Monica Dolan has always been drawn to challenging roles, from killer Rose West to fraudster Anne Darwin. Now, more in demand than ever, she reveals why she relishes every part she tackles
Monica Dolan has worn a lot of cardigans over the course of her long acting career. She has become one of those actors whose involvement in a project all but guarantees quality. She has a tendency to play characters who wrap themselves up in a sturdy knit; women who look harmless, or appear invisible, to the wider world. But tug at the threads of those characters and the idea of safety soon unravels. She won a Bafta for her portrayal of the serial killer Rose West in 2011, and recently appeared in one of the year’s best dramas, The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, as Anne Darwin, imprisoned for fraud after helping her husband, John, to fake his own death. Dolan jokes that her nieces have told her off for taking so many “cardigan” roles. “They say I ought to do something more glamorous and not wear so many cardigans. But I think they’ve given up now,” she says.
It is a sunny afternoon in Hammersmith, where she has lived for many years, and we meet in a café by the Thames. She has brought along Velma, her four-month-old husky puppy, much to the delight of everyone here. Around half our conversation is work-based, the rest is all canine. Velma is Dolan’s first dog, as an adult. She chose a husky because growing up, in Woking, she lived across the road from a family who bred them. “I was there all the time. I completely fell in love with them.” Dolan, who is also a playwright, is very good at telling a story. One day, when she was four, she says, the dogs escaped. The owners were on holiday. “My mum got most of them in the car, but the dad, Boris, was quite aggressive.” Boris had made his way to a local cricket field where he was surrounded by local police. “Apparently, I went up to the dog and he growled, so I said [she puts on a stern voice]: ‘Boris!’ and he just followed me. I don’t quite seem to have the same effect on Velma at the moment,” she adds, smiling. Velma is sitting underneath Dolan’s chair, every bit the model puppy.
