Playing one of literature's most famous heroines was, at times, an overpowering experience for twenty-two-year-old Justine Waddell. "I tried not to think about how awe-inspiring the whole thing was. It did hit me one day during filming, though, and I nearly lost my nerve. I suddenly thought 'Oh my God! I'm in Dorset, I'm playing Tess and there's no going back!'
"When I got my first big job, I used to get very nervous before going on stage every night. But you just have to get on with it. When you're filming, it's more tempting to run away between takes! But, that day on the set of Tess, I took a few very deep breaths and got through it. It was actually very appropriate for the scene that Tess seemed quite vulnerable. And after that I was fine."Tess of the D'Urbervilles was not the first time Waddell has had to cope with playing a difficult, nerve-wrecking part. Her first professional job was a small role in the film Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau. That was followed by her critically acclaimed performance opposite Ralph Fiennes and Bill Paterson in the London production of Ivanov. Next, she played Laura Glyde in a television adaptation of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, starring Tara Fitzgerald, and recently she appeared with Brooke Shields and Parker Posey in the Sundance Film Festival hit, The Misadventures of Margaret.
Waddell found portraying Tess exhausting, but exhilarating. "It was such an exciting role, a huge canvas where I could paint every color I wanted. I loved the mixture of strength and weakness, courage and of humility. Tess is an extraordinary paradox. Every emotion I'd felt as a teenager was in there. It was a real rite of passage."
When researching the part, Waddell did more than just read a few books in order to grasp and develop the Tess character. "I looked at Victorian painting--especially the Pre-Raphaelites--for inspiration and ideas. I steered clear of reading too much about Hardy. That would have been too overpowering.
"I first read Tess of the D'Urbervilles when I was fifteen. Hardy's style can be heavy and dense, but I was lucky to have a good teacher and I loved it. It helped me a lot when I got the part. Once you unlock his language, you really begin to care and understand the characters.
"I think there's a war going on inside Tess. There's a real conflict between pride and recklessness on one hand, and timidity and lack of self-worth on the other. I tried to distance myself from her so I could really start to understand her."If she were alive today she would have more fight about her. Today Angel and Alec wouldn't perhaps get away with what they do to her, but she didn't have the choices or the education we have now. So when she is begging for forgiveness, and feeling she's the one who has done wrong, it feels believable. You really start to feel for her.
Waddell, who was in every scene during filming, found listening to music (she lists Sheryl Crowe, The Verve, and Prodigy as among her favorites) a real life-saving endeavor. "I used music all the time. I had to pool all my energies playing Tess, so being able to shove my Walkman on between scenes was important. It got me in the mood to play Tess and stopped me thinking about what was happening around me."
Playing Tess may seem very romantic, but as Justine found out, in reality it meant working with
a lot of livestock, and amongst mud and dung. "My costumes in Tess were working clothes only. I had to be able to do everything in them, from driving carts and feeding chickens to milking cows. We all had to take a milking lesson to prepare us, and there was a lot of pressure on the day of filming to get it right. The poor cows were confused by the bright lights and got very stroppy. I was lucky though. I think they gave me the best cow--the one that gave her milk most freely!"Hannah Waterman, who plays Nancy, and I had to catch chickens. There's an art to it and its hard to do without hurting the birds. We had to stand for hours holding these chickens and we got covered with chicken droppings and, speaking from experience, it's really, really, horrible!
"There were some extremely muddy days as well. When you're trying to work in those long dresses you suddenly realize how much mud weighs, what a physical struggle it must have been to work on the land in those days."
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Waddell moved with her family to London when she was eleven. She is the only member of her family interested in acting and she says this has had its advantages. "My brother and sister are interested in completely different things than me. My parents know very little about this kind of life, but with each job I do, they understand more. They just want me to be happy, so in many ways I make my own choices. I know if I need them, they'll always be there."I've never been to drama school although I've always wished I could be an actress. One reason why I desperately wanted to go to Cambridge was its great dramatic tradition. A long list of amazing actors and comics have come from there. I wasn't wanting to be the next Emma Thompson, but if there were hundreds of plays each term, I was sure I'd be able to play a spear carrier."
Currently, Waddell is finishing up a degree in Social and Political Science at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The university allowed her to take a term off to pursue her acting career, but now she is ready to get back to her studies. "After two and a half years of studying for a degree, you are lazy if you don't finish it," she says determinedly. "I've had a really special year, but I want to spend time with people my own age, to laugh and giggle, and do all the amazing things you can at university when you don't have any responsibilities."
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