INTERVIEW
ment, probably everything you would expect from the National Theatre of Scotland. It’s the kind of theatre I enjoy watching so I like being part of that as well.’ Even when it involves getting her kit off? The
Edinburgh International Festival programme promises, tantalisingly, strong language and nudity. Is Duff ready to slip out off her tartan plaid in front of the audience? She laughs again. ‘I was told it was behind a
curtain. I agreed to this before I knew people were going to be actually on stage.’ There will be 100 of them up there with the cast at the Festival Theatre. How is she feeling about it now? She snorks.
‘I don’t know yet. We haven’t rehearsed that bit.’ Should she need to have words on the
subject with Laurie Samson, who’s directing the trilogy, Duff won’t shy away from the chal- lenge. Battling with the network, defending her character throughout the Taggart years, has left her with gumption to spare. ‘They would say, “We don’t want to go home
with the characters,” so it would be all plot, plot, plot, detectives and blood,’ she recalls. ‘Then it would be, “No, we want to see them in their homes.” Credit to the network for sustaining it for so long, and for allowing the character to be what she was, but occasionally they wanted her to wear a pink fluffy jumper.’ Duff was not having it. ‘This was before it
became quite hip to be dark and brooding. Jackie Reid didn’t smile an awful lot – that’s quite normal for a woman whose job is step- ping over dead bodies. I fought through that with as much integrity as I possibly could.’ The steely heart that beat beneath DI Reid’s
leather coat is what makes Duff such a gift for the casting director looking for, say, a child murderer (in the play Iron) or the daughter of a Glasgow gangster (last year’s Fringe hit Ciara). Or a 15th-century bad bitch. ‘I’ve got a strong character,’ Duff says
thoughtfully. ‘I’ve always been a strong, independent soul, but I’m also incredibly emotional.’ This, she reckons, belies what she calls the ‘gird your loins’ thing about her. That strength is never far from the surface.
Suggest that these fantastic, juicy, post-Taggart theatrical roles have fallen into her lap and be prepared to encounter DI Reid’s prison yard stare. ‘It has been all of my own making,’ she says. ‘I needed to remind myself why I want
52
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK
Above: In the four years since Taggart ended, Duff has won two best actress awards for her stage work.
FIELD
FACTS The James plays are at the Festival Theatre,
6-22 August. Each one stands alone but on certain dates all three can be seen on the same day. Tel: 0131 473 2000
www.edtheatres.com
to be in the business, not because I was disen- chanted but because I wanted to do more than 21 years of Taggart. I needed to make this happen. I could just sit back and think, I’ve got my nice car and my nice house, my kids are a wee bit older now, I wonder if I should go on holiday. ‘I can’t do that. It’s not me, and my husband
knows it’s not me. I need to be stimulated in that way and I need to have a job ahead.’ Her sparkling new career, with two awards
for best actress from Scotland’s theatre critics, shows that her strategy has worked. And she will continue to make it work as long as she can, and keep on proving that she has the right to be on the stage. ‘There are people I’m working with on this
play whose TV screens I’ve been on since they were three. I can’t expect them to think about me as anything other than Jackie Reid.’
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