Eileen Atkins: ‘Even today there’s a resentment of old people’

You are playing the title role in the RSC’s production of The Witch of Edmonton. Is a witch typical casting for a mature actress?
Of course. Even today there’s a resentment of what you call mature and I call old people. They are thought of as witches. I have a very good speech in the play, saying that the only reason I’m called a witch is because I’m ill-favoured with age.

There is a terrible shortage of parts for older actresses, isn’t there?
Absolutely. I’m just reading Antony Sher’s autobiography. I’ve never read anything so honest. I got quite angry and envious at times. He’s listed all the parts he wants to play in the future. What actress could do that?

How did you come to be cast as this witch?
Gregory Doran, the artistic director of the RSC, saw me play Rosalind when he was 12. His story was that it made him take up the theatre as a career. I think I’m a kind of talisman for his first season here. He offered me this part. I did say no twice. You have to look so terrible, you get depressed straight away. But there’s also a relish in playing someone so utterly hideous.

You were seven when you first went on the stage?
I wasn’t an actress. I was a child performer. Really disgustingly horrible. My professional card said “Baby Eileen, soubrette and dancer”. Most of my gigs were at working men’s clubs in Tottenham, Stoke Newington and Hackney.

Did you like it?
No, I hated it. I didn’t know about paedophilia but I knew that there was something wrong about me being told to waggle my arse at the audiences of men.

When you read about paedophilia cases now do you think back to that time?
Oh gosh yes! My God, if all of us who were touched up complained, the whole country would rise up. I certainly was fiddled about with. It was quite normal then. People liked patting your bottom, some men drew you on to their lap.

When did you stop performing as a child?
I went on till I was 12. My grammar school caught on to the fact that the reason I was falling asleep in class was that I was doing working men’s clubs till 10 or 11 at nights. My mother was told I shouldn’t do it any more. Of course I was bringing in money to the family so nobody liked hearing that.

You were born in a council house but you often seem to end up playing aristocrats?
That was the main trouble in Upstairs Downstairs. I thought I was going to get a marvellous part as the old cook but I got the lady of the house. I hope that shows I am a real actor. Well that’s unfair, because someone like Hugh Grant plays himself brilliantly. He’s a marvellous actor. There seem to be two sorts of actors. Some people play themselves marvellously and others like me rather like to become someone else.

Can you still do cockney?
Of course I can. Whenever I went back [home] to Tottenham I also went back to how they spoke. I think there’s so much stupidity at the moment about accents. There was a rule recently in drama schools that you must hold on to your original accent. I think that is deeply affected. For goodness sake, when you leave home you don’t need to have a house such as you were brought up in. There’s no need to have lino on the floor.

Have you ever played Cleopatra?
I’ve turned it down about five times. I didn’t have the courage to do it. I knew there would be a swell of people thinking, “She’s not right for Cleopatra.” The one time I came close to playing it the director – it was Toby Robertson at the Old Vic – wanted to do it in Elizabethan clothes, as if she was like Elizabeth I. I thought it would be extremely difficult to be sexy in a farthingale.

Are you writing anything at the moment?
I’ve got a movie that I’m writing. I’ve spent the summer doing rewrites for a Dutch director. It’s about Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West – about their affair. It’s been a long time bringing it to this point. I’m desperately trying to get Kate Winslet to read the script.

Didn’t you do a rap with some other actresses?
Oh my God! We did the Dame Rap. Jean Marsh wrote it. It was Joan Plowright’s idea that we did a Tsunami charity gig. It was Helen Mirren, Judi Dench – I think every dame who was then around except Maggie Smith. It was when The Vagina Monologues were going on. We each had two lines. Mine were “I don’t brag about my vagina/ Because Virginia Woolf’s be a damn sight finer”.

You lived for some time in America?
I was there for four years and I nearly settled there. But the trouble with being in America is you just get locked into English parts. I won’t do American parts in America, so it was getting dull. I like doing new plays, and the new stuff for English people was being done in England not in America.

Do you enjoy doing comedy?
I do. That is one of the reasons I liked filming Magic in the Moonlight with Woody Allen. It has been absolutely slated by the critics, which I totally understand because it’s not about anything. But it’s sweet, it’s adorable. I think Woody Allen’s like me. We all know the serious streak in him, and I’ve got a very serious streak in me: I don’t believe that no one has a dark side. But he’s old. He’s 79, I’m 80. He wants sometimes to do something that is just flibbertigibbet, just fun.

How much do you think people’s clothes tell you about them?
An enormous amount. I’m fascinated by that. I love dresses that just skim the body, that suggest what’s underneath rather than display it. I suppose that is my idea about life altogether. I hate tight, tight stuff showing every line. I want to be sick when people are in Lycra. Someone once commented that even if I wore fur, I would wear it on the inside of my coat not on the outside.

When you were about to turn 70, you had a new twist to your fame when Colin Farrell tried to get into your bed. Any more surprises?
I really don’t like old women talking about sex. Or old men for that matter. I think after 65 you should really shut up. I’ve just had a very wonderful life: that’s all I’d say.

The Witch of Edmonton is at the Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 23 Oct to 29 Nov