Harriet Walter is unavoidable

She's never been beautiful, but she was pretty and vivacious when she was younger and played Harriet Vane in the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries on British television.

She gets to play all the aristocratic battle-axes these days. Sometimes she gets to play a likeable older woman, like Clementine Churchill, but most of the time she's playing snobbish and sadistic monsters like the mother in SUCCESSION or Princess Margaret in PATRICK MELROSE (whom she played brilliantly). It's as if she's inherited Judy Parfitt's roles.

I saw her in a very bad thing a few weeks ago. Can't remember its name.

She played the "Anita Van Buren" part in the UK version of Law & Order

She was in Downton briefly and was the nasty bitch cunt whore nun that replaced Sister Julienne on Call The Midwife for a few episodes a few seasons back.

In anything I have seen her in, she always plays a nasty bitch/cunt/whore.

Of course she was in Downton. How did she avoid Harry Potter?

Bill Cosby and/or Harvey Weinstein

That's Dame Harriet Walter to you, OP

I was shocked to see her appear in Flowers as a cool, lesbian, rock-n-roll priest.

[quote]How did she avoid Harry Potter?

Not only that, but also Doctor Who and Game of Thrones. How in the world did she manage that trifecta. I thought there was a law that said every British actor had to do at least one of the three.

The word battle-axe always makes me giggle.

She and Tamsin Grieg could play mother and daughter and just now I realised that I mix her up with Juliet Stevenson.

She's cast as whores?! … Telephone "sex line" whores?

bump

And she and Tamsin were just in BELGRAVIA together.

I saw her as Elizabeth I opposite Janet McTeer's Mary Stuart in the Broadway production of Schiller's play. Both were great, but Walter had the greater challenge and was riveting.

She didn't "fuck" anyone, OP.

The woman is talented. Another misogynistic assumption here at The Data Lounge.

You could argue that her Establishment background gave her a leg up on the competition, but her corpus of work speaks to her ability as an actress.

Hey R15, I saw that too and clicked through to weigh in on her amazing performance. McTeer is always amazing, but this is where I first saw Walter on stage. I've been a fan since "Bedrooms and Hallways," a film that doesn't get enough attention.

I loved her in Sense and Sensibility as Fanny Dashwood, especially the scene where she beats the shit out of Lucy Steele with the feathers.

I LOVE her. Saw her in a Broadway production of Mary Stuart and she was absolutely riveting. I’d watch her read the phone book.

Oh, I’m seeing above that others saw her in Mary Stuart too. I just fell like McTeer couldn’t even hold a candle to her. She might as well have not been onstage in their famous confrontation scene. And I had never liked before, and now I can’t get enough.

She's a good actress. That's why she gets work.

She was also the mother in Atonement.

She's an amazing character actress.

Forgive the link to Charlie Rose, but it starts with video of the confrontation between Elizabeth and Mary in Mary Stuart (and Harriet Walter and Janet McTeer have hilarious reactions to watching themselves). I think both women are well-matched.

Loved her in Sense and Sensibility, too, R18.

Oh they didn’t show the best part of that scene, where Elizabeth is being ushered on stage by a mass of black umbrellas as it pours rain and there’s a sudden huge thunderclap and all action freezes And the rain immediately stops as Elizabeth and Mary see each other. It’s a gorgeous coup de theatre.

I thought she was such a cunt in Sense and Sensibility. And I mean that as a compliment.

Maybe she built a career on talent?

Isn't this true of many of the Establishment actors in Britain, especially the ones from posh families or with the right connections? They seem to be unavoidable and get cast in everything as though they're the only actors available for the part.