Hannah Waterman's Laura Beale on The Empowerment of Women in Albert Square
By Larry Jaffee
Hannah Waterman's Laura Beale represents the archetypical female character on EastEnders: long- suffering yet resilient. One minute she's practically homeless, the next she's running a business in the Square. Classically trained and hailing from a drama family, Waterman is not afraid to find deeper meaning within EastEnders. Several years into Laura, Waterman has ridden an emotional roller coaster surrounding her domestic circumstances.
The following interview occurred in October 2003 in an office at the EastEnders studio at Elstree.
Walford Gazette: Since the U.S. broadcasts of EastEnders runs about four years behind the U.K. episodes, I became aware of Laura probably six months after she was introduced when I was on a trip to London. To me, all of a sudden, Ian had a new nanny. And there seemed to be some sort of romantic thing going on between them.
Hannah Waterman: Boy, hasn't that changed! (Laughter)
HW: That's true. So then I made another trip probably like six months later and then I realised the two characters were engaged and it was when Laura was about to inherit some money.
HW: From her grandmother, yeah!
HW: So then I was like, "Oh, now I've figured it out." Hannah, I want to talk about you. Your dad's an actor, right?
HW: Yes.
HW: So as a little girl, did you want to be an actress?
HW: I did. Both my parents, my mother and my father, are actors and I supposed "inbred madness" is one expression for it. And my sister is just completing her training as well. So all the Watermans-perhaps I prefer that we be a bit like the Redgraves, but not as posh, yeah. So, yeah, we're all actors as much by design. Me and my sister wanted to do it, and I kept it a secret, in fact, from both my parents for quite a long time really. I was still doing school plays and I was in a big British theatre company that takes kids, and it's quite prestigious. So they had an inkling that something was going on because I was working for that and I was 16-17 then. And then eventually I came clean and we negotiated that I'd go to university first and then have a go after that, you know, get a bit of training to fall back on, a bit of education just in case.
HW: What did you study in school?
HW: English and theatre, yeah, joint honours. I think I needed to go to university personally, to do my three years' growing up there. I did a lot of fringe theatre and things like that while I was at university, got my agent and was lucky to start working pretty quickly.
HW: So in the household were they watching EastEnders all along?
HW: Ahm, it's fairly well documented my father's not a massive fan of EastEnders, but they're both immensely proud that, you know, I'm working. And that, for any actor, is an achievement in this day and age. So, yeah, I mean really, you know, they watch my work and they enjoy it from that angle.
HW: While you were keeping your acting aspirations a secret, did you also watch EastEnders in secret with your sisters?
HW: We watched EastEnders at school. I went to rather a posh boarding school, and certainly there were some girls there who used to kind of be under the impression that you should watch EastEnders to "see how the other half lived," you know. (Laughter) How sadly deluded were they. But there you go! So, yeah, I watching it at boarding school, which was always-it was always on there. So it was definitely part of my life growing up, EastEnders. I just wanted to work as an actor, didn't particularly aspire to just be in EastEnders or anything like that, but, my gosh, it was a wonderful job when it came along, three and a half years later.
HW: Was that your first big break?
HW: Yeah, really. I pretty well jobbed for four years before I started here, but certainly I had a dreadful 10 months before I got this part. So it was a real saving grace and I got it just before Millennium Eve really. So it was a great Year 2000 present, you know, apart from tummy ache with nerves (Laughter) worrying about my first scene. I was terrified. For six weeks I was shaking in my boots.
HW: Playing against Adam Woodyatt (Ian) and all his experience on the show [he and Wendy Richard are the only two members of the original cast].
HW: Adam was fantastic, fortunately, not at all like his evil counterpart, yeah. (Laughter) Otherwise, it would be hard work! (Laughter)
HW: The thing I like about Laura is the drive. Obviously, she's had lots of problems, but she's been able to overcome them. One day she's next to homeless and the next day she's running a business.
HW: Yeah, she bounces back. She's definitely a survivor, Laura is. And, in fact, I think that's where she and Pat have quite a close relationship now, and in some ways I think that's quite a common bond between them. They have faced adversity and have actually managed to retain most of their dignity and kind of come out intact. I think Pat's a good role model for Laura in that respect. I remember when she said to Pat, you know, "You taught me about what it means to be a survivor and to, you know, stand up for yourself." Laura can take that too far. I think she's at her best when she has a reason for that drive. You know, when her back's against the wall and she has to protect her child or go out and do something in order to survive, that's when she's most impressive really. She gets a bit sidetracked along the way and she does make decisions that I thoroughly disagree with. But that's not my job, you know.
HW: Looking at Ian's history with women, Laura in no way is as vindictive as Cindy, for example.
HW: No. Laura genuinely loved Ian, but he just let her down. And in some ways I think she still-it's a bit of a love-hate thing, but I think there was a genuine love there for him which had gone for Cindy a long, long time before. So the difference between Cindy and Laura, yeah, Cindy was definitely more vindictive and more malicious in her intent. Laura's more about protecting herself or, as will be, her child from hurt, you know. That's when she gets more aggressive, but, like you said, it's not vindictive particularly.
HW: I can't imagine Laura ever trying to get Ian killed. I mean even at her worst moment.
HW: I don't think she'd bother. The thing about her is she does get emotional. She does react with anger and can be quite physical with that and everything else, but essentially I don't think she'd make that sort of life-changing decision to something that extreme because I think she sees a future as she will move on, you know? I think she's got more hope for the future than having to kind of get him out of her life.
HW: I think the infidelities that engulf Ian and Laura can resemble real life, to some extent?
HW: I think it probably does.I 'm sure that if, you know, your partner makes a-well, I mean in Janine's case it was pretty much quite a lot more than a mistake, really. It wasn't a drunken one-night stand. It was a pretty thought-out affair until he got caught. That particular evening that Laura was drunk and it was a mistake-it was more of a mistake than what Ian did. Ian's was kind of a bit more considered. Laura's was a genuine drunken error.
HW: I saw that episode, and it was interesting because you didn't know which one Laura would go off with.
HW: Yeah. It could have been any of them. Gary was almost the outsider, I think, really. (Laughter) Yeah, yeah. It could have been any of them. It wasn't particularly Gary that she was going for. She was very vulnerable. She was angry with Ian that night because they'd had a fight and she felt rejected, and I think she'd been fighting against that for so long. He'd worn her down really. So it was inevitable that something would go wrong.
HW: I also liked the scene where, and I thought this, again, resembled real life, when a woman in that position, Laura had to choose the name of ...
HW: Of the baby, yeah.
HW: And she wanted to do the honest thing.
HW: Mm-hm, for the child.
HW: Yeah.
HW: Weirdly enough, I think that Gary was the person that actually made her aware of how important it was for him as a child to know who his father was. Although he didn't get on with his father, but he kind of brought it all into perspective, which made her think that she couldn't actually lie to her child about who his father was. So, ultimately, she's going to have some explaining to do. She might continue to lie and say it was just because it was her married name at the time. She could get 'round it, but I think you're right. I think she did have honourable reasons actually, and I think it was a terrible wrench for her. So I don't think she really wants to let Gary down. She does want Gary to-it's kind of self-motivated, but it's more about she's more selfish for her child than she is for herself really.
HW: Any cat fights with Lynne (Gary's wife)?
HW: Oh, I should think maybe one or two! I can imagine. I can feel something bubbling definitely. (Laughs)
HW: Again, this goes back to the relationship with Laura and Pat. I mean Pat had that type of adversarial relationship with...
HW: Mo.
HW: Well, I was thinking with...
HW: Peggy?
HW: Peggy, yeah. I was thinking when she threw the plate and that whole thing?
HW: I think that when certain things come to light, there could be a heated discussion at least. (Laughter) My stories have been very female orientated. Women relate to Laura's stories a lot better than men do, because for men it's more black-and-white than it is in some ways. Like the decision she makes with the father in not telling the real father and not telling Gary and everything about the child, a lot of men understandably found that totally deplorable, but a lot of women went, "Aha, yes. Okay. Yes, that happens. People do forget to tell the truth sometimes." Like you said, it's the reality of the situation. I like to think that if I'd have been in that situation, I would have made a different decision, I'd stuck to my guns and brought the child up on my own. I do sympathise with why she did what she did, and, like I say, it's a revelation how many women have come forward and either told me, you know, related to her making that decision. And I've heard stories of people who've done similar things
HW: Do you think EastEnders might not get enough credit-that it can be intellectual?
HW: I think so. I mean I think, as well, with any piece of writing, and I was always taught university-like we have to do medieval literature, epic literature, and all different kind of facets of literature weren't necessarily in our first year relevant to what we were going to do. Everything is influenced by something, including EastEnders. The best literature is about real life, and that's what we're trying to do. And that's - it's all about human emotions. Any kind of writing or drama is - is like and age old problem and it goes around in circles, you know. You can't really do anything new because it's existed for hundreds of years, people living together and being written about and so on, but what you can do is meet with the genre and-and develop it and, you know, continue to move it along. And I think the soap particularly is a very organic thing and the characters change and shift and different situations occur because of that and situations change characters and circumstances change characters. I mean my character's changed beyond all recognition really now. But I think it's kind of, okay, if you look back, she doesn't bear any relation to what she was, but then if you look back and take into account what she's been through, then it's sort of understandable that she's grown up and developed into what she's become, you know?
HW: I agree with you that EastEnders resonates with women.
HW: Yeah. I mean I think it appeals across the board to all sorts of different people. I mean I think each character has a job in some ways to reflect someone that exists in society. So that we're all playing - obviously they are fictional characters, but they're as true to life as we can make them within the constraints of making television, you know. And obviously therein, the necessity of having dramatic moments and peaks and troughs and all of that. So obviously it isn't what happens in real life, but it's as near as we can reflect like society. And I think EastEnders is, further, very successful. I mean the female characters in EastEnders are sort of famously the most successful characters there. I mean you've got Kat, you've got Pat, you've got - those are sort of unfortunate two names to put together - Sharon. Pauline, in her own way, is, you know, a successful matriarch. They're all very powerful women and the men in some ways are kind of a bit sidelined by that. It's centered around, you know, Peggy and the Pats and the Paulines.
HW: You just reminded me of an article I reprinted some years aho written by Jacquetta May, who played EastEnders' Rachel Kaminski about the matriarch aspect of EastEnders.
HW: I'll be interested to see that definitely. I think it's pretty relevant. I suppose traditionally soap has been watched more by women than by men, I guess, but I don't think that's the reason behind it. I mean I think, you know, strong female characters are good dramatic parts really. It's better than saying, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir" all the time. That's for sure! (Laughs)
Back to Latest Articles