Lindsay Duncan, CBE, might be British acting royalty, yet her character as gangster matriarch in Charlotte Regan’s BBC-drama series Mint is anything but noble. Being flamboyant, firry and unapologetic even in her Seventies, her character Ollie's certainly not your typical granny either, as her granddaughter Shannon (Emma Laird) has come to realise a long time ago.
The series centres around Shannon, who is the daughter of the new Godfather of Grangemouth, Dylan (Sam Riley), Ollie's son. He now runs the dark and dirty family business that his ruthless father Andy (Clive Russell) once built. However, while there is a tender romance blossoming between Shannon and Arran (Benjamin Coyle-Larner), the offspring of local enemy faction, Dylan decides that it's time for him to step away from violence and crime. And with his senior in jail and out of the picture, it's down to Ollie to keep her son in check and the family together.
It's a task that's certainly easier said than done, but Duncan pulls off her character with great ease and elan, just like any role she's played in the past. Born in 1950s Edinburgh but raised in Leeds and Birmingham, the warm-yet-fearless actress made her on-screen debut in the 1975 when she appeared in the BBC-TV special Further Up Pompeii!. Before and after, Duncan's focus had always been the stage, but occasionally she'd return to performing in front of the camera, from episodes of The New Avengers in 1977 to her legendary portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the 2009 TV-film Margaret and Steven Moffat's and Mark Gatiss's Sherlock in recent years.
However, no character she's ever played compares to Ollie, who's an unpredictable and daring force of nature, and Duncan captures her audacious essence in every scene she's in. Watching the Tony Award-winning actress in Mint, it turns out, is just as intriguing as it is to talk to her about the role, toxic male power and her imposter syndrome of not being Scottish enough. "I loved being in Glasgow where my dad was from," she says, "and I thoroughly enjoyed working there for some time. I felt very lucky, but then, there's always that fear that I didn't get it quite right."
PAMELA JAHN: Your character Ollie says in the series shortly after she's been introduced to the audience, "Good service is all us women need. We don't need men for anything else." Do you agree?
LINDSAY DUNCAN: It's fascinating to me, that she is just out there, but it's not quite as simple as that. She doesn't go like, 'I just do what I want, when I want, and I have it all.' She also has reasons to be vulnerable, and that has informed her entire attitude to life. Most importantly, she's always been surrounded by men. And being my age, that's augmented by generational context.
In what way?
Since Ollie was a little girl, she's had to defer to men, and that's been frustrating for her, particularly given the criminal context of the story. It feels to me as if she's now laying claim defiantly to some agency, even though, to our amusement or horror, depending on your point of view, a lot of it has to do with whom she's going to have sex with.
It's refreshing to see such an unconventional matriarch like Ollie in this dark and brutal gangster environment. Yet I wonder, did you look at classic male gangsters like in The Godfather as a reference for your character?
Of course, I have seen those films, and I love them, but I didn't actually think beyond the context of this particular story because the gangster family business we depict in Mint is relatively small scale. This isn't even Glasgow, it's Grangemouth, it's different. And I don't think we should romanticise it in any way. That's hardly a word you can apply to gangs and crime in general because they are thieves and murders. But it's easy to do that with great movies, isn't it? The stories are just so good and there's an awful lot at stake.
What was it that spoke to you when you first read the script?
Charlie Reagan has given Ollie a really strong flavour as a woman. There she is, a woman in her 70s, who wears her hair out. You never see her in a skirt or dress. She puts on trousers, she is flamboyant and extremely comfortable with the way she looks. And she is not quiet, she doesn't shut up, I just love that. It just makes her a wonderfully intriguing character, whether you like her or not.
To some extent, Ollie reminded me on your character Phil in the Channel 4 mini-series True Love, who's also someone that still wants more in life even at that later point in time.
I'm necessarily bound by the age I am. Still, I'm always going to be more interested in characters who have something to say. I don't really want to play women in care homes. But having said that, tomorrow a script could come along which involves someone with dementia, and I go, "God, this is brilliant." For me personally, it always depends on the writing. I've never really sought out particular kinds of roles.
Though it almost feels as if these characters you play lately are perhaps a revenge on the bigotry and machismo that you experienced early on in your career.
I know what you mean, but I wouldn't choose a role thinking, "Well, that's a knife in the back of every man who's ever disrespected women." My focus is on subtle, layered stories that look at the human condition and the emotions that come with it. We are all complex and full of contradictions. And I want to see characters like that both on stage and screen. Not in theatre, but very early on in television, definitely sexism was at play. And sometimes I look back, and I just feel very upset for the quiet, polite young woman who didn't speak out, because I wasn't, for whatever reason, able to do that back then.
Do you wish you had been more outspoken at the time?
It might have lost me a job, but it would also have saved me some distress. I'm thinking of a particular role which was not the sort of work I was usually asked to do. It was my first television appearance in Further Up Pompeii!, with the brilliant Frankie Howard. I thought it was a wonderful comedy, and I did learn stuff from doing that. But I was also asked to show my legs, although I was wearing a full-length dress. That was pretty odd.
Did you feel safer in theatre?
I probably survived better in the business because my early experience was mostly on stage and not on screen. In theatre, I worked in a much more respectful, collaborative environment. And there will have been sexism as well, of course there was, but hopefully things have moved on in our business in general. At least, as a woman, you're not alone anymore.
How did you feel about playing a Scottish character again?
Technically speaking, I'm Scottish, I was born there, both my parents were brought up in Scotland, and I'm married to a Scotsman, but I didn't grow up there. And there are some amazing actors in Scotland, so there's always that great fear that I'm not Scottish enough. However, I would have never turned down this part even if it made me feel slightly awkward because there are others who could do it with an authentic accent. We all worked very hard on getting it right, out of respect. Like I've played Americans from different areas of the country over the years, and I'd been terribly ashamed if I didn't pull it off, but it's not the same, because this is my origin. I feel quite deeply about that.
Do you suffer from imposter syndrome?
I haven't got an explanation for this, but the older I get, the more Scottish I feel. I would never describe myself as English. But at the same time, I will never claim to be Scottish because I wasn't educated there. It's a particular thing. You must have lived in Scotland for a while. Yet, those are my roots. I'm sort of drawn there. To some extent, it's very emotional.
Mint is out now on BBC iPlayer
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