The Guardian UK: 'Olivia Williams: My family values'
Olivia Williams: My family values
The actor talks about her family
Maureen Patton
The Guardian, Saturday 23 June 2012
Olivia Williams: '[My husband] has great strength of character, like my dad.' | Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Guardian
My parents have always been cool. They even became surrogates to friends of mine who didn't have such supportive parents. Ours was a liberal-left household, so I didn't have any problem with questioning authority - which drove my teachers crazy.
I think my parents invented "Is that your final answer?" before Chris Tarrant. My father would do mock cross-examinations with me and my sister Sophie at the dinner table. Both my parents are QCs, though my dad is retired now. I would then ask other children questions in the same way, so they were terrified of me. But it didn't matter to me: I was a slightly precocious, argumentative child who enjoyed my parents' company and didn't like other kids very much. On playdates, I would end up in the kitchen talking to their mums and dads.
I don't remember my parents nagging or punishing us. So I wish I knew how they managed to communicate how we should behave, because I'm at the same stage now with my kids [Esme, eight and Roxana, five].
The formlessness of the teenage years always bothered me. I didn't just want to hang out with the others, I always wanted to know what we were going to do. My father was king of the guidebooks and our holidays were always planned, taking us from a great gallery to an ace cafe to a beautiful view. And as an actor, I loathe improvisation because there's no structure and no one knows what's going on.
Actors have to get on with new people all the time in order to work together. I get that ability from my mum: she's one of those people who engages instantly with others and establishes an affinity. My father is a great anecdotalist but rather more reserved, although he has done things like cycling off to see a play with a friend of mine in it after a hard day's work. How many dads do you know who would do that?
Dad was very ill some years ago with a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, depression, a broken hip and a reconstructed digestive tract. But his sheer bloody-mindedness meant none of those conditions killed him. So I do bless bloody-mindedness, even though I curse it in myself, and in others, because it's closely related to survival.
There's a reason I married quite late - because of the search for my father [in a man]. My parents' long and happy marriage was a great ideal to live up to, but a tough one.
Rhashan [Stone, her actor/playwright husband] and I are so lucky. We agreed from the start that we would always work out the stuff that was difficult. Our intention was, and is, to stay married so that when problems arise, you don't have that fear of desertion. I grew up with this assumption that family life was always going to be there. What's astounding is that my husband didn't have that blueprint, partly because his mother died when he was 11. So his adoption of that attitude towards marriage is choice-based, which shows enormous strength of character - that's what makes him like my father.
My parents taught me everything and set me up for life. I owe to them all the things I'm passionate about: music, art, the people I love, my career and family life, the fact that I have children and the way that I raise them.
• Olivia Williams stars in the two-part ITV1 drama Case Sensitive, which begins on 8 July at 9pm
source
The actor talks about her family
Maureen Patton
The Guardian, Saturday 23 June 2012
Olivia Williams: '[My husband] has great strength of character, like my dad.' | Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Guardian
My parents have always been cool. They even became surrogates to friends of mine who didn't have such supportive parents. Ours was a liberal-left household, so I didn't have any problem with questioning authority - which drove my teachers crazy.
I think my parents invented "Is that your final answer?" before Chris Tarrant. My father would do mock cross-examinations with me and my sister Sophie at the dinner table. Both my parents are QCs, though my dad is retired now. I would then ask other children questions in the same way, so they were terrified of me. But it didn't matter to me: I was a slightly precocious, argumentative child who enjoyed my parents' company and didn't like other kids very much. On playdates, I would end up in the kitchen talking to their mums and dads.
I don't remember my parents nagging or punishing us. So I wish I knew how they managed to communicate how we should behave, because I'm at the same stage now with my kids [Esme, eight and Roxana, five].
The formlessness of the teenage years always bothered me. I didn't just want to hang out with the others, I always wanted to know what we were going to do. My father was king of the guidebooks and our holidays were always planned, taking us from a great gallery to an ace cafe to a beautiful view. And as an actor, I loathe improvisation because there's no structure and no one knows what's going on.
Actors have to get on with new people all the time in order to work together. I get that ability from my mum: she's one of those people who engages instantly with others and establishes an affinity. My father is a great anecdotalist but rather more reserved, although he has done things like cycling off to see a play with a friend of mine in it after a hard day's work. How many dads do you know who would do that?
Dad was very ill some years ago with a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, depression, a broken hip and a reconstructed digestive tract. But his sheer bloody-mindedness meant none of those conditions killed him. So I do bless bloody-mindedness, even though I curse it in myself, and in others, because it's closely related to survival.
There's a reason I married quite late - because of the search for my father [in a man]. My parents' long and happy marriage was a great ideal to live up to, but a tough one.
Rhashan [Stone, her actor/playwright husband] and I are so lucky. We agreed from the start that we would always work out the stuff that was difficult. Our intention was, and is, to stay married so that when problems arise, you don't have that fear of desertion. I grew up with this assumption that family life was always going to be there. What's astounding is that my husband didn't have that blueprint, partly because his mother died when he was 11. So his adoption of that attitude towards marriage is choice-based, which shows enormous strength of character - that's what makes him like my father.
My parents taught me everything and set me up for life. I owe to them all the things I'm passionate about: music, art, the people I love, my career and family life, the fact that I have children and the way that I raise them.
• Olivia Williams stars in the two-part ITV1 drama Case Sensitive, which begins on 8 July at 9pm
source