Andrea Riseborough is one of the major rising stars of British cinema and her latest film sees her team up with Clive Owen.
Shadow Dancer is released on DVD on Monday and the young actress talks about her role.
- What personally touched you about the story of Colette McVeigh, an Irish woman forced to spy on her family and community for British intelligence?
For me, the truly interesting thing was that Colette could be anything. She has really no idea of what she can be or who she is. The situation and her life exists within this context and it informs so much of who she is and what she does.
I’m not sure she’s ever been afforded the time to really have any kind of self-development or analysis or a moment to even know what she likes or dislikes because her life has not been about her.
Yet she has a very full inner life with none of the luxury of being able to fully express it externally.
- Does that make her the opposite of you, in that as an actress you’ve been able to express what’s inside of you?
Why do you assume that? When you get to the point where you can have an artistic voice or a creative voice in any sense, you certainly do then have a forum with which to explore all sorts of different things. But my life is separate and completely different.
Yes, I am an artist and as artists we are married to who we are, it’s part of us. But I think Colette’s story is a universal one in the sense that we’ve all been in a situation where the thing that we love and that we’re trying to protect is the very same thing that’s trapping us. And that thing in Shadow Dancer is Colette’s family.
- Colette wears a striking red raincoat in several scenes. It seems an odd choice for a character who’s trying to hide. Is there any symbolism behind it?
It’s rooted in a reality. It was for me anyways because I felt protected by being so aesthetically bold. I’m talking both as Colette and myself as well.
When we were thinking about costume, if I choose to wear that red coat, there’s a confidence that comes with a colour like that that says, 'I am what you see.'
I felt protected by it. Also, Colette is a young woman who has a sexuality and that she suddenly would start wearing beige macs and being dowdy and looking inconspicuous would probably be the most telling sign of somebody who was informing.
- Did you talk to people in Northern Ireland who had been through similar experiences to your character?
That’s not something that I can talk about because it’s still an open wound.
- The film was shot in Dublin. Didn’t you travel to Belfast as much as you were able to during the shoot to stay attuned to the community?
Yes, but with much more ease than you’d expect. It’s a simple train ride away and on a train ride you see all sorts of different things. You literally see a world changing and then changing back. For me, that journey was as useful as being there was.
- At one point Mac (Clive Owen) shows Colette a file implying that the younger brother she believed had been killed by British soldiers had actually been felled by an IRA bullet. Is that true or a trick?
She can never know. The effectiveness of that ploy is nothing sensational. I think the wonderful thing that James [Marsh] has achieved is very well observed, but when you notice details like that you are as blind to what the real truth is as the character.
Because how will Colette ever prove one way or another if it’s true or not? It’s just a world of lies and deception and fear, and truly I think James has really brought the audience into her soul - the horrible tension that she’s gripped in throughout the two hours. I know when I was watching it, I was living through it all again.
- Has revenge played a substantial role in the evolution of Colette’s character?
When you’re inside of it, it’s not something that you articulate. You mentally articulate it even if you can’t express it to anybody other than yourself.
But James also allows us as actors to have our own relationship with the story and that’s actually something that we never talked about. We didn’t need to because we both understand it intellectually and objectively but in terms of what James is trying to achieve and what I’m trying to achieve, they’re such different things.
We are working towards the same goal but he has the objective view and I’m inside of it as Colette. And of course revenge is a propelling force in terms of everything that Colette does but what it really comes down to is a feeling of inadequacy. And that’s something universal.
- The funeral sequence is impressive because it’s built on such a delicate balance between the police coming and the mourners attempting to fire an IRA salute in honour of their fallen comrade.
It felt almost desperately euphoric to film that scene. It was deeply sad and moving and euphoric at the same time - very strange.
- You have several potent scenes with Clive Owen. Did you find him an energising on-screen partner?
I think the wonderful and very brilliant thing about Clive’s performance is his vulnerability. There are only a handful of actors who could achieve that kind of strength and reserve and vulnerability.
Shadow Dancer is released on DVD 14th January.
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