People are always saying I play horrible women!” says an amused Harriet Walter. It’s hard to argue with this assertion; after all, she has something of a track record. There’s the odious Fanny Dashwood in Ang Lee’s beloved 1996 Sense and Sensibility, and ice queen Lady Caroline Collingwood in the smash-hit HBO show Succession – not to mention her scene-stealing performances as Russian assassin Dasha in Killing Eve and emotionally distant mother Deborah Welton in Ted Lasso. In short, the veteran British actor has spent much of her 45-year career playing very nasty women indeed.
“I sometimes imagine having a fantasy dinner party with them all...” she muses, and we both pause for a moment, picturing that surreal, painfully awkward social gathering with a kind of horrified fascination. “To me, they’re all horrible in very different ways.”
