Ruth Wilson: I like odd roles - I would get bored on a rom-com

The actress said she is interested in characters with complexities 
'Strange': Ruth Wilson as Caroline Ayres in The Little Stranger
Nicola Dove
Emma Powell21 September 2018
The Weekender

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Ruth Wilson admits her troubled characters leave her feeling “uncomfortable”, but has no desire to do rom-coms as she would get bored far too easily.

The actress, 36, is best known for her roles as Alison Lockhart, a woman racked by guilt after her son drowns in The Affair, and Alice Morgan, an ex-Oxford University student who is suspected of murdering her parents in Luther.

Wilson told A list: “I find [rom-coms] not as alluring because they’re too straightforward and I’d just get bored and probably overthink it and make it more complicated anyway.

“I probably have done simple things but made them more complicated. I always look for the other side of what’s on the page. I lose my attention quite quickly so I need things that are quite complex in order to keep interested.”

Wilson said she was left “unnerved” by her latest film role as Caroline Ayres, the daughter of a British aristocrat in Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Sarah Waters’ psychological thriller, The Little Stranger. Wilson said accepting a role alongside Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling was a “no-brainer” but that the atmosphere on set was “strange”.

She said: “I try not to take a character with me. There are some things I’ve done that have been so demanding so they’re rattling round in your head all day and into the evening. This wasn’t particularly that sort of film — but it was a weird atmosphere.

Troubled: Ruth Wilson as Alison Lockhart in The Affair
Phil Caruso/Showtime

“It was so repressed and everyone’s playing these repressed characters who don’t express themselves in this huge empty house and every scene felt really odd and very uncomfortable because it was so static with deeply uncomfortable people. It felt strange.”

Wilson, who said she has no plans to pen her own screenplays, also spoke about working as an actress in the wake of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, saying she feels actresses now have a “community” in which to share their stories.

“I feel women are talking to each other more,” she said. “They didn’t have a community as such, not a supportive one anyway. This has opened up the dialogue for women to share their stories.”

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