Jemma Redgrave: 'When my parents divorced I learnt that you can't take anything for granted'

We asked the actress, 53, what her younger self would make of her today...

I grew up in a mansion block in Earl’s Court. There was a garden in the middle with a big mulberry tree where a big gang of us kids would play. We all got thrown out in May and called in in September. There was so much freedom; endless games of Kick the Can and British Bulldog. 

Our parents weren’t as “hovery” as I’ve been as a parent to my boys, now aged 24 and 18. From a young age, my brother Luke and I were on the Tube going to see friends on our own. I’d potter down to the library. I was always a bit back foot; I was quite thoughtful and always had my nose in a book. 

Jemma Redgrave

My mother [model Deirdre Hamilton-Hill] was incredibly sociable and gregarious; she had a lot of friends. My father [actor Corin Redgrave] was very different, very studious. What he loved about my mum was her social ease; she was a wonderful dancer. There were always friends and a lot of parties. She couldn’t cook a thing when she met my dad, but she became a great cook. Shocking as it is now, at that time, the onus was all on my mother.

There was always music in the house. My mother was all jazz and Dusty Springfield and the Rolling Stones. My father, who was a wonderful pianist, was all Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. It was a rich part of my childhood. You are lucky in your life if you grow up in a house where people read and go to the theatre. 

Then they separated when I was seven and things changed. It’s hard to think about how it affected me now. At the time, I cut off from what was happening – that’s how children cope. It was a game of two halves my childhood; you learn early that you can’t really take anything for granted.

Growing up I was very close to my grandmother [actress Rachel Kempson] and she took me to the theatre a lot.

Jemma Redgrave

At 13 I remember when it became absolutely crystal that I wanted to be an actor: after I went to see The War of the Roses at Stratford. I told my grandma and I got a very serious letter from her saying something like, “If you’re going into this expecting to be famous, think again”. I was under strict instructions not to get ­highfalutin notions. My father bought me Henry VI parts one, two and three with inscriptions to commemorate my decision to become an actor. For a lot of my friends, who were actors, their parents were horrified. Back then, all jobs had job security, except acting, but now you might as well be an actor as anything else. Neither of my children are actors, although one of them is writing and directing.

A few years ago, I took them to see The Lady Vanishes at the BFI. Television doesn’t show old movies like it used to, so I wasn’t sure they’d seen anything their grandparents [Kempson and Sir Michael Redgrave] were in. My youngest wriggled and wriggled. At the end I asked what he thought. He said, “It got a lot better after the lady vanished!” It’s wonderful to have performed with family. I’ve worked with Vanessa [Redgrave] twice, Lynn [Redgrave], and my dad. I had one scene with him in a drama documentary about the liberation of Belsen. It was after his cardiac arrest and he had brain damage, it changed him profoundly, but he was still an extraordinary actor. 

My father was politically engaged and I grew up going to marches about apartheid in South Africa. We were engaged, but in a different way from my kids’ generation. They seem to know so much more than I did. They have woken up to stuff that took me years to wake up to; they eat better and they look after themselves better. 

I’m still finding ageing a shock. I just never thought it would happen to me. When I look in the mirror I see my mother. 

My younger self worried about what people thought of her, but I try not to be so consumed by that now. I’ve been so lucky and never thought I’d get to work with the incredible people I have. Of them all, my younger self would be most impressed by my part in the film The Buddha of Suburbia, for which David Bowie did the music. My teenage self was obsessed. At the moment, I’m working with the same director Roger Michell on the play Mood Music. If my younger self saw me on stage now, I think she would be proud that, I’m doing something connected to rock ’n’ roll.  

Redgrave appears in Mood Music at the Old Vic theatre until June 16, oldvictheatre.com