Darling Sweetheart

Call me darling, call me sweetheart,
call me dear,
Thrill me darling with
the words I want to hear,
In your dark eyes, so smiling,
a promise I see,
But your two lips won’t
say you care for me.

Oh my darling if my
daydreams would come true,
You would meet me at a secret rendezvous;
And I’d find the paradise
that lies deep in your eyes,
Call me darling, call me sweetheart,
call me dear.

Guardian
, Film Section, Friday 19 June 2009
‘DON’T CALL ME DADDY’S GIRL’

Guardian:
Real ale? Not many young women drink real ale.

Palatine:
Well they should. It tastes nice and it’s much better for you than wine or spirits – they don’t agree with me, so I never touch them.

Guardian:
What does your personal trainer say about you drinking ale?

Palatine:
Nothing, because I don’t have one.

Guardian:
Yet you seem in great shape.

Palatine:
I wouldn’t say that. I eat what I want, but I also take long walks. If you use your feet, you need never be bored or unhealthy in London.

Guardian:
Do people not recognise you?

Palatine:
Sometimes, but a little politeness goes a long way.

Guardian:
It sounds the opposite of your father’s lifestyle – the yachts, the parties and fast cars.

Palatine:
Perhaps because I saw what that did for him.

Guardian:
But it must have helped your career, being David Palatine’s daughter.

Palatine:
I hate the way people assume that, but my father died nearly two years before I landed my first television part. He didn’t encourage me into the industry and, if anything, producers were cagey about me at the start, because of his difficult reputation. In fact, I owe everything to my acting coach, the late Sylvia Jardyce, who was a wonderful woman. Not my father.

Guardian:
Still, it’s a long way from playing Daisy Logan in
Crawford Square
to starring with Harry Emerson in an $80m epic.

Palatine:
I’ve been lucky; the right parts have come at the right time, and some of that is circumstance.

Guardian:
But you make your own luck, too.

Palatine:
I’ve worked hard, if that’s what you mean – if you’re serious about acting, you really have to. When I play a part, I am that part, for as long as it takes. By the time a production finishes, I’m usually too knackered to do anything else except flop around the house and hope that my agent sends me something good to read.

Guardian:
And drink beer and go walking?

Palatine:
(laughs) Exactly. I don’t know how anyone has the time to hang around the Groucho or the Ivy. If I bother to go out, there’s plenty of nice restaurants here in Greenwich.
I think people should support their local neighbourhood.

Guardian:
Your adopted neighbourhood – didn’t you grow up in Ireland?

Palatine:
My mother was East London Italian, my father was North London Jewish, I was born in France and raised in Ireland … so what does that make me? Franglo-Irish?

Guardian:
Is it true that you were born at the Cannes Film Festival?

Palatine:
Yes. My mother was there with my father while he promoted one of his films and I arrived prematurely. He didn’t win anything, but I still have some old newspaper clippings where he said I was better than any prize because I generated more publicity. He moved us to Ireland when I was three – for tax reasons, I think.

Guardian:
You said that you ‘become’ a part – you follow the Method?

Palatine:
Yes and no. Sylvia didn’t adhere to any particular school of acting, but, under her tuition, I found that the best way into a part is to convince myself it is real. I like physical cues, but it’s mainly a leap of the imagination.

Guardian:
That must have been fun when you started out as Daisy Logan – she was so devious and scheming.

Palatine:
How do you know I’m not devious and scheming in real life? (laughs) Daisy was a great role for any 18-year-old, because that’s how you feel at that age – driven, ambitious, like you’d do anything to get your own way. But the audience loves a good baddy and she worked wonders for
me at the time. I was still quite down after my father’s death – Daisy helped me to come out fighting.

Guardian:
Did you not risk being cast to type?

Palatine:
Maybe, but the baddy always comes to a sticky end and I knew that Daisy Logan would have a limited life-span on
Crawford Square
. So I put everything I had into being her, but I do that with every part I play – I did it with Peggy Lambridge in
One of Us;
with Emily Dickinson in the stage version of
Emily;
Joanna Hiffernan in
La Belle Joanna
and with Deirdre Orr in
Popular Delusions
. Everything I do, I have to leave myself behind and become that other person, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Guardian:
Has it ever not worked?

Palatine:
That’s for the audience to judge, not me.

Guardian:
I meant, have you ever played a part where you haven’t felt totally immersed?

Palatine:
No, and I would hate that, but I have a pretty powerful imagination, so it hasn’t happened yet.

Guardian:
How come you never accept advertising contracts or photo-shoot offers from the glossies? Rumour has it that you’ve turned down several fashion houses since you won the Bafta.

Palatine:
An actress should act, a model should model and a celebrity should… well, go be a celebrity, I suppose. I’m sorry if that sounds pious, but it’s the way I see things.

Guardian:
Again, because of your father?

Palatine:
Perhaps.

Guardian:
Yet here you are, about to star opposite one of the most powerful players in Hollywood. This is your move into the big time.

Palatine:
In the past six years, I’ve made five films, two television series and appeared in four stage plays. It’s been bloody hard work, but I’ve learned a lot, so as far as
The Perfect Heresy
is concerned, it’s not just about starring with Harry Emerson, it’s about playing another part that I hope to learn from. Harry is a producer on the film, so when the call came through from his company, my agent dealt with it as he deals with anything else – What’s the part? Can we see the script? But I was very flattered to have been asked and I’m really looking forward to working with Harry.

Guardian:
None of his recent films have been box-office smashes, like his stuff in the 1990s. Some say his star is fading.

Palatine:
Working for the
Guardian
, you ought to know that commercial success and critical acclaim don’t always go hand-in-hand.

Guardian:
Surely the key is to strive for both.

Palatine:
For me as an actress, the key is to find good scripts that offer challenging parts. You don’t learn from doing easy stuff. Look at Helen Mirren; she could have rested on her laurels years ago, but, each time, she steps out and does it better than the last. I wish I were blessed with just a tenth of her talent, but
The Perfect Heresy
is a good script and I think that playing a twelfth-century French priestess will definitely
be a challenge, no matter who I’m playing opposite.

Guardian:
Did they have priestesses in twelfth-century France?

Palatine:
My character is a Cathar and her people are being wiped out by the crusaders. The Cathars didn’t have priestesses exactly, they were more like community leaders, but equal to their menfolk, which, of course, doesn’t happen now and was an incredible concept in medieval times. I’ve been reading everything I can about the Cathars; they believed that life on earth is hell and that you had to die pure for the soul to be set free, otherwise you’d be reincarnated here in hell again. So the popes denounced them as heretics and had them all killed.

Guardian:
Sounds gory.

Palatine:
Oh, there’s plenty of action – Emerson is a crusader who falls in love with me and tries to save me from the stake. My dilemma is that I want to die pure, but I’m tempted by him. All this against a background of siege and butchery; I’m told there’s a huge cast of extras.

Guardian:
There’ll be a lot of pressure on this film to recoup its budget, but there’ve been quite a few sword-and-sandals flops lately, like Stone’s
Alexander
or Ridley Scott’s
Kingdom of Heaven
.

Palatine:
I’m not worried about that, but since you mention Scott, I recently read an interview with Darryl Hannah, whom he cast in
Blade Runner
. She said the reason she made movies was that she wanted to live in another reality. I understood exactly what she meant.

Guardian:
And it doesn’t bother you that Emerson has reportedly sacked a director already?

Palatine:
It’s not unusual for different names to be attached to a project before it gets off the ground. That happened before I was signed, so in a way it’s none of my business. But I’m more than happy with Peter Tress – I thought his film about Edvard Munch very beautiful, breathtakingly shot, and I hear he’s using the same cinematographer, Sergio Palmiro, for
The Perfect Heresy
. So I’m very much looking forward to working with them, too. I just hope I’m up to the challenge.

Speaking of challenges, Palatine’s relationship with Jimmy Lockhart, the lead singer of Lone Blue Planet, has been a constant source of speculation for the tabloid press. How will the separation caused by filming in France and Lockhart’s extended British tour affect the Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin of 2009? But Palatine politely declines to discuss the subject and, with a final flash of those silver eyes, she’s away, leaving the
Guardian
to ponder the inescapable conclusion that, no matter how much she protests, here we have a star who’s on the point of going supernova. We’ll keep a very close eye on Palatine’s progress.