EXCLUSIVE:Theres fire and anger inMaxine Peakes portrayal of Dolours Price in newFXdramaSay Nothing.
Peake abhors that phrase.
Its such a flimsy word, isnt it?
Maxine PeakeCraig Fleming
The country was occupied, the English came, and it was a war.
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Peake is one of the best actors of her generation.
Shes an expert comedienne watch her in Dinnerladies,Inside No.
Maxine Peake as Dolours Price in ‘Say Nothing’ (FX)Rob Youngston/FX
9orShameless and a breathtaking dramatic thespian.
The unmissable film with Peakes outstanding performance is due for release next year.
Im playing Meryl Streep, she jokes.
Price and her sister were sent to jail in London from the mainland bombing campaign and were brutally force-fed.
To listen to Peake talk inSay Nothingabout what Dolours endured in prison is extraordinary.
Peake says she had to slide in so that the audience would believe it was the same person.
And sorrow too, for those who were maimed and killed.
The anguish is almost unbearable.
Not just for Price but for the innocents who perished during the conflicts, some by her actions.
Thats the power ofSay Nothing, now streaming onHuluand Disney+.
Peake says that such denials by Adams were seen as a betrayal by Price, who died in 2013.
That denies you your history as well, doesnt it?
Peakes role, in a way, is that of a brilliant immersive narrator.
That fascinates me, she states.
I dont know then how you process that and move forward?
Anthony Hopkins once observed that its harder to act sitting ramrod still than it is racing around being active.
It was sort of a gift in many ways because for me, acting is reacting.
Thats it, really, she says.
I mean, simplify it.
Its about how you react to a situation.
Its about trying to be truthful within the situation.
And then you have to put yourself in that situation, she tells me.
And such scenes are not often done as rivetingly as when performed by Peake and OHara.
Sometimes summoning a memory playing Price really got to Peake, but again, its about being present.
She felt the same way when she did scenes with Behans older Marian.
Similarly with myself and Helen, we felt we just bonded, we felt like sisters.
We could get that nippiness and edge and love thats created in love that sisters have.
But you wouldnt try and stop it, but sometimes you hold it back.
But personally, I feel you cannot.
The Irish question is a matter that shes always had an interest in.
Theres definitely romanticism across the water about it.
Peake recalls seeing filmmaker Mike Leigh at a screening of a Ken Loach film.
Oh, hello, Maxie, he went, What are you doing at the moment?
I said, Oh, Im just filming this series calledSay Nothing.
Im playing Dolours Price.
And Mike went, Oh I met her, quite a few times.
So there were lots of these people who met her.
She also met a few times with Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, an Irish civil rights leader and former politician.
Well, I havent written it and I havent produced it, so no, she says firmly.
The attraction of taking this woman when weve been through this extraordinary journey.
I am only an actor, a vessel, one cog in the wheel of this big storytelling machine.
Her concern was to realize youre talking about peoples lives and peoples trauma.
And so youve got to be very sensitive about it.
