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The mother and daughter duo are to star opposite one another in a West End revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession. Bessie, 31, is the only child of Olivier award-winning actress Dame Imelda, 69, and Downton Abbey’s Jim Carter, who wed in 1983. “She’s everything I could never be, this tall, elegant, confident, gorgeous woman,” Dame Imelda told the Observer.
“I just sit here and think: ‘In God’s name, how did that happen?’” Referencing their difference in looks, Bessie said: “Fortunately there’s a line in this play about how you can’t tell that the characters are mother and daughter, because you wouldn’t really pick us out in a crowd (as related). “But it’s always been a life dream of mine to work together.” Dame Imelda reflected on her thoughts about the term “nepo baby”, which refers to someone whose career has benefited from the connections of their parents.
“Surgeons’ children become surgeons. Should they be penalised because their parents have done the job before them?”, she said. Bessie said: “One of my biggest things is that I got into the National Youth Theatre and then Guildhall (School of Music and Drama) without them knowing who my parents were.
“Of course, if this were my first gig out of drama school it’d be very different.” Dame Imelda added: “She’s had to make her own way. We didn’t want her to be handed into the business by us because that wouldn’t have shown any respect.
” Bessie and Dame Imelda will take to the London stage from May. The comical drama they star in, written in the 1890s, is about a woman called Vivie, played by Bessie, who learns her mother Kitty (Dame Imelda) has earned her fortune from running brothels. Bessie described it as “a play with two women at the helm in a masculine world – which unfortunately we still do live in – and them not wanting to play by the rules”.
She continued: “Basically it’s about capitalism and it could have been written in the last two years. “It asks how much longer can we all look away before we have to turn and face what’s really going on in the underbelly of the world”. Bessie has starred in plays including Dear Octopus at the National Theatre and King Lear at The Old Vic, but is most known for playing Prudence Featherington in the hit Netflix Regency-inspired drama Bridgerton.
Her father Jim is most known for his role as butler Charles Carson in Downton Abbey. Earlier in the month, Dame Imelda took home her latest Olivier for best actress in a musical for the London revival of classic musical Hello, Dolly! – about a middle-aged widow trying to marry a millionaire. The actress has five Olivier awards in total.
Mrs Warren’s Profession will open at the Garrick Theatre on May 22, with previews from May 10, and will run until August 16..
