Rebel With A Cause

She’s the Marvel Universe star who grew up in social housing and speaks with a cut-glass accent. Hayley Atwell tells Jude Rogers about her role as a slave owner and speaking out for Justice4Grenfell

Hayley Atwell is hiding in the corner of a London restaurant on a wet autumnal afternoon, snatching half an hour between rehearsals for Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure at the Donmar Warehouse. And it turns out she’s quite the contrarian. ‘When people want to project ideas on to me, my rebellious streak goes, whoom! When they say I’m shy, I get loud. Or they’ll go: “She’s really confident”. So I’ll go… Her voice quivers, right on cue. “I’m reeeally vul-ner-a-ble!”’ Despite her humble upbringing in London’s Ladbroke Grove, Atwell’s cut-glass English vowels ring like bells down the line: ‘I want to come across like a human, you know? And if you don’t ask me about the work I’m doing – which is the most exciting thing about me – you’ll just get me at home washing my pants with my dog.’

Funny, warm and direct, Atwell, 36, is an arresting lead actor. Earning her thespian chops in drama remakes such as Brideshead Revisited and Howards End, via an Olivier Award-nominated turn in Lindsay Posner’s A View From The Bridge, she’s set to dominate our TV screens this Christmas.

First up, there’s the BBC’s big-budget adaptation of Andrea Levy’s novel The Long Song, the story of a Jamaican woman, July, looking back on her experiences of being a slave in the mid-19th century. Atwell plays Caroline, a wealthy British slave owner. ‘She’s this hysterical monster at the beginning, incredibly fearful of the slaves around her,’ the actress explains, detailing the nuances of her character excitedly (she’s obviously a born student). But it was an upsetting role, too. ‘There were times we’d finish a scene... I’d just feel horror in myself. And I was shocked at my ignorance of this much darker part of British history.