Joanna Scanlan enjoyed stripping off for new film and ‘putting two fingers up’ to body image standards

The Getting On actress, 59, on snorting snuff, being the new Ma Larkin and baring all for her new film After Love.

The Thick Of It, No Offence, Getting On — you’ve been in many shows. What do people mainly recognise you from?

A recent one was, ‘Aren’t you from behind the bar in the rugby club?’ Generally, when people do recognise me, they have no idea where they recognise me from.

What’s your new film, After Love, about?

It’s the story of Mary, an Islamic convert who is married to a lovely husband, Ahmed, and they live on the White Cliffs of Dover. When Ahmed unexpectedly dies, Mary discovers that he had many secrets. So she sets off, incognito, to Calais, the place that she has only looked at from across the water all these years, in pursuit of the truth. It’s not really a film that engages with news headlines. It is about the individual looking for a place in this world.

You’re mainly known for TV comedies. Did you enjoy fully flexing your acting muscles as Mary?

Yes, I really did. I did another film called Pin Cushion with Deborah Haywood a couple of years before, which was on a similar scale. And I enjoyed the process very much, particularly because we ended up doing lots of live Q&As in various cinemas around the UK. Working in TV you are quite disconnected from the audience and I really relished connecting cinema with its audience.

In After Love you strip down to your undies. Did that require some Dutch courage?

In one way, you can use your naked body as a costume as an actor. In this scene we are looking at Mary’s stretch marks and flaws and the ways in which her skin tells her life story. So I wasn’t too vulnerable about doing that on camera. I feel like we all have very complex and loathing relationships with our bodies and as women that can be quite weaponised in society. A bit of me relished the opportunity to put two fingers up to that.

You’re Ma Larkin in the upcoming Darling Buds Of May reboot. Did you watch the original series?

I did not see the original 1980s ITV version and I think it’s because I was working in a summer camp in America at the time that it came out. But I was utterly thrilled to be asked to be Ma Larkin, because the books meant a great deal to me as a teenager.

What can you tell us about the shoot so far?

We have been filming for a few weeks. It has been an absolute delight to be in this farm in Kent and the cast are all brilliant. I know that sounds like what any publicist would want me to say but I genuinely mean it! They are all just very nice people.

How did you find lockdown?

I have enjoyed being home-based. It’s allowed me the chance to develop and write a project and I have done lots of community activities here in Croydon where I live. We’ve been working towards ending food poverty and I’ve been involved in a Covid-19 support group. One of the young Larkins said to me the other day, ‘I have never experienced a pandemic before — it must be different for you’ — meaning I was so old I must’ve lived through one already. I was like, ‘Bless you, none of us have experienced a pandemic before.’

You’re about to appear in Gentleman Jack. Your character, Tib, is described as’a hard-drinking snuff taker’…

Tib is a real historical character. She appears in the incredible diaries on which Gentleman Jack is based. So I am a bit nervous as to whether I can fulfil the dreams of many people’s imaginations having read those diaries.

Looking forward to the snuff-snorting?

I wonder if we will have real snuff? I suspect we won’t. I have taken snuff in my time. It must have been adolescent experimentation. It was pretty unpleasant, as I remember.

Is it true you were in the Cambridge Footlights with Tilda Swinton?

Let’s get this straight, I was not in the Footlights with Tilda, but I did other plays with her while we were at university. Both involved Ben Jonson. We were in a production of The Alchemist that had lots of very good people in it, including Simon Russell Beale.

Is it true you were head girl at school?

I was. But it wasn’t called ‘head girl’, it was called ‘prime warden’. I had been very naughty at school, so I was surprised when I was voted in to be prime warden, but I was very good at delegating all my responsibilities to an excellent deputy, that was the quality that I brought to it.

What’s your ideal comfort TV?

If there was a show that was a cross between Gardeners’ World and Transparent, that would genuinely be my dream.

■ After Love is in cinemas from tomorrow

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