Bafta award-winning actress Monica Dolan has said she fell in love with acting as she “just got a feeling from it that I didn’t get from anywhere else”.
Speaking as she appeared as the guest on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the Mr Bates Vs the Post Office star said she first got the bug for acting at school.
“I just got a feeling from it that I didn’t get from anywhere else,” she told presenter Lauren Laverne.
“I think it was basically a feeling of being noticed, or being seen as people now say. I thought, ‘I want more of this’.”
Dolan, who won an Olivier award for her role in All About Eve along with a Bafta for Appropriate Adult, received several award nominations for Mr Bates Vs the Post Office.
She told Laverne how she prepared to play the real-life character of subpostmistress Jo Hamilton in the acclaimed ITV drama series based on the true story of Horizon IT scandal.
“I think you have to slightly put yourself in there,” Dolan said.
“You have to think, well if I was this person, how would I behave? I was very lucky with Jo because she was definitely more approachable than most people that I’ve played.
“One of the things I did very early on actually which was really helpful, which I’d definitely do again, was to ask her – if it wasn’t too intrusive, and I felt with her that I could – to ask her to record her life story. Just a little version – like a 15 minute version – up to the point where the script begins – where it all starts.
“That was really useful, waiting for filming – I could listen to her voice, and I’d have her voice in my head, and also I’d have her background in my head.
“That was very useful indeed because you’re kind of absorbing that person.”
Dolan also said of those who campaigned for justice following the Post Office scandal: “I was immensely proud of people, for being that collectively angry.”
The actress, who said her luxury item would be a walk-in wardrobe with a cold glass of champagne and a new outfit for every day inside, said she would also like to take a book on flora and fauna on the island so she could identify what she saw.
Among her desert island disc choices were her childhood favourite The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) from the TV show The Banana Splits, MacArthur Park by Richard Harris, and Us Amazonians by the “tremendous” Kirsty MacColl.
