Last Tango in Halifax star Anne Reid has described how the prospect of filming sex scenes with James Bond star Daniel Craig for the 2003 film The Mother, about a woman's relationship with a younger man, reduced her to tears.
Talking with Kirsty Young on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Anne explained why the thought of appearing naked made her cry.
“The night before I had a lot of drink on my own in the flat and I stripped and I stood in front of a mirror and thought, ‘Tomorrow I’m going to have to show this’,” Anne said. “And I started to cry and I thought, ‘Oh my good God, I can’t do this’. I rang my son and I was weeping and he said, ‘Look Mum, it’s a great part, if you’re inhibited it’s not going to work so just go for it’. I sort of managed to pull myself together but it was scary.”
Anne also revealed why she doesn’t think she’ll ever marry again.
Millions of viewers have enjoyed her playing ageing romantic Celia in Last Tango In Halifax opposite Sir Derek Jacobi, but 79-year-old Anne says she is too much of “a loner” for another real-life relationship.
Anne’s husband, Peter Eckersley, died in 1981, and she told Kirsty that he had been “the cleverest man and the funniest man in the world”.
“I never thought of getting married again, I’m quite difficult to live with I think,” she added.
Anne, whose career included a stint on Coronation Street, said she thought her childhood years in boarding school away from her parents had made her self-reliant.
“I think it stood me in quite good stead, I think this is really why I never remarried, I think basically I’m a loner. I’m quite surprised I ever got married in the first place,” she said.
Anne, who chose the complete works of George and Ira Gershwin as her book and a piano as her luxury item, selected tracks including Always And Forever by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and How High The Moon by Ella Fitzgerald.
Last Tango in Halifax will return to BBC1 for a third series later this year.
