When she was younger Joanna Page, who stars in Gavin and Stacey, was
criticised for the very qualities that have brought her success in the Bafta
award-winning BBC comedy about the trials of a young couple. “I was
constantly told that I was too sweet and Welsh and nice,” she says. “It's so
fickle because suddenly, because of Gavin and Stacey, I'm right for
everything, and being Welsh is amazing.”
But she doesn't seem too bothered and her cheerfulness is infectious. She
looks glum only when she talks about her mother's brush with breast cancer
six years ago. It inspired her involvement with Cancer Research UK's Race
for Life; last Sunday she ran the Swansea 5K race on her day off from the
controversial West End comedy Fat Pig in which she plays the role of the
girlfriend usurped by an obese librarian.
She didn't have time to train for the run, apart from occasionally pounding
the streets with her little dog attached by a dressing gown cord to her
waist. But sheer determination drove her past the finishing line as she says
she's not a natural runner. “It was hard going: at one point I saw a sign
saying 2km and thought, my God, is that all?” she says. “But I'm quite
stubborn and I kept thinking you can't stop, you've told people you're going
to run all the way. What really spurred me on was looking round at the other
women who'd been through cancer, or who were running for someone they loved.
Afterwards it felt amazing; I'm definitely going to do it again.”
Even her car looks like a toy...
Skipping about her living room in biker boots and a short print frock, it's
hard to believe that Page, 31, and 5ft 2in, is grown-up enough to own the
semi-detached house in South London that she shares with her husband, the
actor James Thornton (currently a policeman in BBC One's Holby Blue). Even
one of their cars, a G-Wiz, looks like a toy (although their other car
really is a Porsche); there's a portrait of their Jack Russell on the wall
and a bag of knitting behind the armchair. In her Welsh lilt she talks about
body image, overcoming shyness and living with an underactive thyroid, a
condition that has influenced her plans to have children.
While she looks fragile, Page has a grittiness that saves her from seeming too
sweet, a quality evident in her scenes in the rom-com Love Actually as a
nude body double, swapping notes about shopping.
She must be tough to have survived the constant battering at her self-esteem
which she, along with most young actresses, has faced: “I have been
constantly told that I'm not pretty enough, that I'm too fat, that my boobs
are too small and that I'm not sexy enough. And I've been asked to change my
accent countless times. But because my family have given me so much
confidence to be proud of who I am, I couldn't care less. If a producer
doesn't like me I just move on to the next job.”
But there was one occasion when the rejection got too much: after weeks of
gruelling auditions for the West End version of Dirty Dancing - she got down
to the final two - Page spent a night weeping inconsolably over Pringles and
champagne in a suite at the Savoy (she couldn't bear to go home and it was
the first hotel she saw). The next morning she sent for an Open University
prospectus, but a fortnight later the script for Gavin and Stacey arrived.
Page's rattling on is really a cover for shyness. She dreads appearing on chat
shows and taking part in the obligatory karaoke at the end of filming Gavin
and Stacey. To help overcome it, her mother sent her to drama classes when
she was 9, and encouraged her to recite the Bible at their local chapel.
Page immediately fell in love with acting and at her girls' school in Swansea,
where she was regarded as a bit of a swot, Kenneth Branagh's autobiography
was her bible. But she hated RADA and cried on the phone to her mother every
night for two years. Her stubborn streak stopped her giving up and, by the
third year, she'd got used to being told to lose her accent and overcome her
homesickness.
“I was drinking 12 cans of Red Bull a day”
She also needed huge determination to cope with an underactive thyroid which
dogged her life until it was diagnosed when she was 28. She was continually
exhausted and always felt cold; she would turn on the heating in summer
while her husband sweated in shorts. Things came to a head when she was
appearing with Sir Ian McKellen in Aladdin. “I just assumed that I was tired
because I was working long hours. I was drinking 12 cans of Red Bull and
four bottles of Lucozade Sport a day and there'd be times when I'd be
walking down the street thinking I can't carry on. But I'd push myself and
overcompensate by being really fast, so people didn't think there was
anything wrong.”
Finally, blood tests revealed an underactive thyroid and she was prescribed
thyroxin, something that she will have to take for the rest of her life. It
made a huge difference. “After taking thyroxin for about two weeks I felt
happy and sparky and full of energy. It was like I'd been brought back to
life.”
The dose will be increased if she becomes pregnant and she will need close
monitoring, although doctors say that the condition should not affect her
fertility. She is keen to start a family as soon as possible. “You take it
so much for granted that you will be able to have children, and I used to
think I had a good ten years to start trying for a baby. But Rob Brydon [who
plays Stacey's uncle] told me to get on with it, because you never know if
things will start going wrong.”
Page's plans were put on hold when she heard that she had to wear a bikini in
Fat Pig, in which she plays a bitchy American obsessed with her thinness.
She signed up for the gym to prepare for that bikini moment, but never found
the time to work out. Then came the previews and she was too preoccupied to
care much about stripping off. “I thought, sod it, I'll just have to go on
with some fake tan and hold my stomach in. It will be fine.”
Page usually goes to twice-weekly yoga classes in Covent Garden, London, but
since Fat Pig has time only to practise in her dressing room. Hatha yoga
calms her down, but Ashtanga is her favourite because it has more in common
with dancing and aerobics. “You can be feeling drained but, as soon as you
start, it completely centres you. It's the most exhausting thing I've ever
done; the sweat drips off you. You flow through the movements quickly and
you're not allowed to stop, apart from holding these really stressful poses
for five breaths: everybody's usually shaking at that point. When I come out
I feel about 6ft tall, glowing and so strong.”
Page's heart is still in Swansea, even though she has lived in London since
she was 18. She is an only child and very close to her parents. Her father
does MoTs in a garage; her mother works for a finance company.
Her mother was told she had breast cancer the day before Page finished filming
Love Actually, but she dropped everything to be with her. “I could tell
immediately from my mother's voice that something was wrong. It was a
terrible shock because you take it for granted that your mother is always
there to look after you. Suddenly she was the one who needed looking after.
Touch wood, she has been very lucky: she had a mastectomy and took
Tamoxifen, and was given the all-clear five years ago.”
Page tried to keep calm in the hospital by knitting a very long scarf for
James, who proposed at Christmas in the middle of the crisis six years ago.
The couple met after they both appeared in the ITV serialisation of David
Copperfield. Although they never met on set, they fell for each other when
they watched the final version and were later introduced by Maxine Peake, an
actress and a mutual friend.
“James and I balance each other well”
The couple's home life sounds almost mind-numbingly domestic: they are both
obsessed with gardening and admit that Daisy, their dog, is like their
child; Page is even knitting her a coat.
Rather than go out drinking with the Fat Pig cast (one shandy is her limit
anyway), James picks her up from the theatre and she comes home for wan ton
soup in front of Lost. “James and I balance each other very well,” she says.
“He's like a proper man, very strong and supportive, and dependable and
quiet. He calms me down while I make him more positive and optimistic.
“And Daisy is a fantastic antidote to the acting world. If you've had a bad
day and someone's said you're terrible, you come home and she's clawing at
your leg and she just wants you to smoothe her. Suddenly nothing else
matters.”
Joanna Page is supporting Cancer Research UK's Race for Life, which is
organising 260 women-only events across the country until the end of July.
To find out more, log on to raceforlife.org
