PASADENA, Calif. _ Actress Charlotte Hope failed her driving test three times, is hopelessly messy and claims she's bad at almost everything. But one thing she admits she's good at is acting.
It's taken her eight years, but the actress is proving that with her latest role as "The Spanish Princess," premiering on Starz May 5.
Hope plays Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in the miniseries. When Henry divorced her after 24 years of marriage, it caused a critical rupture with the Catholic Church and sent Catherine to live out her days alone and betrayed.
Hope, who says she grew up an incurable nerd, seems perfect for the part. "I lived in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town was 20 minutes away," she says in her clipped British accent.
"And I'm basically allergic to the outside. I get terrible hay fever, am allergic to cats, allergic to horses. So I just read, basically. My parents said, 'You're in the middle of the countryside, you're supposed to be outside making mud pies.' And I'd just be inside reading. I had fat glasses. I was not an attractive child. There was nothing glamorous about it," she smiles.
A graduate of Oxford, Hope was emboldened by her own determination. "I decided at 13 that I wanted to go to Oxford, and I just worked really hard," she explains. "It just seemed like that was where I was supposed to be going. I loved French and Spanish and loved French and Spanish literature, and so I just did it," she says.
"When I was like 3 or 4 my mum said I'd get into this reading competition with this girl in kindergarten where I'd come home and say, 'I read four books tonight.' And then I'd say, 'I read five.' And the teacher had to separate us ... By about 8 or 9 I did all my friends' homework. I thought, 'I don't need to just do my homework. I'll do everyone's homework.'"
While she was polishing off her friends' homework, she was also taking a drama class in grade school.
"I remember being in drama class and just thinking it was the best thing in the world. But I figured everyone thought it was the best thing in the world. It was like cake! I came from a really small town, and it never occurred to me that I could do it as a job. No one around me became an actor," she says.
"You just went to university and worked hard and got a proper job. It wasn't until I was at university where suddenly I was, like, 'Hey, I think I could make a living out of this.' But I've been obsessed with it my whole life."
That obsession stood her in good stead when she was washing dishes in the morning, waitressing most of the night, running out of money, and not landing any acting jobs.
"My friends who'd graduated from Oxford were getting jobs and I was scrambling for any commercial I could get."
She still managed to study mime for a year in Paris and went to New York to try her luck there. All that was contrary to her nature, says Hope.
"I'm not a natural adventurer at all," she shakes her head. "But I really love acting, if that's the price. If I had my choice, I'd happily live at home, cook dinner in the evening. I'm a real home-bug and I love structure, but I love acting more. I'm not one of those people who says, 'Oh, I'm just going to go wherever and do anything.' I'm not a natural adventurer at all."
But she's overcoming her trepidations, she thinks. "In the beginning I used to be terrified. I'd have a weekend in New York and I didn't know anyone, and that would really scare me. But now I've put roots down everywhere. It's a small price. There are many worse things that people have to endure."
Hope's mother is retired and her father is a barrister. She recalls his sound advice when she made it into Oxford. "My dad said to me, 'These moments of jubilation are really rare. Treasure them because they don't happen very often.' It made me really conscious of appreciating it when something good has happened. Just enjoy it."
WYLE BOARDS THE RED LINE
CBS' new series "The Red Line," premiering Sunday, was originally written as a play. But its authors thought it would make a topical TV show. It's named for the train that runs through the city of Chicago, allegedly segregating the populace. The series stars Noah Wyle, who says he was stoked when he read the pilot.
"I have to say the emotional reaction that I had to the first reading of this script was so intense. I have never read a piece of material and had it move me like that, and that consistently happened with every single script," he says.
"I can't even talk about this show without getting upset, which made the process ... very different for me. It was much more about staying out of my own way and going in and doing my homework but being really open to being in Chicago and working with the Chicago crew and working with a diverse crew and a young crew and a crew that didn't really have a frame of reference from when I was in that city once before.
"So it was about leaving a lot of my creature comforts that I've enjoyed in the last couple of years in terms of having some authority and some power, wearing different hats and really just doing it differently on almost every single level," he says. "And through that, I got to really fall in love with acting again and appreciate good writing, and I was very grateful every day."
'NATURE' GOES LIVE
PBS will be trying something new next Monday when it premieres its three-day live "American Spring" on its "Nature" series. From 20 different locations the "Nature" photographers will document the alterations that spring visits on the flora and fauna of America.
The producers hope viewers might witness a mother bear and her cubs rising from their long winter's nap, bat, bird and butterfly migrations, maybe a couple of bee swarms and the births of lambs or bison.
The scenery will range from the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains to the misty Florida Everglades, from city parks to wilderness preserves. Entomologist Phil Torres and biologist Thor Hanson will be on hand to explain some of the natural phenomena around them. Each episode will carry a central theme hoping to reveal how the new season triggers nature's alchemy.
GREEN BALANCES A TAUT 'WIRE'
For those of us who missed the six seasons of the excellent British crime drama "Wire in the Blood," here's our chance to make up for it. The complete collection is now available on DVD in a 13-disc set. The show stars Robson Green ("Grantchester") as the clinical psychologist who aids the police in exhuming the evil in the minds of a variety of killers.
Eccentric and mistrusted at first, his unconventional ways are often suspect, but seem to succeed where others fail. Green is a star in England. And, if you pay attention, you can see why. He is an actor of great subtlety and nuance, perfect for the role of Dr. Tony Hill.
The actor grew up in Newcastle in a working class neighborhood. His dad wasn't around much during his childhood, and he was raised by his mother. "I met a wonderful human being called Max Roberts and he said, 'You have it,'" recalls Green.
"When I was at school we had extracurricular activities and one of those was to do plays. We did this improvisation and worked on a script and Max, who was a professional actor, used to help people in working class areas. He looked at me and says, 'Have you ever thought about doing this for a living? I'm not telling you to. But if you do, you'll survive.' So that was that."
