The actor who saved humankind in pandemic hit Contagion is set to terrify viewers in Saint Maud. She talks about loving horror, quitting Game of Thrones – and turning into a bowl of porridge
Early on in Saint Maud, Jennifer Ehle’s wonderful, terrifying new film, a nurse describes her character Amanda rather succinctly: “Bit of a cunt.” Ehle laughs. “Amanda’s quite quicksilver,” she says, displaying slightly more tact. “She’s going through a lot. She’s on a lot of drugs, she’s bored, and she has an enormous amount of charisma and intelligence and ambition.”
Amanda is a famous dancer and choreographer, holed up in a creepy, rattling seaside mansion, where she is slowly dying of cancer. Morfydd Clark plays Maud, her carer and a recent religious convert. The pair end up at a kind of odds. In Ehle’s hands, Amanda is camp and wild. “She was so much fun to play, just a fabulous box of Quality Street.”
