She’s spent decades treading the boards and stealing the show in everything from Killing Eve to Fleabag and, at 68, Fiona Shaw about to woo us all again in the latest film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. But how exactly does she find the energy for it all? In an exclusive interview with Good Housekeeping, the Killing Eve star shared the hobby that keeps her feeling motivated - despite never getting any better at it!
“Age is age, but I’m not un-enjoying it,” she said of life in her 60s. “I feel like a young old person. I’m new to old age, so I’m enjoying the novelty of the sloping hills. Those hills might get steeper as I age.”
While her bucket list has, she admitted, shortened somewhat, she’s found a passion closer to home she keeps her energised. “I love painting, although I’m very bad for someone who paints a lot. I keep thinking I’ll get better, but I don’t. What is it Einstein is thought to have said? 'If you repeat the same thing and expect a better outcome, you’re mad. Well, that’s me.'"
She added: “What else do I like doing? My wife and I love entertaining friends. People are always passing through. We have a lot of people for dinner. I’m not a good cook, but Sonali is.”
Fiona met her Sri Lankan wife Sonali Deraniyagala in what she’s called a “astonishing” way. She read Wave, Sonali’s memoir about losing her husband, two sons and parents in the Indian Ocean tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 and later, they were introduced by mutual friends.
The pair got married in 2018, when Fiona was 60, and live in north London. “It’s really good for me to be married,” she reflected. “But you don’t need to be married. You really don’t.”
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Fiona’s attitude to life has been shaped by many things, she explained in the interview - one of them being the loss of her brother many years ago. When Fiona was making her debut with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985, her younger brother Peter was killed in a car accident. He was just 18 and about to play rugby for the county.
“Peter is kind of incorporated into us now. I have photographs of him in two or three places in my house. I often talk to him, especially when I’m gardening. It’s a nice place to meet him,” she said.
She says her brother gave her “a gift” that changed her outlook in many ways. “I’m not only wary of cars, but I became less wild after he died,” she mused. “A lot less wild.”
Asked if she’s cautious in life, she responded: “No, but when I see young people going out at night, I’m just thinking, ‘I can’t wait to get home.’”
Read the full interview in Good Housekeeping's November issue, on sale from Thursday 24th September. Fiona stars in Sense and Sensibility, in cinemas from Friday 25th September.
