point out similarities between her two most recent roles. “Carrie is tenacious,” she explains. “She's ambitious, she's intelligent. She's very charming. She quite robustly bites her point. And I suppose you could say the same of Joyce.”
From Downing Street to naked magazine photoshoots in 1970s Los Angeles, Ophelia’s penchant for telling important stories through the female gaze is undeniable – from politics to pornography.
This England is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and NOW. Minx is available to watch in the UK on Paramount+.
