Joanna Lumley sometimes slips into her character Pasty from ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ just for fun.
Joanna Lumley with Jennifer Saunders at Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie premiere in 2016
The 76-year-old actress played the iconic Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom alongside Jennifer Saunders from 1992 to 2012, a performance which landed her two BAFTA TV Awards, and most recently reprised her alter ego in the 2016 movie adaptation.
Lumley - who is married to conductor Stephen Barlow - simply adores ageing party girl Patsy and on occasions she will pull her hair up and say "hi sweetie" just for her own amusement.
In an interview with Candis magazine, she said: "I adore Patsy!
"She does follow me around … She's like an avatar on my shoulder. But I've been around for so long and have done so many different things that when I meet people they're as likely to say, 'Hi, Joanna. What was it like in Mongolia?' As they are to say, 'Hi, Patsy.' But they do adore her, as I do, and sometimes it's quite nice just to put my hair up... and say, 'Hi, sweetie.' So she's still around.”
Lumley also claims that she improvised a lot of the traits and mannerism that Patsy became famous for as she took what Saunders, 64, wrote on the page and then ran with it.
She added: "She was the most complicated, ridiculous creature - she was gender fluid, she'd had so many organs taken out because she'd abused everything, she'd had a rough childhood, and her best friend was Edina, for heaven's sake!
"I didn't base her on anyone - Jennifer Saunders wrote her and the rest came out of my head.”
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