OPENING WEDNESDAY, 30 July 2008 (previews from 23 July), …some trace of her, inspired by Dostoyevsky’s 1869 Russian novel The Idiot, premieres at the National Theatre, where it joins the NT Cottesloe rep (See News, 7 Apr 2008). It’s adapted and directed by Katie Mitchell and her company, including Ben Whishaw and Hattie Morahan, with multimedia design by Leo Warner and Vicki Mortimer.
Hattie Morahan lives in north London with her partner and stars inThe City at the Royal Court from 24 April to 7 June
The house/flat I grew up in…. detached, in the middle of the Devil’s Punchbowl in Surrey, which is about as idyllic as you can get. The valley behind is like a back garden. It was a great place to go off and explore when I was young.
When I was a child I wanted to be… either a writer or an actor. I swung wildly between wanting get up in front of people and be the performer, make the crowds laugh, and shutting myself away in a room and writing stories.
The moment that changed me for ever… was seeing Steven Dillane as Hamlet when I was a teenager. Members of my English class felt he’d thrown away wonderful lines, which was highly frustrating; that was the point! And he was just so natural and effortless.
My greatest inspiration…. is both of my parents, but in very different ways. My work ethic I get from my dad, who is thorough and rigorous in all that he does. My mother’s a fantastic actress and very giving, bringing happiness to those around her.
My real-life villain … I’m not very good at out-and-out condemnation, I prefer to see things from all sides; but those who are unnecessarily rude really piss me off!
If I could change one thing about myself… I would need less sleep, I’m embarrassingly and maddeningly inept when under-slept. It would be fantastic to have extra hours in the day.
At night I dream of... anything and everything. My nightmares are either about being late or the typical actor’s dreams: onstage, in the wrong play, with nothing on and not knowing my part.
What I see when I look in the mirror… something/someone a bit chaotic and haphazard. I’ve never been particularly well-groomed, in fact I’m a bit mystified as to how people find the time.
My style icon…. is a Taiwanese friend of mine and fashion designer, Mei Hui Lui, who always looks exquisite and utterly unique. It’s fabulous when people wear clothes they love, it’s an attitude that inspires rather than the clothes.
My favourite item of clothing… continually changes. At the moment I love a chocolate-brown sparkly wide belt, which I picked up in a second-hand store in Berlin.
I wish I’d never worn… you can’t regret that kind of thing, that’s the most entertaining thing about fashion! I love seeing how deluded I was and marvelling over all that misplaced effort.
It’s not fashionable but I’m potty about the Belgian singer Jack Brel, I could listen to him sing the phone book.
You wouldn’t know it but I’m very good at… moon-walking. I was obsessed with Michael Jackson at school and every day would practise my dance on the lino at school. Who am I kidding? I’m probably no good at it at all.
You may not know it but I’m no good at… giving up a book part-way through, even if I’m not enjoying it. It’s bad manners, like breaking off a conversation halfway through. Perhaps I should learn to be more ruthless.
All my money goes on… books. I read in bursts between jobs as I can’t focus on anything else while I’m working.
If I have time to myself… I walk around London, it’s like going off on a little adventure every time. My cousin gave me a book of routes and their history, called Walk London and I’ve recently done Clerkenwell and Greenwich.
I drive/ride… a bus. However, I did recently - in California - blow my entire budget on a convertible Mustang. It was my Bonnie and Clyde moment (without the murder, I should add).
My house/flat is… a converted open-plan warehouse in a mews in north London. It’s a very creative space but not always practical if one of you is filming and has to leave the house at four in the morning.
My most valuable possession is… my health and that of my loved one. It sounds corny, but next to that all other concerns are irrelevant.
My favourite building… is definitely the National Theatre. My parents took me there as a child and I recall even the distinct smell of the concrete, though I never before knew that concrete had a smell.
Movie heaven… is a good Hitchcock thriller: the danger, the escapism! North By Northwest, preferably. There’s a brilliant sequence with Cary Grant driving drunk down a hill, which has me in hysterics every time.
A book that changed me… recently, my eyes been opened by Chris Ware, the graphic novelist. His books occupy a space between film, poetry and art, both nuanced and melancholic. I haven’t read anything like them before.
My favourite work of art… are the Bernini sculptures, which I saw recently in Rome. I found them miraculous and improbable, you get a vertiginous thrill just being near them. They really stayed with me.
The last album I bought/downloaded… Rachel Unthank and the Winter Set, a Northumbrian folk band with elegant, earthy arrangements.
The person who really makes me laugh… is Larry David, or Paul Merton, or Sarah Silverman. I love well-observed humour about human vanity and people’s delusions.
The shop I can’t walk past… Daunt Books in Marylebone and I’m also a complete sucker for Fresh and Wild, which a friend renamed Fresh and Wildly-expensive, and I’d be inclined to agree. But I still can’t resist their coconut and raisin oatcakes.
The best invention ever… is the camera, and by extension, the cinema, mainly for allowing us to see the past, storytelling and giving knowledge and beauty.
In ten years time, I hope to be… happy, healthy, creatively-fulfilled and maybe have some more walls in my house, at the moment there are none, so it’s not a big ask.
My greatest regret… I try not to, you have to learn and then move on, and if you can’t make amends and accept what’s happened, just move forward.
My life in seven words… hectic, happy, peopled, challenging, varied, gastronomic and unpredictable.
A life in brief
Hattie Morahan was born in 1979 in London. An awardwinning actress, she studied English Literature at New Hall, Cambridge. She won an Ian Charleston award for her part in The Seagull at the National Theatre and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001. Following an acclaimed performance as Elinor Dashwood in Andrew Davies’s BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, she appeared in the Hollywood blockbusters The Golden Compass and The Bank Job. She lives in north London with her partner and stars in The City at the Royal Court from 24 April to 7 June. For tickets, call 
020-7565 5000
A gang of cockney boys attempt to rob a bank, little realizing they’ve been set up by Her Majesty’s spymasters, in “The Bank Job.
Plot is loosely based on the so-called “walkie-talkie bank job” of 1971, during which a ham-radio operator picked up the two-way communication between a lookout and some burglars who had tunneled into Lloyd’s Bank on Baker Street in Central London.
Hattie Morahan plays a conservative MPs’ daughters in a vivid supporting turn.
Hattie Morahan stars at to the Royal Court Theatre appearing alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Martin Crimp’s darkly comic mystery, The City, which runs from April 29, (previews from April 24) to June 7, 2008, in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.In The City, three characters fight to make sense of a surreal and collapsing world – Clair who wants to be kissed – but not now – and certainly not by her husband; Chris who wants to celebrate his new job by driving into the oncoming traffic; and Jenny who arrives to complain about the screaming children – but the garden is empty and the key to the playroom has disappeared.
Morahan’s theatre credits include The Seagull and Iphigenia at Aulis, both at the National Theatre and both directed by Katie Mitchell who also directs The City; while on screen, she has appeared in The Bank Job (film) and BBC’s recent production of Sense and Sensibility (as Elinor Dashwood).
Crimp’s Attempts on her Life premiered at the Royal Court in 1997 and was recently revived at the National where it was directed by Katie Mitchell. Crimp and Mitchell’s other collaborations include The Country and Face to the Wall (Royal Court) and The Seagull (National Theatre). Crimp also created the new translation of Rhinoceros for the Royal Court.
The City is designed by Vicki Mortimer, with lighting by Paule Constable and sound by Gareth Fry.
THE Northern Rock crisis was part of the inspiration for writer DJ Britton’s drama about international banking.
AFTERNOON PLAY: WHEN GREED BECOMES FEAR, BBC Radio 4, Tuesday, 2.15pm.
The story looks at how easy borrowing led to a crisis of confidence in the money markets.
A young academic, played by Hattie Morahan, investigates sub-prime borrowers in America, where thousands of people have lost their homes.
Back in London, an investment banker, played by Penny Downie, is caught up in the struggle to avoid financial disaster. When the two stories collide, the consequences are desperate.
14:30 BBC Radio 4 60 mins
Spellbound, dramatised by Amanda Dalton from the Hitchcock film script by Ben Hecht and the book by Francis Beeding. Starring Hattie Morahan and Benedict Cumberbatch.
After squeezing into a corset as Elinor Dashwood in the recent BBC adaptation of Sense And Sensibility, actress Hattie Morahan was relieved to swop period costumes for something a little more modern.
Hattie, 29, is starring alongside Saffron Burrows and tough-guy actor Jason Statham in The Bank Job, based on the true story of a London robbery in the Seventies.
She plays Gale Benson, the socialite daughter of a Tory MP who was later murdered in Trinidad.
“People know Gale for just being a wealthy London girl who got involved in the Black Power movement,” says Hattie, whose director father Christopher made Jewel In The Crown and whose mother is the actress Anna Carteret.
“But the film implies she was working for the Government as an undercover agent. I loved filming it - it was great getting to wear lots of glamorous 1970s clothes.”
It seems that all the reviews agree Hattie Morahan was the highlight of the recent Sense and Sensibility adaptation.
Elinor’s (Hattie Morahan) wordless expression of pure joy also confirmed that Morahan has now become the latest British actress – after Anna Maxwell Martin in Bleak House and Lisa Dillon in Cranford – to have mastered one of the trickiest of all acting assignments: how to give an utterly gripping performance as somebody flawlessly nice.
I thought Hattie Morahan’s performance as Elinor was the standout of the whole programme and she deserves to be a star on the back of it.
booksbagsshoes.livejournal.com
In these scenes it was Hattie Morahan, as Elinor, who showed her prowess and skill. She portrayed such heartbreak as she tended to Marianne.
For me the star of the show was Hattie Morahan as Elinor. I thought she was quite wonderful.
My lasting memory of the adaption will be Hattie Morahan’s portrayal of Elinor Dashwood. For some reason even the greatest artists seem to find it easier to portray evil than good (think Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost or Dante’s terrific and terrifying Inferno). But here Elinor Dashwood came over as a woman without peer, every last nuance of her feelings reflected on her beautiful face.
Zarina Osman in the Independent has a quick interview with Hattie.
Morahan, 29, made her television debut in the BBC adaptation of ‘The Peacock Spring’. She can be seen alongside Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman in the film ‘The Golden Compass’, and in the BBC1 adaptation of ‘Sense & Sensibility’, which concludes this Sunday at 9pm
If I weren’t talking to you right now I’d be…
Going to my friend’s shop to borrow an outfit.
A phrase I use far too often is…
That’s amazing!
I wish people would take more notice of…
The plastic carrier bag plague, which is out of control.
The most surprising thing that happened to me was…
Co-hosting with an MTV presenter at the Swiss Textiles Award (a ceremony for up-and-coming designers). It was very surreal. I even got to interview Tommy Hilfiger.
A common misperception of me is…
That I’m very together, when in fact life is pretty chaotic.
I am not a politician but…
I would probably do something about the recent Arts Council funding cuts.
I’m good at…
Accumulating books.
I’m very bad at…
Leaving the house on time and remembering to water the plants.
The best age to be is…
I will take any age that you don’t need someone to help you get in and out the bath.
In a nutshell, my philosophy is this:
Never fly in a helicopter without doors. My dad told me that. But more seriously: have no regrets.
ITV at 21:00 on Friday 4th January 2008
Chief Inspector Albert Custer has to get his bobbies on their bikes!
ITV1 are offering us a gentle comedy where some misfit officers get their act together and do a great job.
Starring: Mark Addy, Hattie Morahan, Maxine Peake, Philip Davis, Darren Boyd, Rhashan Stone
