Actress Tara Fitzgerald is all set to get into costume this Christmas
for yet another period drama.
She will head a star cast in the classic mystery The Woman In White
(co-starring Simon Callow and Ian Richardson), as a woman trying to unravel
the mystery of her family's past. "She's a fairly fearless creature and
slightly eccentric. It was easy to identify with her", says the actress.
"The hardest part was a scene where I was up on a roof in the rain,"
says Tara, who was diagnosed with vertigo as a child. "Even though there
was a safety net, I still found it disconcerting.
"I couldn't film it too many times - I was feeling giddy towards the
end."
Character
For her role as Marian Fairlie, Fitzgerald had to go through something
of an image change. "I had to wear hair extensions," she reveals. "They
were burnt on and took about seven hours. I had to live with them for about
six weeks."
Despite appearing in yet another period drama (she's also appeared in
the lead role in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and this Christmas appears
in an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's short story, The Canterville Ghost),
the actress says she is not worried about being typecast. "If all the characters
I play are different, where's the similarity?" she argues.
Fitzgerald says that just like her character in The Woman in White,
she is fiercely protective of her younger sisters, Arabella, 29, and Bianca,
23.
The bond between her and her sisters strengthened after their father
committed suicide when Tara was 11. "I became like a mother figure to them
but I realise that I could not shelter them forever," she says. "I'm very
close to my sisters and it was great to be able to play one."
Liaisons
While filming The Woman In White, there were rumours of a romance between
Fitzgerald and co-star Andrew Lincoln, who shot to fame as Egg in the cult
TV show This Life.
But Fitzgerald, who recently came out of a long-term romance, laughs
off the gossip. "Andrew and I are just really good mates. We go out and
have fun. There is no one new and I'm not looking." She says she's just
as close to Justine Waddell, who plays her sister Laura in The Woman in
White, adding "We are out together a lot."
There will be no corsets needed for Tara Fitzgerald's next role, as
she'll be playing a woman of the '90s in the new film Conquest. "I'll be
a fast, materialistic girl," laughs the actress. "That's my modern-day
excursion.
"I'm not sure what I'm doing after that, but I'd like to do more theatre.
It's a good forum for experimenting. If you leave it too long, you start
getting scared of going on stage."
