'I've only had three boyfriends! I'm not interested in serial dating' says actress Tamsin Egerton despite rumours linking her to Singularity co-star Josh Hartnett
PUBLISHED: 00:01, 14 April 2013 | UPDATED: 00:01, 14 April 2013
She shot to fame with saucy turns in her early movies and in her latest film actress TAMSIN EGERTON ramps up the raunch. But, as she tells Judith Woods, she isn’t naturally body confident and she’s just an old-fashioned homebody at heart
Tamsin wears trench coat, Vanessa G
I'm not sure whether Ofsted would approve, but there’s no escaping the fact that having graduated with honours from the knockabout St Trinian’s films, English-rose actress Tamsin Egerton is, indisputably, all grown up. And how. As if to prove the point, she’s cast off her posh totty gymslip in favour of appearing entirely deshabille in The Look of Love, director Michael Winterbottom’s biopic of Soho strip mogul Paul Raymond. It’s a brave move; but was it strictly necessary, Tamsin? You’ve played Guinevere in the TV series Camelot, appeared in the squeaky-clean Chalet Girl and have nine A-grade GCSEs – so why the full nudity? And, more eye-watering still, why those orgy scenes with Steve Coogan as a moustachioed Raymond? What on earth did your parents say? I mean, they live in Hampshire, for heaven’s sake!
Tamsin, 24, ethereally beautiful and slim as a wraith with a model’s 36-inch legs, bursts into peals of laughter at my breathless bombardment. ‘I know! I turned down the part at first, because I didn’t want to go from St Trinian’s, which was quite saucy, to a naked role. But Michael was adamant
that Fiona, Paul’s lover, was an important character who brought an essential element to the film. So we talked an awful lot about it and he agreed to cut the nudity of my character to about half.’
Tamsin's rumoured to be dating her Singularity co-star Josh Hartnett
The mind boggles as to the original draft, because, dear readers, Tamsin, who briefly turned redhead for the film, is naked an awful lot. But, counter-intuitively, she is clad in such an air of happy-go-lucky ingénue innocence that her nudity doesn’t seem just tasteful but matter-of-fact; even when she swims about at length, in a tank of water, without a stitch.
She comes across as the epitome of body confidence, yet denies it comes naturally (a testament to her acting ability). ‘I wouldn’t dream of accepting a role and then announcing, “You can only see side boob.” Once you take a role you have to do it properly and do it justice,’ Tamsin says firmly. ‘The truth is, I’m not body confident. But I’m an actress playing someone who wasn’t in the least bit bothered about stripping off, so that’s the ballsy character I became during the film.’
The film explores Raymond’s relationships with the women in his life: his wife Jean (played by
Anna Friel), his lover Fiona and his daughter Debbie, whose descent into drug addiction is harrowingly portrayed by Imogen Poots.
Dubbed the King of Soho, Raymond built up a £1.5 billion property, strip joint and magazine empire, and was a serial womaniser who would routinely bed other women at his clubs, to his wife’s knowledge, before returning home to her. The couple split up when he began a relationship with Fiona Richmond, the professional nom de plume of Julia Harrison, who was a glamour model, actress and columnist on Men Only magazine and was with him for six and a half years, before she grew weary of his addiction to sexual dalliances.
Tamsin wears dress, Louis Vuitton
‘Fiona and Raymond were both intelligent people who enjoyed pushing sexual boundaries and found the sex industry risqué and exciting. And they loved each other,’ says Tamsin. ‘I did my research and emailed, Skyped and met Julia, who was adamant that she loved Paul. She was very confident sexually and she certainly wasn’t a victim of a predatory, older, richer man.
'There’s a scene in the film where various characters are taking drugs, and I felt it important to show her not being part of that; to highlight she was in that world but not of it. I was so immersed in my character that when Fiona watches Paul take another woman into their bedroom in front of her and their guests, there were genuine tears in my eyes. I found it really hurtful.’
Her admiration for Coogan is untrammelled, which is fortunate given their on-screen intimacy, including scenes where there are more than two (or even three) in the bed. ‘Steve’s fantastic, with an amazing energy; he’s witty and clever and all the things you expect him to be, yet a really generous performer, who really helped me to feel at ease. He said that he’d gone into the job thinking it was going to be a dream, but writhing around with naked women just became a day’s work, as it was for Paul Raymond, so in a way life imitated art by the end.’
Tamsin with co-star Steve Coogan in upcoming movie The Look of Love
Although cast members took several trips to see shows in Soho by way of research, Tamsin declined, on the grounds she was worried ‘it might scare me too much’ – which might seem a bit peculiar given her upfront portrayal of sexual liberation on-screen, but at heart she’s quite an old-fashioned girl.
‘I’ve only had three boyfriends in my life!’ she shrieks. ‘I’m not interested in serial dating; I’d honestly rather be single.
'The 1950s would be my ideal decade because I’m actually very traditional; I enjoy being at home and I’m a complete nester. I haven’t set a deadline, but I’ve always been very honest about what I want from life eventually, and that’s being happily married and cooking dinner for my husband and however many children I’m lucky enough to be blessed with and feeding the chickens and maybe a couple of pot-bellied pigs…’ she trails off dreamily.
‘My idea of retail bliss is a kitchen shop with shelves of Le Creuset! My friends think it’s hilarious that I’ve just bought myself a pasta maker.’
She grinds her own spices with a pestle and mortar for curries. If she’s feeling under the weather she rustles up a concoction of crushed garlic and manuka honey, leaves it to infuse then eats it, a teaspoon at a time. ‘I was brought up to think a lot about food and have respect for it, both as medicine and something to eat and enjoy. Some people who meet me might think I starve myself, because there’s such an assumption that being thin involves putting yourself through torture and punishing your body, but I’m just naturally skinny – you should watch me demolish a ploughman’s lunch. And I love nothing – and I mean nothing – better than a nice cup of tea.’ So true.
‘But, you know, it’s impossible to get a good cup of tea anywhere else but Britain.’ Ah, indeed. ‘I don’t know if it’s the water or the kettle,’ she continues. ‘I always bring a box of Tetley over to the US with me and really think long and hard about my technique and try to make tea as authentically as I would here, but it just never tastes as good.’
What her current squeeze makes of his tea-obsessive domestic goddess is anyone’s guess – because she refuses, point-blank to discuss anything other than the fact ‘he’ exists. She won’t even confirm or deny the rumours linking her with Black Hawk Down actor Josh Hartnett, with whom she filmed Singularity, an epic love story due for release later this year. Yet it’s hard to reconcile
Tamsin the contented homebody with Tamsin the socialite, photographed out and about with
her St Trinian’s co-star Talulah Riley. ‘I still have a reputation for partying dating back to when Talulah and I were living in Central London together,’ says Tamsin. ‘We were young and free and having dinner parties and going to events and just being 19. It was six months at the most; I don’t dress up very often, I don’t even like getting drunk because I haven’t got the constitution for it and I don’t think I can bounce back as quickly as other people do.’
Beverly Hills-based Talulah has since married, divorced and allegedly been reunited with
billionaire PayPal founder and space-exploration entrepreneur Elon Musk. Other St Trinian’s alumni include Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding, who has returned to her successful music career, singer Paloma Faith, and Gemma Arterton, who bagged a Bond Girl role (Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace) and recently starred as Gretel in the 3D action-horror Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. But 2013 is very much panning out to be the year of Tamsin’s big breakthrough. It’s a bittersweet reminder to the jealous girls who bullied her at school in Hampshire, ostracising her after she was spotted in local youth theatre and later cast as Mary in an RSC musical production of The Secret Garden, that a life lived well (and red-carpet applause) really is the best revenge.
Tamsin wears Top, skirt and shoes, Louis Vuitton. Earrings, Emporio Armani
‘When I was at school and doing my acting, the other girls felt I was different and stood slightly apart from them, so they made sure I knew it, by excluding me from their clique,’ she says. ‘It was hugely hurtful at the time, but I’ve moved on so I can, if not quite laugh about it, then at least dismiss it.’
Born Tamsin Egerton Dick – she shortened her name for professional purposes – she was brought up in a comfortable middle-class home.
Her father Michael is a businessman and her mother Nicky is a former nurse who gave up work to bring up Tamsin and her elder sister Sophia, now a scuba instructor in Thailand. Tamsin did some modelling as a teenager, but found it ‘boring’ and decided to concentrate on acting instead of going to university. When she left school at 16, she strolled straight into the Brit-com Keeping Mum with Maggie Smith, Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Scott Thomas and
has worked ever since, relishing the challenges of each new role.
‘I love playing complex characters,’ says Tamsin. ‘Maybe that’s the difference between being a teen actress and a grown-up; the writing changes a lot more – you can be sobbing and crying or having
a laugh or swimming, starkers, in a fish tank.’
‘At school, the other girls felt I stood apart from them, so they excluded me from their clique’
And be assured, Tamsin has been running the proverbial gamut of adult emotions of late.
In Singularity, Roland Joffé’s contemplative examination of what it is to be alive, Tamsin plays
the marine archaeologist wife of Josh Hartnett, who has fallen into a coma, death kept at bay only by medical intervention.
She also has a nail-biting role in the psychological thriller Grand Piano, starring John Cusack and Elijah Wood, in which a terrified pianist must give a recital while a bomb ticks under his seat. And in a reflection of her acceptance into the ranks of Hollywood names, Tamsin has a voice role in what promises to be the summer animation blockbuster, Justin and the Knights of Valour, also featuring the tones of Antonio Banderas, Julie Walters, David Walliams and Freddie Highmore.
Beyond that is the pilot of new Fox series The List, from Lost writer Paul Zbyszewski – ‘my character, Delilah, is a real baddie, strong and manipulative’ – and the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s bestselling novel Where Rainbows End, alongside Sam Claflin and Lily Collins. ‘Romcoms are such fun, I just hope we can do the book justice. We start filming in Dublin in a few weeks. I haven’t been to Dublin since Camelot so I’m really looking forward to it, but I think the weather may be a bit different
At this point I am about to Hold the Front Page for a world exclusive, but then she elaborates: ‘My baby is Porky, my pug. I love him so much, but LA isn’t his thing. I’m really looking forward to spending some time there, meeting people from the industry, enjoying the climate and having a few adventures on the way. I prefer movies to theatre, which counts as heresy with some of my friends,
but I love putting myself into a role 100 per cent and then moving on and doing something different. Theatre is a wonderful discipline, but I love the freshness of film and the fact you can switch from a happy scene to a distraught scene and the whole thing might be filmed entirely out of order.’
Tamsin wears Suit, Trussardi. Top, (just seen), Ashish
But in her head, at least, Tamsin likes to know the order of things. After reading the revised script for The Look of Love, she embarked on extensive research and found Paul Raymond’s story genuinely intriguing. ‘He was a cultural figurehead in England in the 1970s, a real icon of the time. He sold a seedy but seductive glamour that people bought into. I don’t think Soho would be the place it is today without him. Even now, I love that element of shadiness about Soho; I always feel a bit naughty walking through it, even though I’m just going to Caffè Nero.’
Towards the end of the film – after Tamsin’s character has bowed out – quite a few of the scenes are eye-wateringly hard-core and certainly not for the faint-hearted. ‘Fiona wasn’t manipulated in any way. She was the one holding the reins; she knew what she was doing and she was having fun – and as soon as she stopped having fun she walked away. I am completely relaxed about the content of the film; there’s a great deal of sex on television and the internet where it’s not framed in any sort of context, which I find a lot more offensive than a film based on a real man’s emotional journey with his daughter. My mother will be fine watching it, but I think my dad should stay away – there are some things a father shouldn’t have to see!’
TAMSIN'S LOVES
Currently shopping online at
Net-a-porter. And I’ve recently discovered Ssense — it has lots of my favourite brands such as Alexander Wang and Band of Outsiders.
Top beauty tip
Sleep and spirulina supplements.
Gym or yoga?
Gym — I like to run. And I also go riding.
Setting the TV recorder for…
House of Cards, Homeland and Breaking Bad. I do love a box set, though.
Currently reading
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
On my iPod
Tori Amos, Alt-J and Bat For Lashes.
Favourite city
It would be a toss-up between Florence and Tokyo.
Saving for
A holiday. My sister and want to go to the Amalfi Coast.
All-time favourite movie?
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
He will have plenty of opportunities to watch his daughter’s less frisky big-screen outings, from which, she says, she has learned a lot. ‘My career so far has been fabulously educational: I learned to ski for Chalet Girl and, having spent five hours a day with my endlessly patient instructor in St Anton, I was doing black runs after two months. But there was no time to film the scene of my thrilling ski chase, so nobody got to see me! Then for Camelot, I learned to ride and had six months of lessons, which has given me a passion for all things equestrian. And for The Look of Love, I feel quite regretful that I…’
Didn’t keep your clothes on? Didn’t insist on a body double? ‘Ha ha! No, that I didn’t come away trained in the art of elegant burlesque routines.’ And you know, when she says it in that wide-eyed way of hers, it sounds the sweetest, most guileless of ambitions.
The Look of Love will be in cinemas from 26 April
Check out the trailor for Tamsin's new movie, The Look of Love
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2306813/Ive-boyfriends-Im-interested-serial-dating-says-actress-Tamsin-Egerton-despite-rumours-linking-Singularity-star-Josh-Hartnett.html#ixzz2QOfdsYvi
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