'They took the shears to it': White Queen star Faye Marsay's dramatic new haircut

PUBLISHED: 18:21 EST, 14 November 2013 | UPDATED: 18:21 EST, 14 November 2013

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Faye Marsay is an actress who throws herself into every role. If she needed to spend two hours every day getting her hair done, when portraying Anne Neville, the king-maker’s daughter in The White Queen, then so be it.

Her light brown tresses needed rather harsher treatment for the film Pride, which she has been shooting for director Matthew Warchus and producer David Livingstone in London.

Faye plays Steph, an activist for a gay and lesbian group that raised funds for striking miners during their industrial action in 1984.

Faye Marsay plays Steph in film 'Pride', an activist for a gay and lesbian group that raised funds for striking miners during their industrial action in 1984

‘They took the shears to it,’ Faye recalled, during a break from shooting scenes of a fundraising gig headlined by Bronski Beat at the old Electric Ballroom in Camden Town.

Twenty nine years on, The Forum in Kentish Town and Feargal Quinn are standing in for the Ballroom and Jimmy Somerville, respectively.

‘They shaved a kind of Mohican quiff, used a blade at the very back and chucked a load of bleach on it. I’m glad I’ve done it,’ she said, firmly. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way.’

Could she not, perhaps, have used a wig, I venture? She snorted: ‘A wig? That’s b******s! Get stuck in and do it. That’s all you can do, isn’t it? You might never work again, so get on with it.’

Faye, who stars in TV comedy Fresh Meat, was born after the strike was well over, but it was still a topic of conversation at home in Middlesbrough when she was growing up.

‘We’re just a normal, working-class family. I’m from a North-Eastern working-class town, in which the steel works still employs most people there.’

She condemns Margaret Thatcher because of the policies she used against the miners. ‘I’m anti-Thatcher from childhood... it’s in my blood.’

She hadn’t heard of the gay groups supporting the miners until she was sent Stephen Beresford’s excellent script.

Faye (right) also starred in The White Queen, starring Lady Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale), Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson)

‘That’s what’s really gorgeous about it,’ she told me. ‘They found solidarity together — and they’re worlds apart.’

She hasn’t met the real-life Steph yet, though Steph has been in touch with the producers. One important accommodation was made so Faye could be cast.

‘Steph’s a Southerner, but we’ve made her a Northerner so I can keep my own accent,’ Faye said, punching the air.

The ensemble for Pride, which is still filming, includes Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Bill Nighy, Paddy Considine, Joseph Gilgun, Andrew Scott, George MacKay and the fast-rising American actor Ben Schnetzer, who studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Producer Livingstone said that Pride is a film about communities coming together. ‘It’s about people thinking they’ve got nothing in common but discovering they have everything in common. It’s about unusual bedfollows,’ he added.

It’s going to be one of the films to watch out for next year.

The mystery of Diana's missing diamonds

The gems adorning Naomi Watts' neck look as if they're worth a fortune - but were actually worth about £1

The gems adorning Naomi Watts’ neck, right, look as if they’re worth a fortune.

A choker necklace, made up of pearls, diamonds and sapphires — with matching earrings! — would, you may have thought, set you back a cool £1 million.

But for you, madam, and you, sir, they’re yours for — a quid.

During the photographic session for the Diana film poster, the gaggle of marketing people present thought that the real jewels from Chopard didn’t look quite right.

So they sent an assistant out to scout for some other baubles to use, and they returned with the choker pictured.

And it cost, according to a source at the session, ‘a quid — two at most — because they’re plastic and glass, not real at all’.

Well, great actress that she is, Naomi, makes the glittering fakes look like the real thing.

Watch out for

Lesley Manville, who gives one of the most acclaimed performances of the season as Mrs Alving in Richard Eyre’s brilliant adaptation of Ibsen’s Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre, and who will be transferring to the West End when Ghosts moves into the Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall from December 9 for a limited season.

Eyre’s production, the penultimate piece commissioned for the Almeida by former artistic director Michael Attenborough, somehow made Ibsen’s classic fresh again — and Manville’s luminous performance held me spellbound.

Lesley Manville gives one of the most acclaimed performances of the season as Mrs Alving in Richard Eyre's brilliant adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts at the Almeida Theatre

I felt as if I was seeing the play for the first time, and not the 20th.
Will Keen, Jack Lowden and Charlene McKenna also star in the production.

Ms Manville is in the running for a best-actress statuette in Sunday night’s London Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Contenders in her category include Linda Bassett in Roots, Helen Mirren in The Audience, Billie Piper in The Effect and Kristin Scott Thomas in Old Times.

Adam Scotland, just 13 and a pupil at the Sylvia Young stage school in London, who was a knockout playing the title part in Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary’s musical version of Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾.

A workshop production, directed with verve by Luke Sheppard, was set up by the Curve, Leicester and Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton. The first-class ensemble included Sally Ann Triplett, Sarah Earnshaw, Elizabeth Seal, Emily Lane (a newcomer with a fabulous future), Alasdair Harvey, James Gaddas, Martin Johnston, Connor Fitzgerald and Bailey Pepper.

There were a lot of laughs and some good songs. Obviously, it isn’t finished yet and more polish, tightening and character development will be applied. But I’m sure Master Mole will burrow his way to a theatre near you within the year.

Adam Scotland may well be too old by then, but we haven’t heard the last of him.

Jonathan Pryce, who has gathered a merry band of fellow thespians will take part in the annual Friendship Works gala show and dinner on November 24 at the Café de Paris

Hayley Atwell, Harry Hadden-Patton, Al Weaver and Matthew Horne, who are in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s scorching play The Pride at the Trafalgar Studios till November 23.

It’s the last play in the Jamie Lloyd Productions first season — Trafalgar Transformed — which has also presented (in association with Howard Panter and Ambassador Theatre Group) Macbeth with James McAvoy and Claire Foy; and The Hothouse with Simon Russell Beale and John Simm.

The Pride will go on a short tour early in the New Year. From January 24 it will visit Manchester, Richmond and Brighton. A second Jamie Lloyd season will kick off in the spring.

Jonathan Pryce, who has gathered a merry band of fellow thespians to take part in the annual Friendship Works gala show and dinner on November 24 at the Café de Paris.

They’ll be raising funds for the organisation, which helps children and young people in London who need the friendship and support of a mentor.

Pryce will be singing two numbers made famous by the Ink Spots — Don’t Get Around Much Anymore and I Don’t Wanna Set The World On Fire.

Tom Hiddleston (busy rehearsing Coriolanus for the Donmar, about which I’m hearing great things) will give us his rendition of The Bare Necessities, while Homeland star Damian Lewis will sing On The Road To Morocco. Why? Because he’s just been filming there.

Janie Dee and Celia Imrie will perform songs from their cabaret acts. A seven-piece band will accompany all the artistes.

Jack Huston, who is charismatic and dangerous in the new stage version of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers On A Train, which also stars Laurence Fox, Christian McKay, Miranda Raison, Imogen Stubbs and MyAnna Buring.

It’s directed by Robert Allan Ackerman and the outstanding sets were created by Tim Goodchild.
Craig Warner’s adaptation is very different — particularly the ending — from the Alfred Hitchcock movie.

They were still working on it when I caught a preview, but I’m sure producer Barbara Broccoli will have her creative team bring it into the station by opening night on Tuesday.

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Virgo, Sussex, United Kingdom, 11 hours ago

"During the photographic session for the Diana film poster, the marketing people present thought that the real jewels from Chopard didn¿t look quite right. So they sent an assistant out to scout for some other baubles to use" They applied the same principle to the script, the cast and the production as well by the sound of things!