Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons

We've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in

2002 and the presenter was Sue Lolley

My co-host away this week is an actress. Her father, a distinguished Irish actor, told her that she'd never be a classical actress, because he said you haven't got the equipment. Her career has proved this judgment wrong. At the Royal Shakespeare Company, she's played a huge variety of roles.

culminating in her success this year as Cleopatra. She won Best Actress awards for her performance as an alcoholic woman dying of cancer in our Lady of Sligo at the National a few years ago, and before and in between, she's made a host of acclaimed appearances on television and in films. These achievements, she views dispassionately. I'm terrified of huge challenges, she says. I'm still amazed that I managed to achieve being a classical actress. She is Shined Kusek. It indicates that she's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress. She's a great actress.

She's a deal of backbone, she said, that you did that despite what your father, Sligo, Kusek said to you. Obviously, there's a feisty, bold girl in there. There must be somewhere, because I could so easily have been undermined by my dad's judgment of me as an actress. But in fact, it spurred me on. The quote is worse than that. I think what he said was, you know, you've got a pretty little round face. You've got blue eyes and you'll be jolly good on film or the television. Indeed. That's exactly what he said.

But why were you so determined to be a classical actress? I suppose because even then, I had a feeling that that was the world I would most enjoy inhabiting. And it's just proved so. It's instinctive. I mean, then that's how you act. Yes, I suppose you see, what my dad forgot was that he was the role model. I'd seen him on stage much more because we weren't allowed to go to the movies when we were kids, ridiculous irony. But we weren't. We didn't have a television until years, years later. Well, into my teens.

So what I saw was the theatre, because we went to theatre all the time. But some offspring would have been intimidated by that. I mean, with that kind of role when he was so distanced, he treated like royalty in Ireland, wasn't he? He was indeed. Well, I've always thought I fell short of his. I think he had a genius, my dad. You'd have loved him to have seen your clear path, are they, wouldn't you? Well, I would, but he probably would have given me a really hard time for it, you know. But you turned her down apparently, Cleo, for twice, I think, before. Why? And why suddenly this year?

So last year, did you accept, we talked about intimidation. I was thoroughly intimidated by Cleopatra. I thought, you know, that phrase that everybody remembers from the play, a woman of infinite variety. I thought, you can't. How can you do that? How can you ever imagine or have the goal to think you can play such a woman? But you see, I think what really fascinates me about acting is peeling away the layers. So you pull away the iconography of Cleopatra down over the centuries. And you stop pulling

away, and you find yourself. Or you, Sue, she's there. You know, the first line that Cleopatra, and this is the genius of Shakespeare, the first line she has in the play is, if it be love, indeed, tell me how much. Now, isn't that the cry of every woman everywhere? Tell me how much you love me. Tell me about your first record. My first record is, fine and mellow, sung by Billy Holiday. And I would need.

This, to soothe me and help me on my island when I first arrived.

My man don't love me, treats me also me. My man, he don't love me, treats me all for me.

He's the love is man.

Billy Holiday, I'm fine and mellow. There's an innate problem with the role of Cleopatra, isn't there?

Because, you know, you've got, as you say, to be quite experienced before you can tackle her. But at the same time, she has to be devastatingly beautiful.

And not a great problem for you. But I'm sure you perceived it as one that you've got to be incredibly seductive when, you know, you're in your early fifties.

And I think it's what put me off playing the role for so long. So I talk to the designer as Devlin.

And I said, these are my problems. I need to be confident not to believe that I am Cleopatra and the most, basically, beautiful woman in the world.

Although, of course, she wasn't. You know, I've seen on coins. I mean, she had a huge nose.

Absolutely. Anyway, so I said to her, look, what we're going to do is you're going to come to my flat in London.

And I will stand in front of you, start naked. And you could look at me from every angle and you can photograph me from every angle.

And then I want you to minimize the faults. And she built my costumes around that body. So as a result, you see a great deal of my back.

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