18 May 2003
Posted by Bonnie on 18 May 2003 at
12:00
When Rachael Stirling watched "Tipping the Velvet" for the first time with her mom, Diana Rigg, the two actresses wept. Stirling dominates every scene of the three-hour miniseries in her role of Nan Astley, the plucky lesbian with a heart of gold who looks for love and finds stardom as a cross-dressing music hall performer in Victorian England.
It was a slightly different story when Stirling's dad saw the movie. "Mom and I thought it would be better if we were both there at the screening," said Stirling, speaking from a poolside phone in Florida, where she attended a "Velvet" screening at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. "One of us to hold my dad's hand, and the other to cover the screen when my nipples were in the frame."
Actually, the sex scenes were not as racy as some viewers would have hoped. When the show premiered last fall in England, Stirling says, "the BBC got something like five complaints (about the subject matter), and then it got hundreds of complaints saying there's not enough sex."
Adapted by Andrew Davies ("Pride and Prejudice") from the novel by Booker-nominated author Sarah Waters, "Tipping the Velvet" chronicles the turn-of-the-century adventures of Nan, a small-town girl who falls in love with male impersonator Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes) when she sees her perform a "masher" routine at the local music hall. The two women soon become a doubles act, on and off the stage. When she's spurned by Kitty, Nan turns to prostitution, then hooks up with a dominatrix (Anna Chancellor) before getting her personal and professional act together.
"I read the script and realized that this was the best part for a young girl that I'd come across, ever," said Stirling, 25. "The sexual content never worried me for a moment because the sex is never there for its own sake. It's about a young girl who's coming of age and coming to terms with her own needs and wants. I didn't bat an eye."
Stirling, who lives in London with her disc jockey boyfriend, auditioned eight times for the hotly contested part, beating out Samantha Morton, Anna Friel and dozens of other British actresses. Once cast, she treated love scenes with Hawes just as she would any intimate performance.
"From the outside, one thinks there's some great big secret that you must discover in order to play a lesbian," Stirling said. "The fact is, there isn't.
A relationship is a relationship, and it doesn't really matter your gender or your sex. If you've ever been in love, the transition isn't such a great one to make.
"The important thing was to go for it, head first. Otherwise, really, what's the point? You can't dip a toe into something like this. Because those scenes with Kitty are specifically about Nan's discovery of sex. You see her touching a woman for the first time. You see her have her first orgasm. It's about that very naive instinct for love, and we had great fun with it. Never, ever did I allow myself to become embarrassed or self-aware because that would only detract from what we were trying to achieve."
"Velvet's" second act plunges the once-innocent Nan into the orbit of dominatrix Diana, who runs a secret salon for lesbians. "You must remember that Queen Victoria didn't acknowledge lesbians," Stirling said. "Male homosexuality was illegal, but female homosexuality wasn't even acknowledged. Victoria thought it was an impossibility that two women could make love."
In reaction to society's disapproval, an elaborate subculture developed in London. "All the sex aids and the ritualistic side of this world that you see in this movie is based on (historical) evidence, photographs and engravings. Lesbians from that period had these incredible sex aids that boggle the mind," Stirling says. "Because, of course, they're quite primeval — they're leather, with stitching and metal — you can imagine these awful clanking sounds that must have gone on."
One such ritual dramatized in "Velvet": For the amusement of a drawing room full of voyeuristic guests, Nan assumes the role of a nude Greek goddess in a living tableau. "Nan hates herself toward the end of her stay with Diana because she's become a sex slave, basically," Stirling says. "So when Nan walks into a room wearing a dildo, she's terrified and excited at the same time. I did find that awkward. When you're the only person naked in the middle of a room, painted gold and naked and wearing this extraordinary object, you're bound to feel slightly odd. But I remember thinking, chuck it — you're only going to do this once, so you might as well enjoy it. Funnily enough, it was rather liberating."
In England, public reaction to "Tipping the Velvet" included heartfelt missives from adolescent lesbians, Stirling said.
"I got a lot of letters from young girls who felt unable to come out to their parents until 'Tipping the Velvet' came on the TV. Somehow, it made lesbianism palatable.
"I know some lesbians felt the series candy-coated things that in the book were sometimes really graphic. But, by doing so, the TV version also broadened horizons for those who were kind of scared of the unknown, who didn't understand lesbianism. If there are a few girls in England whose parents sat down and watched it and thought, 'Well, it's not that bad after all,' then I think it's a great thing."
At the other extreme, British newspapers had a field day. One tabloid published a week's worth of half-naked women made up to look like Stirling.
"The world went crazy for a bit," Stirling says, laughing. "An England football game happened to clash with Episode 2, which was by then renowned for being the naughtiest one, and it was keenly awaited with huge expectations. So the (tabloid) News of the World had a minute-by-minute breakdown telling football watchers when to switch over from the game in order to catch a flash of my left breast or a flash of my ass or a flash of my dildo or whatever it was."
Stirling laughs at the absurdity of the hoopla, then turns serious.
"It was funny, but at the same time I hope American viewers will not react the same way and turn this into titillating viewing rather than what it really is, which is an interesting, challenging, pretty bloody good piece of period drama."
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17 May 2003
Posted by Bonnie on 17 May 2003 at
12:00
Diana Rigg's little girl, Rachael Stirling, does her mum proud as the star of a risqué BBC American miniseries.
You wouldn't think that British soccer enthusiasts would tune in to a passionate Victorian-era love story filled with frilly costumes and music-hall numbers. But when Tipping the Velvet premiered in England last fall opposite a crucial soccer match, it proved to be a dilemma for sports fans. What to watch; the game or the miniseries' risqué lesbian sex scenes?
A resourceful newspaper write came up with a solution. "On the back of the sports page it said, 'This is what your schedule should look like this evening…'" recalls Tipping the Velvet star Rachael Stirling, 25. "Then they gave a minute-by-minute assessment of when to flick over to catch a flash of my left breast and when it was time to flick back to football."
Now viewers in the U.S. can see what all the fuss was about when the three-part drama airs on BBC American. Based on the acclaimed novel by Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet is the coming-out story of Stirling's Nan Astley, a naive oyster shucker in the seaside town of Whitstable, who discovers her attraction to women after catching the beguiling act of male impersonator Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes). Soon, Nan is on stage in tailored men's suits belting songs along with her secret lover, Kitty, the first in a wild string of female mistresses.
If the Sapphic melodrama was an eye-opener to Britons, equally so was that it stars Stirling, daughter of Dama Diana Rigg, best known in America as Emma Peel of TV's The Avengers.
Stirling didn't ask her famous mum for advice. "I knew that Mama would never tell me to do anything but follow my instincts," says Stirling, who, by age 17, was spending summers acting with England's National Youth Theatre. Three years ago, when she made her professional London stage debut as a disillusioned health-food-store clerk in a play called Helpless, critics dutifully noted that she had inherited her mother's height, high forehead and rich speaking voice. Those comparisons were the reason Stirling didn't advertise her lineage.
"I hid my identity — but not in any evil way," Stirling says. It helped that her surname — her father is Scottish landowner Archie Stirling (he and Rigg divorced in 1990) — was different. "I got the feeling that if I failed [at acting] I was just going to be kicked by the press, so I just shut up and got on with it." A long pause. "I sound like a wise old bag, don't I?" Stirling says with a laugh. "Boring-ing!"
Stirling's habit of firing off wicked one-liners is another talent she learned from her mother, says John Bowe, who portrays Kitty's manager in Tipping the Velvet and has also worked with Rigg. "They both have a cutting wit," says Bowe, who reports that at a cast screening of Velvet, Rigg could be found in an uncharacteristic dither. "She was terribly anxious for Rachael to do well," Bowe says. "At the end, she was almost tearful she was so proud."
Stirling says her dad also "shed a tear or two," although in the midst of the second episode one bit of kinkiness prompted him to shield his eyes by holding up a magazine in front of his face. "Bear in mind, he hasn't seen me nude since I was 4," says Stirling, who lives in London with her nightclub-DJ boyfriend, John Lycett-Green. "I don't think he much liked the idea of seeing his daughter dressed as a naked gold statue. I mean, that's not a father's dream, is it?"
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13 May 2003
Posted by Bonnie on 13 May 2003 at
12:00
Tipping the Velvet star Rachael Stirling reveals how she negotiated the nude scenes and strap-ons — and what her mom, Diana Rigg, thinks of it all.
Thanks to the unfortunate Oscar Wilde, we know plenty about gay male life in late-Victorian London. But the equally frisky lesbian culture of that era did not get its propers until the turn of the 21st century, when out former academic Sarah Waters began turning her knowledge of lesbian lore (and Victorian porn) into a series of compulsively readable novels, the first being 1999's Tipping the Velvet.
Now American audiences get to travel to Waters's world via the three-part BBC miniseries adaptation of Tipping the Velvet. A ratings smash when it premiered last year in the United Kingdom, Tipping screened at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on April 26 and airs on BBC America over three consecutive nights starting May 23.
Waters's terrifically likable young heroine is Nan Astley, a music-hall performer whose gay loves take her through what seems like half the boudoirs of London. Adding to the fun, Nan is played by Rachael Stifling, the daughter of swinging-'60s lesbian icon Diana Rigg.
In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, Stifling, who's heterosexual, says she felt "completely comfortable" with the miniseries's frank gay sexuality. "It's the most incredible coming-of-age story," Stirling explains. "To counteract any hard-core sex within it, there's a huge sense of humor and a huge sense of fun and frivolity and joy of life. It was so utterly believable that you never for a moment thought, Fuck, there's no reason why I'm standing here naked."
Tipping gives Stifling a chance to meet the American audience without preconceptions. That's a privilege she'll never have back home, where her mother's fame helped to make the family fodder for the British tabloid press. ("Fuckers!" Stirling calls them, with feeling.)
Stirling's pedigree didn't assure her the star-making role of Nan, however. "I had to work my butt off for it," she cheerfully allows. After all, she was being asked to carry a first-class, big-budget project, penned by Britain's past master of period TV entertainment, Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice and many others).
BBC's gamble paid off. Stirling's mischievousness is perfect for a story that's "not about breast-beating," she says, but "about fun."
Naturally, since this is a lesbian story, there's heartbreak mixed in with the sex. Nan's awakening starts with seductive entertainer Kitty Butler (Keely Hawes), who performs her music-hall act in drag as a jaunty young man. A duet onstage, Nan and Kitty are soon a duet offstage too. (How did Stirling and Hawes, close friends in real life, prepare for their first nude love scene? "A quick swig," Stirling admits, "just to loosen us up.")
Soon Kitty's fear of discovery leads to betrayal. Happily, though, Nan's adventures are just beginning. Several plot twists later, she finds herself the kept sex toy of the fabulously wealthy Diana (Anna Chancellor), who, among other things, likes to display Nan naked at parties for her snockered lesbian friends.
Which is how Stirling found herself on the film set one day, posed in front of a roomful of people, wearing only gold paint and a phenomenal leather dildo.
Surely this scene was more than a little embarrassing to shoot? "Oh, no, it was fine," Stirling merrily answers. "Actually, the instrument, as it were, felt rather empowering."
The choice of words befits Stirling precisely. Her gift for profanity does not a thing to camouflage her upper-class upbringing. "Education was of prim'r'y importance to my parents," she says. As the daughter of Rigg and Scottish businessman Archie Stirling, Rachael spent holidays at home in Scotland and the rest of the year in the exacting atmosphere of boarding school and then university. But while she was obtaining her master's degree in art history from the University of Edinburgh, Stirling was already preparing to be an actor. She won a placement in the national U.K. youth theater, caught the eye of an agent, and did her first film, Still Crazy, "while flying back and forth to lectures."
Although most Britons know she's straight–the tabloid press again–Stirling concedes that Tipping brought her a few propositions anyway, from women who "hoped otherwise." Even more offers came from men. "One man," she says, overtaken by a sudden hoot of laughter, "traced his cock on the back of his fan letter and drew an arrow from it, saying ACTUAL LIFE SIZE!"
At the other end of the spectrum was the reaction Stirling had to be most apprehensive about — showing the film to her mother. How did Dame Diana react to seeing her child in this lesbian epic? Stirling's voice immediately softens with affection. "She cried like a baby from beginning to end — with joy, of course."
Ask if she cried as well, and Stirling snaps back to speed: "No, fuck no, course not, cause I was going, Jesus, look at the size of my whatever."
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1 May 2003
Posted by Bonnie on 1 May 2003 at
12:00
HOLLYWOOD — Rachael Stirling and Troy Garity are both actors whose mothers are famous actors. Her mother is Dame Diana Rigg; his is Oscar-winner Jane Fonda.
Both are starring in upcoming cable movies. She's got the lead role in BBC America's "Tipping the Velvet"; he's got the lead role in Showtime's "Soldier's Girl."
(Oddly enough, Stirling plays a Victorian lesbian in "Tipping," which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. on BBC-America; Garity plays PFC Barry Winchell, a member of the U.S. Army who fell in love with a transgendered nightclub performer in the fact-based Showtime movie "Soldier's Girl," which premieres Saturday, May 31.)
But while Stirling would love the chance to act with her mother, Garity cringes at the thought.
"No, that's a little perverse to me," said Garity. "I mean, she's my mom. I want to complain and yell at her, and when the day of work goes sour, I get to cry on her shoulder or she gets to scratch my back.
"Acting (with her)? I don't know. It's a little incestuous."
Stirling, on the other hand, wouldn't mind at all. "I think it would be great sometime," she said. "I don't know when."
Both Fonda and Rigg are proud mothers of their acting offspring, however. Garity said Fonda has been nothing but supportive. And when Rigg got a chance to see "Tipping the Velvet, "She blubbed — English word for cried — all the way through with pride," Stirling said. "It was pathetic."
And while both come from acting backgrounds, neither was pushed to join the family business. "Oh, I jumped. I was by no means pushed," Stirling said. "If anything, held back by the scruff of the neck. I didn't go to drama school. I went to university."
Garity, the son of Fonda and activist/politician Tom Hayden, was given his paternal grandmother's maiden name so he could make his own way in life and not live in his parents' shadows. And Stirling, the daughter of Rigg and her second husband, tried to do the same. She's gone out of her way not to let people know who her mother is.
"Because I didn't know if I was going to be any good at it is the truth," Stirling said. "I knew I could be good at it, but when I've been over here before and ever kind of, sort of been embarrassed when somebody's brought up my ma, nobody quite understands why I react like that. Whereas in England, everybody's quick to pounce and say, 'You only got that job because of your mother.' And so I just took precautions and decided to go it on my own until I thought I could do it and had done enough to be able to stand up and say, 'She's my ma, but I did it on my own.' "
And, she'll have you know, it's not a burden to be the daughter of the woman once voted the most beautiful in the history of television.
"Of course not," Stirling said. "It's a joy."
While Stirling may one day have the opportunity to act alongside Rigg, Garity doesn't think that he could act alongside Fonda even if he wanted to.
"Will she come back to acting? Probably not," he said.
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Posted by Bonnie on 1 May 2003 at
12:00
Andrew Davies has created successful TV miniseries based on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," Elizabeth Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters" and George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda."
Now, he's tackled Sarah Waters' "Tipping the Velvet," a tale of lesbian love set in the music halls, mean streets and posh parlors of Victorian London.
"Sarah writes very vividly. I'm often accused of inventing sex scenes that aren't really there in the books I adapt, but there was certainly no need to with this book. If anything they had to be slightly toned down," says Davies, speaking from his home near Warwick, England.
Davies is an expert on the sexual mores of many eras. He also co- wrote the 2001 feature film adaptation of Helen Fielding's "Bridget Jones's Diary," about a modern British girl looking for love.
He was on a trip to Banff, Canada, when he first read "Tipping the Velvet," which he describes as "something like a 19th century classic with dirty bits!" He became so engrossed, even the amazing views of the Canadian Rockies couldn't distract him, Davies said.
BBC America is broadcasting his three-part adaptation at 9 p.m. tonight through Sunday. The lavish saga caused a brouhaha in England. The version airing here has been slightly edited for visual and verbal content, but it still remains considerably racier than most TV fare and carries mature theme warnings.
The story's heroine, Nan Astley, is played by 25-year-old Rachael Stirling, the daughter of Diana Rigg, who played the sleek Mrs. Emma Peel on the 1960s secret-agent series "The Avengers" and became the host of PBS' "Mystery!" in 1989.
Stirling did some historical research into the culture and customs of the Victorian era and was amazed by the hidden libido of what is traditionally considered a very prim and proper time, symbolized by the family values of Queen Victoria.
Sexual relations between men had just been criminalized. But women were not subjected to the same fate because, according to Stirling, the queen had refused to recognize that sex between women was even possible.
Astley works as a male impersonator and prostitute, but her love affairs are with women. Stirling's body-baring embraces are with actresses Keeley Hawes, Anna Chancellor and Jodhi May.
"I would only worry if I thought, 'Here I am with my clothes off for no reason whatsoever.' But there was a reason–the story had to be told and I knew that when I read the script," Stirling explains by phone from her London home.
She says a glass or two of white wine — preferably dry — or a "quick nip of whiskey" was sometimes helpful. "We just needed to have a tiny bit of a tipple, partly because the number of carpenters and electricians who suddenly went 'Ooh, sorry, I've got to drive a nail in that plank just by the bed' was innumerable," she laughs.
Stirling says the role is "the best part and the best script I'd come across for a young girl in a long time. It's a love story that transcends lesbianism.
"It's about [Astley] coming to grips with who she is and what she wants from life. You can identify with her, be you a lesbian or not."
Stirling grew up in England and Scotland. She attended Edinburgh University, studying the history of art, classical literature and Russian.
"I knew I wanted to be an actress, but I think it is more important to broaden your mind than to go to drama school," she said.
Stirling previously had only garnered supporting roles. In 2001, she played a character called Lulu in a modern TV version of "Othello," written by Davies and directed by Geoffrey Sax, who also directed the "Velvet" project.
"I've been asked by a million people, 'Why did you choose this part?' and I go, 'Choose it! I had to fight tooth and nail for it because I didn't have a name, I didn't have a reputation, I wasn't going to pull an audience in.' "
Earlier in her career, she was reluctant to reveal that Rigg is her mother because "so many people in this profession are the children of [stars] and quite often they aren't good and they do rise on their [parent's] name. I just thought, 'I must try to make it on my own.'"
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Look forward to the US release of both films.
