Two years ago, in the grip of a wild swimming obsession, Lydia West impulsively decided to dive into Lake Como, one of the deepest lakes in Europe. “You’re not allowed, and my friend told me not to, but I said: ‘I’m going to do it.’” The water was calm at the surface but concealed strong currents. In the shocking cold she couldn’t catch her breath, and, while suffering a panic attack, she was pulled away.
She tells me this with a bemused smile – no big deal. It’s a consequence of frequently travelling for work, setting up in a new city, becoming someone new. “The moment I step out of my head, I tell myself I’ll do something risky, make a new friend, cut my hair off,” she says. So what happened? She counted her strokes, centred herself, and cleared the current. She’s unscarred by the experience. In fact she’s just back from Canada, where she filmed the CIA thriller Gray, and where she swam around the Toronto Islands at any opportunity. “You’re not really allowed to – it’s very dirty. But I dived right in. I always jump right in.”
