Harriet Walter never had children: The fact is I never felt cut out for it

Harriet Walter is just one of those magnificent British character actors who ends up popping up everywhere. You’ve seen her in Succession (she plays Logan’s ex-wife), Ted Lasso (Rebecca’s mother), Downton Abbey, Star Wars, The Crown, Call the Midwife, Sense & Sensibility and a million other film and television shows. She’s enjoying a late-career revival because of her recurring roles in Lasso and Succession, but she’s been around for decades and she’s amazing. Well, Walter participated in one of those “day in the life” interviews with the Times of London, and she’s funny and eccentric, and she also talks breezily about why she’s happily childfree. Some highlights:

She sleeps in: “When I read A Life in the Day and someone says they’re up at 6am and in the gym by 6.15, I feel like a failure. I don’t go to the gym and I’m rarely up before 8.30. Having said that, I go for a brisk walk every morning to kick myself into the day.

On ageism: “I don’t think it should matter what anyone looks like. I get tired of talking about ageism in this industry, but I still come across things that make me angry. The judgmental straitjacket that is applied to older roles for women: the wicked mother or aunt.

Why would an aristocratic woman fall for Logan Roy? “Which I suppose brings us on to Lady Caroline [Kendall, Roman and Shiv’s mother in Succession]. Would I call her wicked? She was brought up in that loveless, English upper-class milieu and escaped to London in the 1960s, looking for some druggy adventures and a bit of rough. I imagine her meeting Logan at a party and being fascinated by how rude he is.

Why she isn’t a mother: “I never had children — does that mean I can’t play Lady Caroline? I sometimes wonder if I could bring something else to the part if I had. The fact is I never felt cut out for it. In my mid-forties I embarked on a relationship with a man 16 years older than me [the actor Peter Blythe]. He died at 69 and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let anyone else into my life. Five years on my own changed that. I met Guy [Paul, an actor], we got married and we’re happy. I have friends with children who have been in long marriages and they’re unhappy. I have friends with no children, no partner and they’re blissfully happy. There are no rules.

On Star Wars: “When I saw the original Star Wars in 1977, I was fascinated by scenes where humans, aliens and androids were sharing the same world. That leapt out at me as a metaphor for a multicultural world. Maybe in the future we wouldn’t argue about who we are or where we’re from. I suppose we can still hope.

[From The Times]

I’ve wondered how Logan Roy would have ended up married to an English aristocrat and my guess is that the backstory on it was that he was actively seeking legitimacy within British society for a time. Caroline probably liked that he had money and that he was “a bit of rough,” as she says, that he was crude and he wasn’t part of her stuffy world. Who knows though – they were terrible parents and their kids are idiots. As for Walter’s talk of not feeling cut out to be a mother… I love that, and I love that she didn’t feel societal pressure to get married and have a kid just because every woman of her generation was doing the same. Some women aren’t cut out to be mothers! And some women who are mothers aren’t cut out for it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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