Ker-flunk, ker-flunk. Romola Garai thumps across the wooden floor of the photography studio with the grace of a flat-footed Cyberman. She seems unable to control her shoes β a pair of Christian Louboutin platform heels.
She looks so elegantly beautiful from the ankle up that her clod-hopping progress is particularly amusing. In the end the photographer comments. Garai, it transpires, has very firm ideas about what she does and doesn't do; the way life should be lived, what's important and what she can really do without, thank you very much.
This attitude would be admirable in any year-old, but it is particularly interesting in an actor β a profession synonymous with insecurity. I think it's harder for men to accept they're just a tool, they're not the generator of art. I don't struggle with it. I feel happy and lucky. In fact I honestly can't think of actresses who are my direct peers whose careers I want. This year I've got amazing roles in things I really believe in.
I mean, what more could you want? Though Garai is perhaps best known for her roles in period dramas such as Atonement , I Capture the Castle and the TV series of Jane Austen's Emma , her upcoming projects are juicy and diverse. Garai plays Sugar, a Victorian prostitute who becomes a wealthy man's mistress and is eventually introduced into his suburban household.
She is so complex, full of paradox. She is also very damaged. The Crimson Petal director Marc Munden β whose work includes The Devil's Whore and The Mark of Cain β says that Sugar's opaqueness would have made it difficult for audiences to engage with her if weren't for Garai's skill as an actress. She is a great technical actress who also understood instinctively Sugar's guile, her status, her damage.
