Celia Imrie: ‘All the parts I’m writing are parts I’d like to play’
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Version 0 of 1. The Olivier award-winning actor Celia Imrie, best known for film roles in Calendar Girls and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is about to publish her first novel, Not Quite Nice. A comic caper set among the tangled lives of a group of expats in a southern French village, Imrie wrote most of it at her own apartment in Nice. What drew you to writing fiction?For a long time, not having gone to university, it seemed like a goal too far. But at this stage of my life when somebody says “Why don’t you?”, I nearly always reply “Why not?” – it’s as simple as that. Someone suggested it and I thought, “Have a go.” I wrote it as if it was a film. All the parts I’m writing are parts I’d like to play. Do you think the years of acting helped you to inhabit other lives?Yes – as an actor the whole point of your job is you have to put yourself into someone else’s position. I also have to give great credit to [creative writing coach] Robert McKee. My best friend recommended I went on his story structure course. I thought it would be too difficult but it was a revelation to me, both for acting and writing. Are you part of a similar expat scene to the one in the book?This is an awful thing to say and I’ll probably get into trouble for it, but I slightly shy away when I hear an English voice in Nice. I want to stay in my little bubble of French life. So no, I don’t really know English people out here at all, which is how I like it. Why set your story around the lives of a group of retired friends?I’m writing about my age group, I suppose, much as I’m loath to admit how old I am. Thankfully it’s rather fashionable to be my age at the moment. I’m lucky that Calendar Girls and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel came along when I was the right age to be cast in them. If I’d been any younger I’d have missed out. Why are the children in your book so mercenary and unkind?I’m slightly wary of the generation below me, who I find rather money-obsessed. In my day we would never even have discussed the word inheritance, but it often comes up in conversation nowadays. I find the whole subject rather vulgar. I suppose that’s why it reared itself in the book. Did writing a novel come easily?You have to be very self-disciplined. Normally, in my working life I’m told to turn up at rehearsal at a certain time and say someone else’s lines, which is easy. But with writing you really have to make yourself have a routine… I’ve tried to do the two [writing and acting] together but it isn’t a comfortable fit. I remember reading corrections and proofs of my book when I was in India filming The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which felt rather bizarre, the two worlds clashing. The discipline needed to be a writer is far greater than for an actor, so I have even more respect for writers now than I had before. Which authors do you enjoy yourself?I’m terribly slow, actually, but at the moment I’m reading a book by Colette, My Apprenticeships and Music Hall Sidelights, I suppose because it’s got a theatrical thing going on. I like short stories – Patricia Highsmith’s The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder is a favourite. What is your favourite ever acting role?Vera in the BBC adaptation of A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell). She came to the set once, and talked to us about the plot. I told her I thought it was just fabulous. She said – she’s quite frightening, actually – she said very often a story centres on people wondering who a character’s father is but she thought, what if we don’t know who the mother is? It seemed such a simple twist but, my God – it was quite marvellous. That sort of fantastically tapestried story is what I’m trying to write now for book two, trying being the operative word. Not Quite Nice is published by Bloomsbury (£12.99). To buy a copy for £9.99 click here |