All posts tagged: inheriting

Slow Horses star on inheriting “iconic” Scrooge role from Doctor Who stars

Slow Horses star on inheriting “iconic” Scrooge role from Doctor Who stars

Published by skeptic

London’s Old Vic Theatre will soon be hosting another run of their smash-hit adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Penned by Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, this version has been held for nine straight Christmases, always pulling in a high-profile actor like Doctor Who’s Christopher Eccleston and John Simm. This year, it’s the turn of Slow Horses actor Paul Hilton, who spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about preparing for the role, in particular, how to keep it feeling fresh. “I’m absolutely loath to repeat somebody else’s performance, so I’m resisting obvious choices and trying to really connect it to my own life experience, because in Jack’s version, it’s a very domestic, 21st Century psychological, realistic account. “So I’m just looking for the truth of every connection, every line, and I don’t feel a pressure to have to do anything other than the work that I would normally do on any role.” He continued: “I’ve got this thing that Scrooge is an everyman character, that we all have aspects of Scrooge. We all recognise the curmudgeonly, the emotionally detached, …

On inheriting your grandmother’s jewelry and reinventing style

On inheriting your grandmother’s jewelry and reinventing style

Published by skeptic

The first time I saw the watch was not in real life but in a painting, a self-portrait. In it, my grandmother wears a crisp white blouse, collar popped up, tucked into a matching full skirt. She’s standing in front of a marble fireplace decked with ivy. Her face is in three-quarter profile, and she’s wearing her cat-eye eyeglasses. Her arms are crossed and one of her pinkie fingers is slightly raised. The effect is somewhat regal; I imagine this was intentional. She’s wearing several pieces of jewelry in the image, all of them small, all of them gold. At the center of the canvas, right where her arms are crossed, is the watch. I think this placement was intentional too. I never thought about the watch again until one day I realized it was in my possession. I can’t remember if she gave it to me or if I received it after she died. I look at it now — it’s sitting on my desk as I write. It casts an odd kind of …