Rachael Stirling Online

This Morning (30 Apr 2009)

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

Rachael Stirling and Martin Freeman appeared on ITV1's This Morning programme to talk to Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton about Boy Meets Girl.

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Boy Meets Girl

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

Ah, the body-swap comedy — it's an actor's dream. If it's of the "man becomes boy, boy becomes man" type, a jaded star gets to play completely against type by clowning around childishly in business meetings, while a young up-and-comer gets to show his maturity and range by teaching his classmates the value of youth.

New ITV1 six-part comedy Boy Meets Girl follows a slightly different route, but one that's just as liberating for the stars involved. A pesky bolt of lightning — close the door on your way out, science! — simultaneously strikes conspiracy theorist and hardware store worker Danny (The Office's Martin Freeman) and posh fashion journalist Veronica (Pushing the Velvet's Rachael Stirling), causing them to switch bodies.

Danny, in Veronica's body, suddenly finds himself a fully paid-up (and fully punchable) member of the middle class, living in a swish apartment with an emotive man called Jay (Paterson 'Johnson from Peep Show' Joseph) and a stack of Elton John CDs, with a job which requires him/her to write horoscopes. On the plus side, he has breasts. Stirling, a noticeably deep-voiced actress already, whacks up the slobbery, surliness and frumpiness, and it's all quite uncanny.

Meanwhile, Veronica, in Danny's body, has lost her memory and is wandering round the streets, asking passers-by for money. Freeman looks like he'll have a bit more to do in next week's episode — winning back Jay could prove tricky — but de-blokes himself well, without resorting to lazy camp.

And so the screwball fun whizzes by nicely, but, as always, we do wonder if things might go even quicker if, when trying to explain what's happened to their disbelieving friends, Danny or Veronica just namechecked Vice Versa or Freaky Friday…

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Male order for Rachael

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

RAIN lashed down while Rachael Stirling was filming a crucial scene at the start of a new Manchester TV comedy drama.

"It was raining for real and we had a very cold rain machine," recalls the star of four-part series Boy Meets Girl (ITV1, Friday, 9pm), which presents a new twist on the gender and class divide.

The Office star Martin Freeman plays DIY store worker Danny Reed with Rachael as glamorous fashion journalist Veronica Burton.

"I have never been so cold in my life and neither has Martin. We were lying in the mud with wet suits on underneath our clothes, which proved to be too bulky, so were stripped down," she says.

"We had to lie stock still for the length of this shot. By that time it was probably three in the morning, both the rain and the rain machine were chucking it down on us and it was virtually impossible to stay still.

"So we had to do take after take, wrapped in tin foil inbetween times. I blame Martin," she laughs. "He was the one who kept shivering. So we had to do it all over again. It was absolutely miserable and still to this day I remember it with horror."

By chance, Danny and Veronica find themselves in the same spot one night, by an electricity sub-station, when lightning strikes and they somehow swap lives, with each trapped in the other's body.

So Danny, as portrayed by Rachael, suddenly has to learn how to walk in stilettos, put on a bra and deal with the advances of Veronica's boyfriend Jay (Paterson Joseph), while passing himself off as a stylish newspaper reporter.

Meanwhile Veronica, in the form of Martin Freeman, is lost in the centre of Manchester, struggling to make sense of what has happened.

Writer David Allison explains: "The biggest challenge for such an idea was going to be casting. If the audience didn't buy that the female lead was playing a man trapped in a woman's body, and vice versa, we were doomed.

"I think we were all getting a little nervous wondering if we'd find our Veronica and Danny. I was lucky enough to attend Rachael's audition for Veronica. It was honestly as if the script came to life in front of my eyes. She has been nothing less than astonishing at every stage.

"Martin, likewise, the first time I saw rushes, my mouth dropped open. How did he get her mannerisms like that? With two such fabulous performers like that in the centre, how could we fail?"

Rachael, 31, the daughter of Dame Diana Rigg, has appeared in many film, TV, stage and radio productions, but is perhaps best known for Tipping The Velvet.

"I watched everything that featured transgender roles," she says, "but I have also now played four male parts in my career. Martin and I did a certain amount of studying of one another."

ITV executive producer Kieran Roberts and others involved in the project made time for the actors to do their jobs. "We did something unheard of in television called rehearsal," adds Rachael.

"I would do a scene as Veronica and he as Danny and we would video each other as the original character and then go home and watch it and steal bits of mannerisms.

"It was clear that you either have to do this properly or not at all. In order to pull it off, you have to have done a certain amount of research. The characterisation has to be believable."

Did she spend much time thinking about what it would be like to be a man in real life? "Yes, I did. Well, certainly men get better parts in my industry and quite often higher pay cheques. But I'm quite content to inhabit the body and mind of a woman."

The two lead characters go their separate ways and only find each other in the final episode, which features a chase sequence through the centre of Manchester.

"I was in a really hideous, unflattering pair of trousers, running like a butch creature. And there was Martin, running as the most feminine thing you'd ever seen, being pointed at and spotted by some members of the public who recgonised him from the telly. They must have wondered why he was running like that, clinging on for dear life to me."

Rachael relished working in the city and is keen to return, perhaps to appear on stage. "I absolutely loved Manchester and had a brilliant time. I was invited to go up to meet somebody for a part at the Royal Exchange but I was already working at the time and was unable to. But I loved that building and I'd work there like a shot."

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5 Minutes with Rachael Stirling

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

Rachael Stirling is the daughter of acclaimed actress Diana Rigg, but found fame in her own right after playing Nan in the BBC's adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel Tipping the Velvet.

She also stars alongside Martin Freeman in the comedy drama Boy Meets Girl, which begins on May 1 on ITV1.

Other notable projects include The Young Victoria, The Haunted Airman and Lewis.

WAS IT DIFFICULT TO PRETEND YOU WERE A MAN?
No, I've done it about five times in my career already. Martin and I studied and recorded each other, and worked rather hard to perfect each other's mannerisms, because if you're not going to do it properly, there's no point in doing it at all really.

WHEN YOU FIRST GOT THE SCRIPT, DID YOU THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE LIKE ONE OF THOSE 1980S BODY-SWAP MOVIES?
No because they were always about mothers and daughters or people of the same sex. This is about class more than anything, so it's new territory in that respect.

SO IT'S A MORE SERIOUS PROJECT THEN?
Yes. We take it seriously, but it does end up being comedic, of course.

IF YOU COULD SWAP BODIES WITH ANYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE?
That's a good question, and I'd better get my head around that because I bet I'll be asked it lots of times over the coming weeks! I think Barack Obama on his inauguration day — just to see thousands of people in floods of tears looking at me. I don't think I'd like the responsibility that comes with the job, but just for a day it'd be fascinating.

WHAT ATTRACTS YOU TO ROLES?
The fact that they're going to be a challenge, that you don't know if you can pull it off, that it's going to test me and that I'll become a better actress at the end of it.

IN YOUR CAREER SO FAR, YOU'VE HAD QUITE A NICE BALANCE BETWEEN FILM, THEATRE AND TV. WHICH DO YOU ENJOY THE MOST?
You can't compare them really. Film on the whole you're given more time to breathe and concentrate, while on telly it's more of a scramble. Those two in front of the camera are different techniques. In theatre, there's a greater sense of camaraderie because you're going into work with the same team every day, whereas on film you're sitting in a trailer or caravan waiting to be called all day.

IS THERE A ROLE YOU COVET THAT YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED YET?
A bit further down the line I'd like to do Rosalind, Cleopatra, maybe some Greek tragedy. It's all a bit boring and predictable really; they're all theatrical roles.

IS THERE ANYBODY YOU'D REALLY LIKE TO WORK WITH?
I've taken as much pleasure out of working with a great big star as I've taken with working with somebody who's been in the theatre for 40 years and whose name you wouldn't recognise. I love working with experienced actors, it doesn't matter whether they're famous or not, because you always learn something from them.

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT COMING UP?
I've just finished a movie called Centurion, which is a big Britflick directed by Neil Marshall and starring David Morrissey. I've just done a massive art installation, which recreated a fresco using human beings. And I think for the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be flogging that and publicising Boy Meets Girl, turning up on This Morning, things like that!

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Boy Meets Girl

Posted by Bonnie at 12.00am

It couldn't matter less if a drama kicks off with an improbability at the outset, while viewers are still settling down and re-arranging the cushions. What matters is that everything follows on logically from there. David Allison's strangely fascinating comedy-drama begins with just such an improbability, as two people (Martin Freeman and Rachael Stirling) exchange bodies and lives after a freak accident involving an electricity pylon. The man is trapped inside a woman's body and is forced to wear high heels all day, write articles for a newspaper on fashion and gossip about other men over lunch. The woman has to slob around in a track suit, never tidying up, smoking roll-ups, eating junk food and behaving like a semi-housetrained Neanderthal. Both end up looking at the world afresh and not entirely liking what they see. It is nothing if not unusual — and for that alone it is worth watching.

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