They don’t make film heroines quite like Maddie Ralph any more. As the creation of comedian and actor John Early, the titular character of Maddie’s Secret is a bright-eyed ingenue who greets the day like the sun came out just for her, no matter that she’s trudging to her job as a dishwasher. Like the leading ladies of ’50s Women’s Pictures, she longs for something more than the hand she has been dealt: in her case, to share her gooey, crispy and umami-packed culinary creations with the world as a food influencer.
Early’s character is a lovable striver that you want to see win, even as an eating disorder threatens to get in the way of her dream. “I wanted to make a character that people feel very endeared to and protective of,” says Early a few weeks before the US release of Maddie’s Secret, his directorial debut. “There’s something moving to me about people thinking of Maddie as not me and as this other being.” At recent festival screenings, fans reacted to the character with the primal displays of affection you would normally expect at a Barefoot Contessa book signing. “People are like, Aw MADDIEEEEEE!” smiles Early.
