“It’s extraordinary to find
work where you don’t feel
underestimated, or that
you have to be seductive”
Sa ron Burrows jumped at the chance to work with writer Lorien
Haynes on Everything I Ever Wanted To Tell My Daughter About
Men – 24 short films directed by 21 women to support survivors of
sexual abuse. She tells Haynes why she is impassioned by the causePHOTOGRAPHS MATT HOLYOAK/CAMERA PRESS20 PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE APRIL 2020
B
lack comedy Everything I Ever Wanted
To Tell My Daughter About Men was
originally written by Lorien Haynes
for her daughter, Lilac, 17. It debuts this
month as a reading, supported by Psychologies,
at Shakespeare’s Globe in London to raise funds
for RISE, a non-profit organisation that helps
victims of sexual assault and rape.
Haynes explains how her project came to
fruition and how Burrows, who directs two of the
short films, became an integral part of it: ‘I started
the year with thank-you emails to eight people,’
says Haynes, ‘people who moved mountains to
support my passion project. Saron is one of them.’
Of their friendship and collaboration, she says:
‘I first met Saron in a changing room in Covent
Garden in the 90s. She had recently starred inCircle Of Friends and In The Name Of The Father
and I was star-struck! Two decades later, I met
her again with her wife Alison Balian [the two
have since separated amicably] and their
children Dashiel, seven, and Daisy, three. We are
all making s’mores round a hotel fire and she is
appearing in Amazon’s flagship show, Mozart In
The Jungle, and I’m still star-struck! She waves
a marshmallow at me and says she’s just trying
to balance two children with a career.
‘A week later and now clearly a groupie, I go to see
her in the one-woman play, Jackie Unveiled, about
Jackie Onassis – she’s audacious; a Brit taking on an
American icon – and I gulp before sending her my
first play, And Then I called You. Not only does she
champion it, she insists on being involved in my
current film project as a director!’ And here’s why... >>>Sa ron Burrows