8 The Times Magazine
Actress Lucy Boynton, 28, was born in New York before her British
journalist parents moved the family to London when she was five.
While at James Allen’s Girls’ School, she made her debut as a young
Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter, aged 12. She has since starred in
Bohemian Rhapsody opposite Oscar-winner Rami Malek, who is
now her boyfriend, and Netflix’s The Politician. She will next be in
Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?.
I’m never more than a metre away from a hot water bottle.
That’s my British quirk. Having my formative years in the UK,
I feel more British than American. I love British cynicism, that
dry, self-deprecating sense of humour. We moved from America
one summer and by the end of the holidays, the American
accent was gone. My sister and I would taunt each other when
we said “tom-ato” instead of “tom-ayto”. The cruellest jibe was,
“English girl, English girl”. I’m proud to be British now, but then
it was about holding on to your American roots.
Rami and I did not wear matching outfits on the red carpet on
purpose [at the Critics’ Choice awards in 2019]. I just loved
that dress. There’s definitely a terrifying element to the
presentational aspect of red carpets. Working with the team
that I do really relieves a lot of the anxiety. And there’s always
CBD [cannabidiol]. I’m a CBD enthusiast.
I felt really vulnerable doing a sex scene [in Netflix series The
Politician]. Even though that was a really mild sex scene as far
as this industry can go. It suddenly brought up all the ways in
which, as a woman, you feel like your body is not just your
own and that you have to share your body. Going into such a
vulnerable experience, it brought all of that to the forefront of
my mind and made me feel quite angry. You always feel very
vulnerable in this industry anyway. I’m conscious of protecting
my future self and making sure that I always do something out
of a feeling of empowerment, rather than feeling like I have to.
My mum turned down scripts for me because she didn’t want to
bring darkness into my life. I remember being shocked when
I found out. But I’m so grateful; I think they would have been
really harmful. It wasn’t necessary for me to be working at 11 or
12 and I was always very young for my age. So she didn’t want
to accelerate my growing up in any way that was inorganic and
wanted to keep me as protected as possible. When I showed my
mum a picture of me in my full Bohemian Rhapsody costume,
she said, “That’s lovely. Who’s she?”
All-girls schools need to change. We teach 11-year-old girls that
how the 60-year-old man who’s teaching them feels when they
reveal their shoulders is their responsibility. That shouldn’t be
the case and especially not taught at such a young age. That
rhetoric around you as a young girl being responsible for the
way that people see you is incredibly toxic and something that’s
really important to unlearn and for schools to stop doing. My
sister [journalist Emma Boynton, 30] has been the central
source of feminist education in my life from a very young age.
As an actor, the answer is always, yes, of course, I can ride a horse.
Whatever the challenge is, yes, I can. Then you cross that
bridge when you come to it. I hadn’t ridden since I was a kid.
My horse [on the set of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?], Waterloo,
would get bored during takes and start to wander off. That was
just another element of madness and challenge at the 11th hour.
My mum bribed me to read books. She was a freelance journalist
trying to wrangle two kids in the summer holidays, so that
seemed like a good way to keep us occupied. The joke’s on me,
because 20 years later I’m a total book nerd.
My job relies on you not knowing much about me. When I am in
something, I want you to be able to suspend your disbelief
and absorb that character as she is, completely departed from
whoever Lucy is. So obviously the less of me there is out in the
world, the more efficiently I can do my job.
I feel like the author of my life now, rather than at the mercy of it.
I’m really excited to turn 30, to get older. As a woman, you’re
fed this notion that youth is to be clung to, that your twenties
are the best time of your life. What I’m finding is the opposite.
The older I get, the better it gets. I feel more equipped for life,
calmer. I’m increasingly happy to be here. nWhy Didn’t They Ask Evans? will air on Britbox on April 14INTERVIEW Georgina Roberts PORTRAIT Victor Demarchelier
AUGUSTWhat I’ve learnt
Lucy Boynton