Hello, I'm Krestey 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 1994, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is an actress. She was born in New York, the daughter of a distinguished actor and

director who moved to England when she was small to escape McCarthyism. She's

hardly been out of work since she first went on the stage. She's played major parts with the Royal Shakespeare Company

in the National Theatre and in recent years has come to enjoy a popular following on television,

particularly in the series Love Hurts. Tessa, the character she plays,

epitomises many of her roles,

the long-suffering woman who despite life's disappointments

remains tough, clever and witty.

At the moment she's enjoying an enormous success in the West End hit

Dead Funny. She is Zoe Wannamaker. Zoe you do seem to have cornered the market in

that certain kind of woman, although they're very different characters,

the one thing they have in common is that life is tough for them.

I mean, do you think that playing that kind of role comes naturally to you?

I don't see them as tough. I see them. Each character that I've done

is a part of me and therefore part of my time I think much more.

But they are never, I mean however much they're put upon these characters and we generalize obviously but they never are

Winging they never kind of victims you seem to bring to them this kind of wit and feistiness. I mean that that strikes me as

being part of you as well isn't it? I can't say that again. I can't answer that one. I mean I

think for example a lot of people saw you as the wife of the original

prime suspect you know the prostitute who was married to this terrible murderer but

...