Patricia Hodge on the Hollywood casting couch, wage gaps and nudity

‘I didn’t think the monocle would work,’ confesses Patricia Hodge. ‘But it did in the end.’ In A Very English Scandal Hodge plays Jeremy Thorpe’s formidable mother, Ursula, who sports an eccentric eye-piece, the better to keep a keen eye on her devilish son.

The excellent three-part drama details the relationship between Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe and his ex-lover Norman Scott, and led to one of British politics’ biggest storms and illuminated the darkest secrets of the Establishment. 

Patricia Hodge reveals that attempts were made to coerce her into appearing nude in certain roles

In A Very English Scandal Patricia Hodge plays Jeremy Thorpe’s formidable mother, Ursula

In A Very English Scandal Patricia Hodge plays Jeremy Thorpe’s formidable mother, Ursula

With a more recent scandal in mind, I ask if Hodge saw eye-to-eye with her superb co-stars Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw on the sticky subject of wages. In light of Claire Foy’s gender pay gap dispute after The Crown, could Hodge ask Hugh Grant how much he was getting paid? 

‘I certainly couldn’t,’ she declares. ‘It’s one thing that you never do because it puts a value on everybody’s head. Just do the job, frankly. 

‘It’s sometimes better not to know.’ 

Refreshingly Hodge, 71, has always spoken her mind. In a 46-year career that has taken her from the sexually liberated stage musical Hair to the female-driven sitcom Miranda, Hodge now hopes that the old Hollywood ‘casting couch’ has been hoisted onto the #MeToo fire for good.

 Yet she has the faintest suspicion about a few of the complainants fanning the flames. ‘I have no doubt that people have stepped forward with good reason,’ the estimable English actress, of Rumpole Of The Bailey and Downton Abbey renown, says. ‘I very much doubt that there are fantasists. 

‘There’s nothing wrong with being an actress,' says Hodge when asked if she prefers a gender-neutral job description

‘There’s nothing wrong with being an actress,’ says Hodge when asked if she prefers a gender-neutral job description

‘But there have always been actresses who will go into an audition with their t*** showing and with their skirt up here because they knew that was half the job,’ she claims controversially. ‘If the director fancies you that’s going to give you a good chance. I don’t blame them for that. But you are actually giving out a message that might send to the recipient, “Oh, right, you’re up for it, are you?” 

‘I never gave out that particular message,’ she says, with cut-glass enunciation. ‘You could say nobody wanted to have a go.’ 

Hodge also reveals that attempts were made to coerce her into appearing nude in certain roles. ‘I was a victim of that, early in my career,’ she acknowledges coolly. 

‘There’d be a job, and then you discovered that you’d have to take your clothes off. 

‘You’d feel pressurised, absolutely. It was, either you do it or you don’t do the job.’ 

Hodge disrobed, with artistic intent, for the 1975 television dramatisation of Muriel Sparks’ The Girls Of Slender Means and the TV movie The One And Only Phyllis Dixey, about the first British woman to perform striptease. 

 There’d be a job – and then you discovered you’d have to take your clothes off

‘In each case it was not gratuitous, it was actually part of the story,’ she recalls and shrugs at the suggestion that people can now Google the work, should they choose. ‘If they want to then they can, it doesn’t bother me.’ 

Dressed today in a subtle shade of olive, Hodge, whom her friend Miranda Hart calls ‘Mum Two’, is sipping a small coffee at her local members’ club in Barnes, south-west London. The soaring success of Miranda gave Hodge’s profile an espresso-strength boost between 2009-15. Her character, Penny, Miranda’s interventional middle-class mother, was a blast, her giddy catchphrase ‘Such fun!’ a mixed blessing. 

‘People shout it at me but I usually just laugh,’ she shrugs. ‘I have had people come up to me in supermarkets and say, “Oh my God, it’s you. Go on, go on, say it.” I say, “No, I can’t do it out of context. It’s not going to work.”’ 

Having grumbled good-naturedly in 2012 that all the best older female roles went to Judi Dench, Maggie Smith or Vanessa Redgrave, Hodge was invited to appear in the finale of Downton Abbey, as Mrs Miranda Pelham, Bertie’s mother, alongside Smith. But what should have been a joyous occasion for Hodge coincided with a terrible time personally. 

Refreshingly Hodge, 71, has always spoken her mind. In a 46-year career that has taken her from the sexually liberated stage musical Hair to the female-driven sitcom Miranda

Refreshingly Hodge, 71, has always spoken her mind. In a 46-year career that has taken her from the sexually liberated stage musical Hair to the female-driven sitcom Miranda

Her husband of 40 years, the music publisher Peter Owen, had been diagnosed with dementia in 2013 and she had recently made the heartbreaking decision to put him into a care home. ‘It was at a difficult time in my life,’ she says. ‘I was very run-down, but you can’t say no to Downton.’ 

Owen died in 2016 and Hodge dedicated her OBE, awarded last November, to the memory of her late husband. ‘I did,’ she says quietly. ‘Although when it came in the post it looked like an electioneering pamphlet, I promise you.’ 

Her OBE was for services to drama, which begs the modern-day question: does she prefer to be called an ‘actress’ or an ‘actor’, as the non-gender-specific terminology prefers? ‘It’s always a bit confusing,’ she sighs. ‘I don’t understand that whole thing of making it gender-neutral. Why do we have to do it?’ Hodge laughs, draining her dainty cup and gathering herself with Penny-like purpose. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being an actress.’



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