Hermione Norris: ‘Turning 50 has made me aware of my own mortality’
Cold Feet star Hermione Norris talks TV, films – she’s starring in one next week – and explains why she’s started a bucket list
Hermione Norris is best known as the cool, calm and collected Karen Marsden in Cold Feet. But in new film Love Of
My Life, she plays Tamara, who stole her husband, Richard, from his first wife, Grace – only for him to declare he wants Grace back when he discovers she’s dying. Hermione, who lives in Somerset with her screenwriter and TV producer husband, Simon Wheeler, and children Wilf, 12, and Hero, nine, tells us what’s on her bucket list, and why puckering up on screen makes her cringe…
Love Of My Life opens in cinemas next week. What drew you to the role of Tamara? She was funny, a breath of fresh air and liberating. She just doesn’t care. She’s barking mad, likes a drink and ‘subtle’ is not in her vocabulary! She comes in like a bull in a china shop – all leather trousers and leopard print – a hurricane of chaos. Why is she with Richard? I don’t think you can choose if Cupid’s got his arrow pointed at you!
Did the subject matter of the film make you ponder your own mortality? Oh, I think about that anyway… I’m about to turn 50! You see it around you all the time, don’t you? Especially last year, when every five minutes we lost another icon we’d grown up with. Every time I get on a plane, I pray I get home safe to see my kids.
Have you got a bucket list? I have, and I did a couple of things on it last year. I saw the Northern Lights – they’re completely surreal. We went to Tromsø in Norway, and it’s just otherworldly. It doesn’t get light, so your body goes into this weird shut-down. What else is on the list? Tibet, Vietnam and Japan. I’d love to be able to cook really well, too. I also want to be able to play the piano, do gardening and speak French… lots of things! Do they not have night classes in Somerset?! [Laughs] I don’t have any time at the moment. I’m at full capacity! How do you feel about getting older – is it liberating or dreadful? A bit of both. But I wouldn’t ever go back. You care less about impressing people at this age, definitely. You are more confident. Were you surprised Cold Feet’s comeback went so well? Thank goodness for that, hey? It would’ve been so awful if we’d disappointed, and people thought, ‘Oh, what a shame, they shouldn’t have done it.’ But it always was an extraordinary show, and people have great fondness for the characters. It’s been in my life for over 20 years, and it’s been a huge privilege to be a part of it. We’re filming again until June. How did you feel about doing the sex scenes in Cold Feet? At my age, it’s not a moment you read in the script and think, ‘ Yippee!’ I cringe slightly. It’s not an aspect of the job I particularly look forward to… It’s like an out-of-body experience. I just inhabit Karen. If you could bring back a TV show you used to love, what would it be? One of those really kitsch 70s shows you used to tune in to as a child: The Six Million Dollar Man or Charlie’s Angels. You live in a rural area. What’s life like when you’re not working? I don’t grow my own veg or have chickens, because I go away too much and they’d all die, but being a mum is full-on!