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Alex Kingston Interview
Your character on 'ER' semms to share some qualities with Moll Flanders -- she's strong, sexy, adventurous, a real survivor. I was a bit apprehensive, because it was on the strength of Moll that I was offered the part on ER. Although I wasn't frightened that they wanted Moll Flanders in scrubs, I also thought, well, is it because they thought a similar character could be injected into the ER? But I think, actually, it's aspects of myself that I found I had through Moll that are now showing in Corday as well. You have said that in your marriage you felt quiet and insecure -- not at all what you seem these days. Was that really the case? Yes. I'd sort of lost my true self along the way. Even though inside I knew I was a good actress, I just didn't have the confidence to express it. But I feel very different now. To be honest, being in England, as opposed to the States, is very different. How so? There, it's like doors shut if you have ideas, and people will eventually open up to them, but slowly and with great difficulty. Whereas here, the people are just so open to other people making a go of something. I havent been back to England since ER, but my concern was not so much will Americans buy this British surgeon as, when it's aired in England, am I going to be embraces or snubbed. I still don't know the answer to that. But here you're TV royalty. It has been extraordinary. We're invited to everything. And people send things all the time. Suddenly perfumes arrive in the post, or boxes of makeup. What has kept you anchored in the past year? My friends. When I first moved, I was in quite a bad state. I thought it was going to be easy, and it wasn't. I didn't know where to live or how, because in order to rent, you have to show a credit history, and of course, I didn't have it. I had no money. I was a mess. Didn't your boyfriend arrive first and rent a house? No, at the time, we were quite close friends, nothing more; although that has developed, slowly, since I've been here. "...she said cautiously." Yeah. [Laughs.] How are you fitting into the ensemble on ER? I'm extremely blessed to be working with Eriq LaSalle [who plays Dr. Benton]. There's a lot of laughter around the set. Somebody always has a joke or something. What's going to happen between Corday and Benton? No bodily fluids have been exchanged -- maybe by the time this is published. But I find it extraordinary that [the mixed-race relationship] will be an issue. In England, you see mixed-race couples all the time. You have them on the soaps, and it's not even that they've been written in to make a comment. I've already been warned that I'm going to get letters. There's something emblematic about El Niņo happening in the fist year of your being here. Well, maybe it was sent to make me feel at home. I'm happy as a duck to water in all the rain. |
