A Villain to Hate

    During the Halloween season, monster is a term that frequently comes to mind. Have you ever realized though that monster is an extremely ambiguous term? There are monstrous creatures: Goblins, Ogres, and Lake Monsters (like Gozilla), though there also humanoid monsters: Werewolves, Zombies, and Vampires. On occasion, normal humans can also be considered monsters due to having cruel/ignorant personalities, being abusive to others, and becoming drunk with power. Today I wanted to tell you about an actress who did a brilliant job at bringing to life a villain that I love to hate, Imelda Staunton.

Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton was born in Archway, North London on January 9th, 1956. As a student at La Sainte Union Catholic School, Staunton took drama classes with an elocution teacher who noticed that she had potential to be an actress. Her teacher inspired her to try out for drama schools and Staunton was fortunate enough to be accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at just 18 years of age. She graduated RADA in 1976 and spent the next six years in English repertory theatre.

Her first major role (also the title role) was in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan in 1979. She later moved on to roles in the Royal National Theatre where she starred in The Beggar’s Opera in 1982. Her role as Lucy Lockit earned her Olivier Award Nominations for Best Actress in a Musical as well as Most Promising Newcomer. That same year she also had a small part as Mimi the Hotbox girl in the National Theatre’s revival of Guys and Dolls, where she met her future husband, actor Jim Carter. (Carter played the role of gangster, Big Julie in the show.) The married the following year, and in ’85 Staunton won the Olivier for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her performances in the plays The Corn is Green and A Chorus of Disapproval. She made her film debut in the British historical drama Comrades in ’86 and received the Best Actress in a Musical Olivier for portraying the Baker’s Wife in London’s first original production of Into the Woods in 1990.

In 1993, she appeared on the BBC1 original sit-com If You See God, Tell Him (1993) and she and her husband welcomed their only child that year, daughter Bessie Carter. And in 1995, she played the role of Charlotte Jennings Palmer in Sense and Sensibility (1995), which also starred Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet. The film starred Hugh Laurie as Mr. Palmer, who had previously played Staunton’s husband in Peter’s Friends (1992), which also starred Emma Thompson and was directed by Thompson’s former husband, Kenneth Branagh. Though they shared no scenes together Staunton later appeared with her husband in the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) which was that year’s Best Picture Oscar Winner. She voiced Bunty the Chicken in Dreamwork Animation’s Chicken Run in 2000.

In 2004, Staunton received her very first Academy Award Nomination, Best Actress for playing the title role of Vera Drake. She reunited with Emma Thompson, playing Mrs. Joan Blatherwick, the family cook, in Nanny McPhee (2005). 

Finally came that villain I love to hate, as 2007, Imelda Staunton was cast as Delores Umbridge in in 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She was the producers’ only choice for the part, and she, along with the film’s costume designer, Jany Temime even came up with the idea of making Umbridge’s dress look more “soft,” darkening the shades of pink, throughout the film’s progression as an indication of how Umbridge gains power through flattery. Staunton, herself, even described Umbridge as a “Bloody Monster.” The film was a major “Sense and Sensibility,” reunion as it also featured Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney, Alan Rickman as Professor Snape, and Robert Hardy as Cornelius Fudge. Staunton received a London Film Critics Circle Award for “British Actress in a Supporting Role,” and she played a character very similar to Umbridge that same year in Freedom Writers (2007) starring opposite Hilary Swank. (It was Swank who had beaten Staunton for the ’04 Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Million Dollar Baby.)

In 2010, Staunton reprised the role of Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and voiced the Tall Flower Faces in Disney’s live-action remake of Alice in Wonderland (2010). “Wonderland,” also featured “Potter,” co-stars Helena Bonham Carter, Frances de la Tour and the voices of Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and her husband, Jim Carter. Rickman, Staunton, and Carter all recorded their lines in one day. In 2012, Staunton received another Olivier Award for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in the Adelphi Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. While continuing her run in “Sweeney Todd,” she concurrently played the role of Knotgrass the Fairy Godmother in Disney’s Maleficent (2014). 

Staunton earned yet another Olivier award for her performance as Mama Rose in the Savoy Theatre’s revival of Gypsy in 2015. She continued voicing parts in the Paddington movies and a sequel to Maleficent. In 2019, she appeared with her husband and “Potter,” co-star Dame Maggie Smith in the film of Downton Abbey. She is currently set to portray Queen Elizabeth II in the 5th and 6th season of the Netfilx series The Crown (2016-2020).

There’s no denying that Imelda Staunton is a wickedly talented actress. She can play someone loving like the Nurse in “Shakespeare in Love,” or Paddington Bear’s Aunt Lucy, and then turn on a dime and play someone ferociously malevolent like Delores Umbridge. Umbridge will continue to be one of Imelda Staunton’s best-known roles, but fans are looking forward to her as the “next queen” in The Crown.