Portrait of the Artist as a Young Anne

Never mind the recent restoration of the 24/192 intermaster on the mono mixes, if you really want to hear The Beatles as you never have before, we suggest you check out Nowhere Boy, director Sam Taylor-Wood’s heartbreaking excavation of John Lennon’s tricky transition into adulthood.

“It was definitely a bit strange”, says Anne-Marie Duff, who plays Lennon’s estranged birth mother, Julia. “In some of his songs I could hear things I would never have noticed before. I can’t listen to ‘Across The Universe’ anymore without thinking of Julia’s influence coming through.”
The film, which is based on the book Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon, by Lennon’s half-sister (also named) Julia Baird, charts the tug-of-love between John, his biological mother and his aunt Mimi (played with frosty relish by the divine Kristen Scott Thomas), the woman who raised him from early childhood. The ensuing conflict and the personalities involved would cement a bond with the young Paul McCartney and inspire a great deal of Lennon’s later work. Who could forget the tortured lament “Mother, you had me/but I never had you” on 1970’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band?
“Absolutely,” says Ms. Duff. “It was hugely surprising what an impact she made. She was a brilliant, articulate woman who taught him how to play. She opened up his musical horizons. I’m a Beatles fan but I was never a Lennon obsessive so I didn’t know too much about this whole chapter going in to make the film. It’s underrepresented in the biographical literature. Julia Baird’s book is the only work that delves into this whole complicated relationship.”
Between Ms. Duff and Sam Taylor-Wood, the former YBA making her eagerly anticipated directorial debut, Julia Baird emerges as an irrepressible, if tragic force of nature.
“It’s a sad story,” notes the actress. “But it’s hard to feel miserable for her. She was so in the moment, so fabulous, so receptive to the world. What she went through was bound to produce some cracks but that can make for a terrible day or a wonderful week.”
Such nuanced, detailed characters have become Anne-Marie Duff’s stock in trade. Since emerging in Shameless alongside her husband and co-star, James McAvoy, she has earned a rep and multiple awards for a range of weighty roles, including Queen Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen and Sasha Tolstoy in the upcoming Tolstoy biopic, The Last Station.
“You mean I go for all the miserable roles?” she laughs. “I guess so. They’re often women who are in terrible circumstances but quite often that’s what brings out the best in a person or in a character.”
Her various onscreen tragedies stand in marked contrast to her own cheerful disposition and uncomplicated lifestyle. She and her husband’s love of simpler things – hiking, baking and camping, are a few of Ms. Duff’s favourite pastimes – has inspired such shocking celebrity headlines as; “The modest heart-throb: Atonement star James McAvoy’s tiny flat and £1,000 Nissan Micra”.
We can only put her good sense down to a fine lineage: If her Donegal-born mum and Meath-born dad weren’t enough to qualify her for the national squad, she has also worked extensively on this side of the channel as the star of The Magdalene Sisters and Garage.
“I have absolutely loads of Irish relatives,” she says. “So I’m a very lucky girl. And I’m even luckier to have worked with Pat Shortt. I’m a huge fan. I mean, who isn’t? I knew he was going to be brilliant in Garage even before we started shooting. He’s one of those comedians who carries an incredible amount of pathos.”
In addition to our nod for Honorary Irish Actress of the Decade, Ms. Duff received further endorsement when a certain rock widow sat down to watch Nowhere Boy recently.
“I wasn’t there or anything,” she says excitedly. “But I did hear back that Yoko Ono loved the film. For me that’s better than any award. That the people who were around John Lennon could see him in the movie.”