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Kate
O’Flynn – Bridget Jones’s Baby actress Roger Borrell | Lancashire Life – September 9, 2016 Bury’s Kate O’Flynn finds herself on set giving
Renée Zellweger a hard time. Roger Borrell finds out why. The
former Bury Grammar School girl is going for the part of Alice Peabody, a
new broom brought in to liven up a TV current affairs programme, where
Bridget works as a news producer. ‘Alice
is there to shake things up and Bridget is very much her target,’ says
Kate. ‘She’s a hipster, very confident, a bit of a ball breaker
vaguely in the mould of Janet Street-Porter. The antithesis of what
Bridget is all about.’ Kate
decided to audition as a cool calculating ice-maiden. ‘That didn’t
seem to work and the casting director suggested I tried the part in a
northern accent. It just seemed to work – my Lancashire accent is one of
the reasons I got the part. ‘Considering
this is my biggest commercial film to date, the audition process was the
least painful I’ve experienced. It probably lasted little more than 15
minutes and two weeks later I was told I had the part. Another two weeks
and I was on set bossing Renée Zellweger about!’ The
battle between Alice and Bridget is a key plotline of the film but if you
want to know who prevails you’ll have to see Bridget
Jones’s Baby which releases in this country on September 16. As well
as Zellweger, it also stars Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent and Patrick
Dempsey. ‘It
was amazing to suddenly find myself working with Renee,’ adds Kate.
‘She is incredibly generous with her time. She’s lovely to everyone
despite working crazy hours and she’s a real team player. All the best
actors are. Of course, she is a phenomenal actor. It was quite something
to be up so close and see those qualities that make her so brilliant. I
hadn’t seen the Bridget Jones films for a few years so I watched the
first one and realised just how brilliant and funny it was. Bridget is a
character that speaks to a lot of people, they recognise something of her
in themselves. And it has an appeal beyond national boundaries. My
sister-in-law is Dutch and she was telling me how much they loved the film
over in Holland. It’s good to be playing a part in a Lancashire accent,
but I think times have changed – I think we’ve moved on from the days
when we had to hide our accents.’ Kate,
now 30 and single, grew up in Bury where her
father is a dentist and her mother teaches languages. ‘I didn’t do
anything special when I was at school. I acted in some productions at Bury
Grammar, but it was spending my spare time at the Royal Exchange in
Manchester that made me think this is the life for me. I got to see the
working of the theatre from every angle. It was a terrific experience.’ She
probably surprised herself by getting into Rada when she was 18. She
studied there for three years while trying hard to remain focused on what
she calls ‘the real world.’ Kate
got her first break in the theatre on the Lyttelton stage at the National
Theatre in London in a play called Port. She got rave reviews for her role
which required her to start as a stroppy 11-year-old and develop into a
young woman of 24. It earned her the Jack Tinker Award for most promising
newcomer. She
also received critical acclaim in the revival of Sheila Delaney’s gritty
Salford drama, A Taste of Honey,
with fellow Lancastrian Lesley Sharp. It was an intense production which
involved taking a psychiatrist into rehearsals to help plumb the depth of
Delaney’s characters. The
Lancashire accent has been put on hold as she appears in a revival of the
Broadway hit production of Tennessee William’s The
Glass Menagerie – again to great reviews. And she’s been popping
in and out of the TV police comedy drama, No
Offence. Another
landmark moment in her career was working with legendary British director
Mike Leigh on his film, Happy-go-Lucky. ‘I enjoy film and the theatre and I’d like to
continue doing both but I love being on stage. You get rehearsal time and
get to know the character. You are certainly more in control than in film
work. ‘I
don’t have any fixed ambitions. My aim is just to work with people on
interesting projects and with writers and directors I admire. I want to
work with the crème de la crème.’ Despite
the hectic schedule, you get the impression she’ll always find time to
travel home. ‘I do love Lancashire and I love to get back every six
weeks or so. I crave open spaces and friendly faces so I have to come back
for a fix of Lancashire and walk in the Ribble
Valley. I’ve been in London for a decade but the draw back home
is still there.’ Who’s
the daddy? Kate
can be seen on screen this month with Oscar winners Renée Zellweger and
Colin Firth for the next chapter of trials and tribulations of cinema’s
favourite singleton. Bridget
Jones’s Baby is directed by Sharon Maguire who was in charge of the
original film, Bridget Jones’s
Diary, which kicked off the comedy series based on writer Helen
Fielding’s novel. Finding
herself ‘fortysomething’ and single again, Bridget decides to focus on
her job as top news producer and for once, she has everything under
control. Things
start to unravel when she meets a dashing American and finds herself
pregnant, but with one hitch… she’s not completely sure who’s the
baby’s father. |