A Whole New Ball Game

Angeline Ball loves being made to look ugly. At least for the role of Mrs Gogan in the production of The Plough And The Stars now being presented at Dublin s Gaiety Theatre. Why? Because she s been trying to break away from the blonde babe image for years.

Ball s last stage appearance was inThe Rocky Horror Picture Show which followed her breakthrough movieThe Commitments.
The latter, of course, also launched her career as a sex symbol , specifically as a result of all those lingering shots of her legs. For years afterwards, Angeline says nearly every script I read had a scene of my legs coming out of a car, before my face, focusing totally on my body just because I was in those short skirts in The Commitments. It was always a semi-younger Sharon Stone part, so I turned down loads of those parts, hated them. I know I have a good level of intelligence and didn t see my future in playing bimbo roles. And, to tell you the truth, I got really insulted, at parties, say, in LA when men would speak intelligently to other girls whereas all I got was this sexual come-on and a slap on the arse.
Those sexy shots inThe Commitments that kick-started this process, it now transpires, were no accident.
The editor fancied me! Angeline admits, laughing. And I used to play tricks on him. Fix my tights, say how was that for you, Gerry? As a joke! But the movie did sexualise me in that sense and I was with an agent, in America, who wanted to perpetuate this whole notion. And given that I was only 23 when I got started I went along with that, at first, because I didn t even know if I was a real actress.
Not only that. Angeline Ball also made professional choices which she hoped would help crush the public image of the character of Imelda fromThe Commitments. Having played sexy in My Girl 2, she chose anti-glamorous roles in movies like Two Nudes Bathing and Trojan Eddie. In The Auteur Theory she even played a Canadian, lesbian filmmaker, very gruff and very rough! Though in the more recent Kitchen Privileges Angleine, again, consciously decided to play a sex-kitten.
But now that I m nearly 32 I play an older sex kitten, with more sense! she jokes.
However Angeline grows a little more serious when she admits that many of her choices, at a professional level, were dictated by her private life.
I was dating somebody in London an actor for six years and that relationship was on and off and on and off, she says. We d split up and I d come back to Dublin, then say I ll go to America and then we d get back together and I d go back to London instead! So over six years, I ve never spent any more than three months in any country and that a movie star does not make! Or a stage actor. You have to put the ground work in and be where the work is so your agent can get used to you and you can do the rounds of auditions and all that. This is the only way to get established. But, happily that relationship now is over and I m involved with someone else on a more secure footing, relatively speaking! so I can concentrate on acting!
All of which leads us back to The Plough And The Stars, a sometimes ill-judged revisionist production that has sharply divided critics. Apart from the unanimous praise lavished on Angeline s performance. The criticism of the play, however, hasn t even dented the passion she applies to her part. If anything, it s had the opposite effect.
For me, the criticism has actually instilled more confidence to get out there every night and just do the best I can, she explains.
Stephen Rea, as you know, directs and acts in the play and we ve had many, many conversations about the role of Mrs Gogan. And because I haven t seen any other productions ofThe Plough And The Stars the way I approach it is my own interpretation, to a great degree. I love Sean O Casey s language so I just get swept away by even that as soon as the play starts. That s why I honestly can say I am absolutely delighted to be in The Plough And The Stars, at every level.
But one level above all others.
Well, yes, the fact that I ve finally shown people in theatre many of whom wouldn t even consider me for a role in a play that I can actually act! And proved it to myself, because taking on a key role in an O Casey play after nearly ten years of just doing movies would be a challenge for any actor. And it was for me. But best of all I really do think I ve finally killed off Imelda and the public image of myself as that bimbo from The Commitments!