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| Gillian MacGregor |
After small roles in The Sick House and A Lonely Place To Die, plus a series of appearances in TV series Persona, Gillian McGregor had her first major leading role in Beyond, the story of a couple at war with one another as a large, unknown object hurtles toward the Earth. Her performance dominates the film and is sure to bring her to wider attention. As it’s released on DVD this week, I caught up with her to ask how she became involved with the film.
“Lizzie, the producer, contacted my agent,” she says. “Well, I went in for casting and I really thought I blew it. I tend to get a feeling for how it’s gone. But then I got called back.” She laughs, remembering her excitement; it’s odd to hear such a light-hearted sound after watching her fierce and unhappy creation in Beyond. “I loved the script; I thought it was so interesting, playing that character,” she says. “And I really liked Lizzie Brown. I just loved her the minute I met her. And it was great to be filming in Scotland again, although it was far away from where my family are because we were shooting out in the wilderness.”
There’s still an expectation in some parts of the industry that Scottish actors will have to move south in order to advance their careers. I ask if she’s pleased that there are more opportunities north of the border these days.
“I think it’s different now,” she says thoughtfully. “I left home 16 years ago. I’ve been in England most of my life so it’s become my home and it’s where all my friends are. I came for drama school because that was what we all did back then, and I just stayed. I’d love to do more work in Scotland though.”
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| Facing the future: Richard J Danum as Cole |
With this particular film, I venture, the challenge must have been holding audience sympathy when playing a character who, for the story to work, needs to be gating and difficult to like at times.
“I don’t tend to worry about what the audience thinks of her. I’m not intelligent enough to keep all these things in mind at the same time,” she responds. “I just try to keep in mind what she’s going through and keep it real. We’ve all been there, when communication just breaks down in a relationship and you don’t know how to talk to people anymore, so I tried to play it for real.
Creating a backstory for the character also helped.
“I feel as an actress that I have to do that so I prepared for two weeks and then we had a lot of rehearsals... It helped massively to work with Richard [J. Danum, playing the other half of the couple] because we could just bounce off each other. I found the first date scene a little bit tricky because we shot the wilderness stuff first so I started out hating him and then I had to love him, and that was difficult to do – I just had to figure that one out in my mind. It helped that by then I felt I knew her really well and felt there was a lot I could identify with.”
So she and Richard got on a lot better in real life than their characters do?
“Definitely! we spent so much time together, it was pretty much me and Richard for the whole shoot because we were on screen almost all the time and that meant there was room for chemistry to develop. Obviously when we shot the indoor stuff it was much more pleasant because in the wilderness stuff I had dirt under my nails and I felt a bit crap, stuck in the same clothes with dirty hair. When we shot the other stuff I suddenly felt like a new person.”
It must have been cold in the outdoor scenes too, I suggest, and Gillian confirms this.
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| Gillian MacGregor in Beyond |
“I’m one of those annoying people who’s always cold, but I have this special coat that I take on set and it helped. It was good in a way because we were miserable, tired and cold so we didn’t need to act.”
It’s refreshing to see such a strong role for a woman in a film like this. I ask her if that was part of the attraction.
“Definitely, anything with strong women, I’m all for that. There’s a lot of fire in her and she can be quite nasty but she’s not afraid to speak her mind. I like the sci-fi thing although you don’t get to see very much, there are only a few effects shots.”
She must be pleased by how well the film has been received by festival audiences.
“I am. It’s so good that it’s found such an amazing audience. It’s a small indie film and I’m so pleased people are taking the time to look at these independent British films because they’re so important for our industry.”
Next up for Gillian is a television series, The Fight Room, which she co-wrote with Emily Corcoran, whom she acted alongside in Confine; it’s just been picked up by the New York Television Festival. She also has further film work in process. We’ll look forward to it.
