#when i saw season (now series) production ended in feb i wondered if they needed him on the show more

[chrisodonline]

Just doing a welfare check. How’s everyone doing?

Still coping?

I am trying to make myself clean the stuff I gotta clean even though I want to 1. write a long business-y post about the decision which may or may not come off as positive, depending on how you look at it and 2.write that “From the Desk” fic I have notes for, even if it’s not the best. Both just for old time’s sake and not because I think people are super interested.

So we’ll see if I finish enough in time to get to do that this weekend.

[insanityclause]

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

A Director Making His Mark in More Ways Than One

LONDON — The director Jamie Lloyd was giving me a tour of his tattoos. Not the Pegasus on his chest or the skeleton astronaut floating on his back, though he gamely described those, but the onyx-inked adornments that cover his arms and hands, that wreathe his neck, that wrap around his shaved head.

When I asked about the dragon at his throat, he told me it had been “one of the ones that hurt the least,” then pointed to the flame-licked skulls on either side of his neck: his “covert way,” he said, of representing drama’s traditional emblems for comedy and tragedy.

“I thought maybe it’d be a little bit tacky to have theater masks on my neck,” he added, a laugh bubbling up, and it’s true: His dragon would have eaten them for lunch.

It was early December, and we were in a lounge beneath the Playhouse Theater, where Lloyd’s West End production of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring James McAvoy in a skintight puffer jacket and his own regular-size nose, would soon open to packed houses and critical praise.

Running through Feb. 29, and arriving on cinema screens Feb. 20 in a National Theater Live broadcast, “Cyrano” — newly adapted by Martin Crimp, and positing its hero as a scrappy spoken-word wonder — capped a year that saw Lloyd celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

In London last summer, his outdoor hit “Evita” traded conventional glamour for sexy grit, while his radical reinterpretation of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” starring Tom Hiddleston, was hailed first in the West End, then on Broadway. Ben Brantley, reviewing “Betrayal” in The New York Times, called it “one of those rare shows I seem destined to think about forever.”

When Time Out London ranked the best theater of 2019, it gave the top spot jointly to all three Lloyd productions, saying that he “has had a year that some of his peers might trade their entire careers for.”

Lloyd, who is 39, did not spring from the same mold as many of those peers. There was for him, he says, no youthful aha moment of watching Derek Jacobi onstage and divining that directing was his path. Epiphanies like that belonged to other kids, the ones who could afford the tickets.

If there is a standard background for a London theater director — and Lloyd would argue that certainly there used to be — that isn’t where he came from, growing up working class on the south coast of England, in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.

The first time I laid eyes on him, chatting in the Playhouse lobby after a preview of “Cyrano,” he was the picture of working-class flair — the gold pirate hoops, the pink and black T-shirt, the belt cinching high-waisted pants.

He looks nothing like your typical West End director. Which of course is precisely the point.

What’s underneath

“It’s quite often said of him,” McAvoy observed by phone, once the reviews were in, “that he strips things away or he tries to take classical works and turn them on their head. I think he’s always just trying to tell the story in the clearest and most exhilarating way possible.”

The “X-Men” star, who put the number of times he’s worked with Lloyd in the past decade at a “gazillion,” calls theirs “probably one of the most defining relationships that I’ve had in my career.”

Yet Lloyd himself is on board with the notion that his assertively contemporary stagings pare back stifling layers of performance history to lay bare what’s underneath.

Like the tiger and dragons that he had emblazoned on his head just last May, though, the unembellished nature of his shows — as minimalist in their way as his tattoos are the opposite — is a relatively recent development.

Lloyd’s first “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring Douglas Hodge in 2012, was also his Broadway debut. It was, he said, “absolutely the ‘Cyrano’ that you would expect,” with the fake nose, the hat, the plume, the sword-fighting.

There is, granted, sword-fighting in the new one — but the audience has to imagine the swords.

Lloyd’s productions, including a lauded revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Passion” in 2010, long marked him as a hot young director on the rise. But he sees in some of his previous work a noisy tendency toward idea overload.

The pivot point came in 2018, with a season that the Jamie Lloyd Company — which he formed seven years ago with the commercial producing powerhouse Ambassador Theater Group — devoted to the short works of Harold Pinter. The playwright’s distillation of language forced Lloyd to match it with his staging.

That immersion led to what the director Michael Grandage — one of Lloyd’s early champions, who tapped him at 27 to be his associate director at the Donmar Warehouse — called Lloyd’s “absolute masterpiece.”

“I had quite a lot of ambition to do a production of ‘Betrayal’ in my life,” Grandage said. “And then when I saw Jamie’s, I thought, ‘Right, that’s it. I don’t ever, ever want to direct this play.’ Because that’s, for me, the perfect production.”

Playing dress-up

Charm is a ready currency in the theater, but Lloyd’s is disarming; he seems simply to be being himself, without veneer. Like when I fact-checked something I’d read by asking whether he was a vegan.

“Lapsed vegan,” he confessed immediately, with a tinge of guilt about eating eggs again.

Pay no attention to any tough-guy vibe in photos of him; do not be alarmed by the sharp-toothed cat on the back of his head. In conversation, Lloyd comes across as thoughtful and unassuming, with an animated humor that makes him fun company. If he speaks at the speed of someone with no time to waste, he balances that with focused attentiveness.

His father, Ray, was a truck driver. His mother, Joy (whose name is tattooed on his right forearm, near the elbow), cleaned houses, took in ironing and ran a costume-rental shop, where young Jamie would sneak in to dress up as the children’s cartoon character Rainbow Brite.

“It’s very embarrassing,” he said, squelching a laugh.

Seeing professional theater wasn’t an option then for Lloyd, whose grown-up passion for expanding audience access — one of the things he has made himself known for in the West End — grew out of that exclusion. His company has set aside 15,000 free and 15,000 £15 tickets for its current, characteristically starry three-show season, which will also include Emilia Clarke in “The Seagull” and Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House.” At the 786-seat Playhouse, that adds up to just over 38 full houses.

Lloyd, who was studying acting at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts when he decided he wanted to direct, found his way to theater as a child by acting in school shows and local amateur productions. Twice he was cast as a monkey; in “The Wizard of Oz,” thrillingly, he got to fly.

The details of his early days have always been colorful — like having a clown as his first stepfather, who performed at children’s parties under the stage name Uncle Funny. But Lloyd is quick to acknowledge the darkness lurking there.

“It sounds a little bit like some dodgy film, because he was actually a really violent man,” he said. “And there were times where he was very physically abusive to my mum. There was a sort of atmosphere of violence in that house that was really uneasy. And yet masked with this literal makeup, but also this sense of trying to entertain people whilst enacting terrible brutality behind the scenes.”

This is where he locates his own connection to Pinter’s work.

“A lot of that is that the violence is beneath the surface,” he said. “And on the top there is this sort of, what I call a kind of topspin, a layer of cover-up.”

Long relationships

Lloyd was still at drama school when he staged a production of Lapine and William Finn’s “Falsettoland” that won a prize: assistant directing a show at the Bush Theater in London. Based on that, Trevor Nunn hired him, at 22, to be his assistant director on “Anything Goes” in the West End — a job he did so well that Grandage got word of it and hired him to assist on “Guys and Dolls.” While Lloyd was doing that, he also began directing in his own right.

The costume and set designer Soutra Gilmour, who has been a constant with Lloyd since he cold-called her for his first professional production, Pinter’s “The Caretaker,” said theirs is an easy relationship, with a “symbiotic transference of ideas.” Even their creative aesthetics have evolved in sync.

“We’ve actually never fallen out in 13 years,” she said over mint tea on a trip to New York last month, just before “Betrayal” closed. “Never! I don’t even know how we would fall out.”

Of course, the one time she tried to decline a Lloyd project five years ago, because its tech rehearsals coincided with the due date for her son’s birth, he told her there was no one else he wanted to work with. So she did the show, warning that at some point she would have to leave. Now, she says, he understands that she won’t sit through endless evening previews, because she needs to go home to her child.

Lloyd and his wife, the actress Suzie Toase (whose name is tattooed on one of his arms), home-school their own three boys (whose names are tattooed on the other). Their eldest, 13-year-old Lewin, is an actor who recently played one of the principal characters, the heroine’s irresistible best friend, on the HBO and BBC One series “His Dark Materials,” whose cast boasts McAvoy as well.

Enter the child

Lloyd’s interpretation of “Betrayal,” a 1978 play that recounts a seven-year affair, imbued it with a distinctly non-’70s awareness of the fragility of family — the notion that children are the bystanders harmed when a marriage is tossed away.

Its gasp-inducing moment came with the entrance of a character Pinter wrote to be mentioned but not seen: the small daughter of the couple whose relationship is imperiled. In putting her onstage, Lloyd didn’t touch the text; it was a simple, wordless role. With it, he altered the resonance of the play.

To me, it seemed logical that Lloyd’s production would have been informed by his experience as a husband and father — and maybe also as a child in a splintering family. How old had he been, anyway, when his parents split up?

“Five,” Lloyd said. “The same age as the character would be.” He paused. “Oh God, yeah, fascinating. I’d not thought about that. Exactly the same age.”

If that fact was of more than intellectual interest to him, he didn’t let on. He volunteered a memory, though — of being a little one “amongst these kind of big giants, and I guess what we can now see as the mess of their lives.”

Blazer-free

Doing “Betrayal” in New York, Lloyd was struck by how eager Americans were to chat about his tattoos. Still, he told me after I texted him a follow-up question about them, he hadn’t expected his appearance to be such a talking point in this story.

It’s not just idle curiosity. It’s about what the tattoos signify in a field where, in Britain as in the United States, the top directors tend to have grown up very comfortably. It’s about who is welcome in a particular space, and who gets to be themselves there.

For a long time after Lloyd started working in the theater, he wore a blazer every day: a conscious attempt to conform in an industry where he felt a nagging sense of difference.

“Every other director at the time was from an Oxbridge background,” he said, “and looked and sounded a particular way. I spent a long time pretending to be like them.”

It was a performance of sorts, with a costume he donned for the role.

It was only about seven or eight years ago — around the time he left the Donmar and started putting together his own company — that he stopped worrying about what people might think if he looked the way he wanted.

“My dad had tattoos” was the first thing he said when I asked him about his own.

“I guess it’s partly getting older,” he mused, “but it’s just sort of going, ‘You can’t pretend to be someone. You’ve got to be who you really are, in every way.’”

The tattoos that have gradually transformed him are from a different aesthetic universe than his recent work onstage. Yet the impulse, somehow, is the same.

In shedding the blazer, in inking his skin, Lloyd has peeled back layers of imposed convention to show who’s underneath.

And should you spot him at the theater, where he is hard to miss, you’ll notice that he looks just like himself.

[x5red]

Sixty fun & fascinating facts about the classic Supergirl (1 / 4)

Great guns! How time flies!

May 2019 will mark sixty years since the pages of Action Comics #252 carried its landmark tale: a crashed rocket ship in a Midvale field, and emerging from within, an enthusiastic young teenager who was destined to become one of Earth’s fiercest champions. That teenager was, of course, Kara Zor-El -- otherwise known as Supergirl..!

To celebrate the classic Kara Zor-El’s sixtieth anniversary, compiled below is part one of a series outlining sixty surprising or unusual facts about the original intrepid Argo City teen who leapt from that crumpled Midvale rocket ship. Covering her original Silver and Bronze Age incarnation, in comics and on screen, each factoid is calculated to intrigue and delight -- hopefully even seasoned Kara fans will find a few morsels of trivia that had previously escaped their attention.

Enjoy...

1. She wasn’t originally known as Kara Zor-El when she debuted in comics.

What’s in a name? Well not a lot, it seems, if you happen to be Kryptionian..!

Although everyone knows Supergirl’s real name is Kara Zor-El, the Maid of Might herself didn’t deem it worthy of a mention until Action Comics #288 (May 1962), three years after her introduction, when she innocently referenced her full moniker during a dream sequence. After that readers would need to wait another fifteen years(!) before she’d mention it again in Superman Family #177 (June 1976). Outside of these rare instances Kara was usually known as Kara of Argo City, or in very early comics simply just as Kara, her birthplace itself not having acquired a name until Action Comics #280 (Sep 1961).

2. 1984′s Supergirl wasn’t actually the first movie headlined by a superhero female.

Many movie buffs will list 1984′s Supergirl as the breakthrough release that finally saw women headline a movie in the superhero genre, but this is far from the truth.

Supergirl’s record is true, but only in the English-speaking world: there had already been numerous superhero movies in non-English markets centred around super-powered female crime fighters, most notably in the Philippines. The most popular Filipino superheroine, Darna, had already racked up no less than eleven movies by 1980, plus one guest appearance in another hero’s movie.

3. She once fell madly in love with a woman.

As incredible as it seems today, the straight-laced DC Comics of the 1960s once okayed a story in which the Maid of Might fell head-over-heels in love with a woman. It happened in Adventure Comics #384 (Sept 1969), and, as you might expect, the story had a few twists and turns before the true nature of Kara’s romance was revealed.

The short version is this: Kara uses computer dating to select a match suitable for a superwoman. The computer picks Volar, a male superhero from the deeply misogynistic planet of Torma (second planet of Star-Sun 447B, in case you want to pay a visit.) Kara travels to Torma and is smitten by Volar, but he seems reluctant to reciprocate her affections. Eventually the plot reveals its twist: due to Torma’s notorious chauvinism, Volar is actually a superheroine forced to masquerade as a superhero. ”I’m heading back to Earth – where I belong!��, exclaims a disappointed Girl of Steel, “I found out Volar was no hit – but a real miss!” (Ho ho!)

4. She’s a self-professed fan of Jazz.

Growing up in both Argo City and Midvale, Kara was probably exposed to a wide range of different musical styles -- but at the end of a long day saving the world, what kind of sounds did she like to relax to? The pages of Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #7 (May 1983) dropped readers a hint when Kara expressed a strong affinity towards Jazz music. Indeed in a later issue of that same series, it is while attending a free Jazz concert with friends in Chicago’s Grant Park that Kara first tangled with the super-villain Reactron (making his comicbook debut.)

5. She once packed in her superhero career to become a socialite and style-icon in Paris.

The mid-60s was an interesting time for DC Comics; a tipping point between the juvenile gimmick-driven hangover of the Golden Age, and the more mature storytelling style of the upcoming Bronze Age, as one generation of artists and writers slowly gave way to the next. Brave and the Bold #63 (Dec 1965) fell squarely into the former category with its outlandish story, Revolt of the Super-Chicks.

The tale begins with a restless Kara feeling unappreciated: the public see her as just a hero in a gaudy costume, ignoring the sophisticated woman inside. Much to the chagrin of Kal-El, Kara abandons her superhero-ing career and heads to the bright lights of Paris to live it up. Kal sends Wonder Woman to Paris to talk some sense into Kara (the first time the pair had shared an adventure, by the way), but Diana is likewise wooed by the socialite lifestyle and joins Kara in her nocturnal revelry. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of the villain Multi-Face, the pair might have still been in Paris now.

6. Producer Ilya Salkind regretted Helen Slater’s casting as Supergirl.

When Ilya Salkind took on the task of co-producing Superman-related movies in the mid 1970s, he’d argued against the wishes of both Warner Bros. and his producer father, Alexander, by suggesting that the title role not go to a Hollywood A-lister. Ilya followed exactly the same logic when it came time to cast 1984′s Supergirl, championing an unknown actor called Helen Slater over more bankable names such as Brooke Shields (favoured by his father.)

In an interview in 2000, however, Ilya seemed to have some regrets, telling Scott Michael Bosco on behalf of Digital Cinema, “[...] frankly, with hindsight I regret it. Brooke Shields would have – not made it a better movie, but perhaps a more commercial one. This I’m convinced. I think there would have been more men seeing the movie.” Commenting on how Slater’s screen presence was more Katherine Hepburn than Sophia Loren, Salkind noted, “What happened, I think, is that we lost a lot of the audience, the male audience. I think it was also because the girl was a little unattainable.”

7. One of her most iconic costumes was originally designed by a fan.

Supergirl has had a number of crime-fighting outfits over the decades, but two particularly stand out as being iconic: Helen Slater’s 1984 movie costume (plus its imitators, such as the post-Crisis Matrix costume and Melissa Benoist’s tv costume), and the 1970s hotpants outfit.

The Girl of Steel’s hotpants attire was a racy number that screamed 70s sexploitation at a volume only Kryptonian lungs could achieve: short shorts, a plunging V neckline, billowing sleeves, and a neck choker, all in the customary red, sky blue, and yellow. The design wasn’t something dreamt up by one of DC’s staff of artists, however. but taken from a sketch submitted by reader John Sposato of Edison, New Jersey. DC had used several fan submitted costume ideas during the early 1970s -- each outfit typically receiving one or two story outings -- but John’s submission was obviously so liked by DC artists that it eventually became her permanent costume for most of the 1970s.

8. She turned Streaky into a Super Cat by accident.

DC in the Silver Age prided itself on being a family-friendly brand, free from the squalor and depravity that had once graced the pages of some of its competitors, causing moral crusaders (armed with books written by Dr. Fredric Wertham) to brand the medium as a threat to the youth of America. Without the use of excessive violence to bring thrills and drama to its superhero comics, DC relied on gimmicks such as Kryptonite. Consequently, by the Silver Age, the stuff was everywhere(!)

With her keen practical mind, Kara decided (much to the condescending amusement of her cousin) to develop an alchemy that would neutralise the harmful effects of this ever burgeoning supply of Kryptonite (Action Comics #261, Feb 1960.) She failed, naturally, but the discarded end-product, labelled X-Kryptonite, ended up accidentally giving a local stray alley-cat super powers. And so Streaky the Super Cat was born -- entirely by accident..!

9. Lena Luthor wasn’t the only female Luthor family member giving her trouble.

The Luthor family has a long history of causing trouble for the Girl of Steel. Not only did Supergirl struggle to keep her secret identity from the telepathic Lena (Thorul) Luthor -- Lex’s little sister -- but Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) saw the introduction of Lex’s scheming niece, Nasthalthia. Nasty, as she was known, joined Stanhope College with a determination to help Uncle Lex flush out which of Stanhope’s students was secretly Supergirl. Suspecting Linda Danvers from the start, Nasty even followed Linda when she graduated and moved to San Francisco to become a TV camerawoman. The pair would play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game throughout many early 1970s Supergirl tales, but Nasty never quite got the proof she needed to unmask the Maid of Might.

10. She was married when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

A story published in Superman Vol. 1 #415 (Jan 1986) saw the Fortress of Solitude infiltrated by a mysterious visitor from a distant planet. Intent on stealing a memento of the recently deceased Kara, the handsome green-skinned thief named Salkor is quickly apprehended by Superman.

Salkor explains how he had found Supergirl drifting unconscious in space some two years previous. He had cured her of Kryptonite sickness, but she had been left with severe amnesia. In the days that followed Salkor and Kara drew close and entered into a quickie marriage, but not long after the marriage he awoke to find Kara missing -- her memory had presumably returned. Over the next two years Salkor slowly traced his bride back to Earth, but tragically he arrived just as news of her death was broadcast around the world.

11. Her creation was part of a strategy to boost DC’s flagging superhero comic sales.

Supergirl wasn’t created on a mere creative whim; the impetus behind her introduction was likely a long-term sales strategy DC Comics had been following since the mid-1950s. According to Gerard Jones in his book Men of Tomorrow, DC knew that the demographics for the Superman radio and television shows revealed a sizeable share of young girl audience members, and that market research showed that girls read their brother’s Superman and Batman comics (second hand!) DC therefore set out to entice young girls into buying their own superhero comics by introducing titles like Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, and characters like Batwoman and Supergirl. Although some superheroines have been accused of being nothing more than eye-candy for the young male audience, Supergirl was introduced squarely to inspire young girls.

12. She could read your mind.

In Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) Supergirl investigates a mystery girl found in a coma on the Stanhope College campus. As the anonymous patient lies motionless in a hospital bed, the Girl of Steel conveniently remembers that she has the ability to perform Vulcan mind-melds: ”I'll try to delve into her subconscious -- maybe I can learn something”. The trick reveals that the mystery girl was the victim of a black magic cult, causing Supergirl to infiltrate the group undercover (literally!) Strangely, although the Girl of Steel can read other people’s minds, she seemed very poor at reading her own, as she promptly forgets all about her mind-reading abilities after that single issue.

13. She always knew how to be popular.

When Kara from Argo City first landed on Earth, she took it upon herself to pick her own secret identity name. “While you were gone”, she tells her cousin, “I used my super-hearing and heard many Earth girls’ names! I thought of a good one for myself.” The name she chose, of course, was Linda.

It isn’t perhaps a surprise that her super-hearing fixated on that particular name, given that according to names registered with US Social Security, Linda was one of the most popular girls’ names in the 1950s, beginning the decade in the top slot, but dropping two places to third by the time Kara arrived on Earth in 1959. (Kara, by the way, was 935th on the girls list at the time that Ms. Zor-El crashed her rocket ship in Midvale.)

14. Her first appearance on television was in a 1962 comedy sketch, played by Carol Burnett.

In 1962 the Garry Moore Show featured a seven minute sketch lampooning the popular George Reeves Superman TV show -- the comedy gimmick being that instead of the Man of Steel, the sketch’s evildoers were pitted against the Maid of Might, played by comedian Carol Burnett. (A similar spoof by Lucille Ball a few years earlier doesn’t count, btw, as Lucy was playing Superman, not Supergirl.)

The madcap plot sees Carol dashing to and fro, frantically switching back and forth between her everyday clothes and her hero costume, while performing an array of ridiculous feats of strength. It is debatable whether this truly qualifies as a genuine Supergirl appearance, given the obvious Reeves inspiration, but Burnett’s 1962 version does use the Supergirl name and a reasonable facsimile of her 60s costume.

15. Her first proper appearance on television was in an advert, selling underwear!

Even if the 1962 Carol Burnett sketch is ruled out as not being canonical Kara, Supergirl’s late-70s underwear commercial qualifies without a shadow of a doubt. The short advert, for the kids brand Underroos, sees Supergirl, Spider-Woman, Wonder Woman, and even Batgirl, all extolling the virtues of wearing superheroine themed undergarments. Dating from sometime around 1978, the ad seems to be the first authorised on-screen appearance of Supergirl, meaning that the ad’s opening line, “Now Supergirl is on Underoos”, is the first spoken line uttered by any actress playing the Girl of Steel. (It is unknown who the lucky voice artist was.)

That’s all for part one -- hope you enjoyed it..! Check out part two (soon) for another fifteen fascinating factoids.

[savedher]

Nadine Garner on Jean Beazley

She doesn't like him. He's a drinker. He's got empty bottles stashed in his desk. He's slovenly. He doesn't keep appointments, and he sticks his bib into other people's business.

Sydney Morning Herald - Feb 4, 2013

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Jean is a character that I think a lot of modern women wrestle with, because they see [her role] as somehow sexist,” Garner says. ”But I think a woman like Jean doesn’t see it as a feminist or non-feminist issue. She just sees it as a human issue. Her job has become to serve.

The Age - Feb 8, 2013

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She’s a very conservative woman, doing her best to fulfill her duty and be virtuous. I just love her.

Sydney Morning Herald  - Jan 31, 2014

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“She’s a woman of principal and she’s been in that house for a long time. She knows it better than Lucien does because she was the original housekeeper for the father,” she says.

“It’s an interesting relationship territorially because she’s more than just a housekeeper. It’s her home as well, she’s been there for 20 years.

“I think she watches herself very carefully to make sure she’s not over-stepping the mark and being too familiar.

“She’s also very careful about her conduct with the doctor because it’s often misconstrued by the society around them. She’s very aware of being proper and formal at all times. Which is very admirable.”

I don’t think she would fully allow herself to acknowledge that, even in her own heart. She’s there as a working person, who doesn’t really see herself as a contender,” Garner explains.

“She’s the sounding board for Blake because she’s got the lowdown on all the townsfolk, having been a Ballarat fixture for so long.

“She’s the font of information which he utilises. He uses her as a sort of moral compass and she uses him as a way of broadening her own inner life, because hers is pretty straight-forward.

“It’s intriguing for a man and a woman to share a home and not be sexually involved. With our contemporary principles and mores, we find that extraordinary. It’s a discipline that we wouldn’t really see today.”

I always feel that the scenes I have with Craig have to be treated really carefully, because she has to be so many things and still be true to herself and her duty. But also allow her to be the human being and the woman as well,” she says.

TV Tonight - Mar 11, 2014

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There is certain etiquette, and the way a woman holds herself is not the way modern women are,” she said. “They were a lot more measured and careful.”

It’s there in the neatly ironed shirts, the pulled back hair and the carefully pinned brooch. It’s there in the way she stands and moves and holds her own counsel.

“That’s a lovely discipline – I enjoy that, having to become Jean. She has a specific posture and poise and self awareness.

“And presentation – even women who didn’t have money would set their hair and press their clothes.

“There was less around, you didn’t just buy new clothes because there wasn’t that much around, everything was a bit more cherished and precious.

“I know I sound completely nostalgic – someone from that time might say, ‘oh it’s so much better now’. But there is something dear about the way people valued what they had. I enjoyed entering that.”

It’s really the love that dare not speak its name – they have explored the notion of Lucien and Jean having this unrequited relationship and that’s played out really nicely.

“This series is about her personal awakening. She wakes up to the idea that he will probably never … have feelings for her and she thinks, ‘well I am an age where I am young and fit and I have raised two children, I need to start thinking of myself rather than being in service to a man.

She is at loggerheads with herself, partly because of the times and party because of her duty bound nature.

“Jean believes you have a path for life, and deal with whatever you are dealt with and you get on with it and you suck it up – in a way we modern people don’t do.

“She wants to be that person – completely committed, but there is another part of her that calls out and says, ‘I am worthy of more maybe I could do something else.”

The Mystery of Jean - Access ABC - Feb 13, 2015

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It's a murder-mystery formula, but the emotional underpinning is how Lucien and Jean feel about each other," she says. "The social mores of the day make it so difficult for anything to happen, which is so unlike today, when there doesn't seem to be any obstacle for anybody. There's an intrigue for contemporary audiences in having so many obstacles that are unknown to us in modern society.

Jean has grown enormously in the four series and she will continue to, but it's 1959 and she's widowed, and she has a very different moral compass than I do. I live my life exactly the way I want to, I don't answer to anybody, but this is a woman who has a different moral template. I think she's doing a wonderful job, given her circumstances. She's financially independent. Not many women were in 1959. She's actually very liberated for the time.

"I think she'd quite like the idea of being married to the doctor, but I don't think at heart she believes she's worthy of that. There's a bit of a class chasm between them. I think she's got some self-esteem issues as to whether she's worthy of a man of such standing.

His wife appears, a Chinese woman who he thought was dead. She actually arrives on the doorstep, so it's very, very complex. Jean once again shows herself to be a remarkable character, takes this woman in and nurtures the marriage, and steps aside and then one thing leads to another in a very convoluted storyline over several episodes, and Lucien and Jean are very bonded by the end of it, definitely.

Sydney Morning Herald - Feb 14, 2016

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I think Jean's had to finally do the last bit of grieving for her dead husband and put that aside and say 'well I can't live in his memory forever. I can either end my life in my 40s and never love or live again or I can actually start seeing myself as valuable and having a life beyond being a mother and a widow' and she does do that - she has an enormous evolution.

I think she's more compassionate, a little more left wing, not as conservative in the way she sees things, has really developed a sense of empathy and warmth and I think she's less black and white.

TV Soap - Feb 25 - Mar 10, 2016

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From where I stand, the currency of the show is definitely about a love that can't be and that's worked really well for five series

She steps aside and says to Lucien, 'This is your wife. You wouldn't have embarked on anything with me had you known she was still alive so I'm going to step aside and let you two resolve it'," Garner says.

"It's really awful to watch her go through that pain and anguish but she does it and we love her even more for doing that because we understand her goodness is so deep that that is what she would do."

While many see Jean as outdated in her attitudes, Garner disagrees.

"As modern women, it's very easy for us to say they should give her more to say or that she should be more political. You've got to remember the time she comes from," she says of Jean, who became a housekeeper after her farmer husband was killed in the war.

"She's not educated. She's been extremely brave and resourceful. She hasn't had a family to fall back on.

"She hasn't quickly remarried a man and taken shelter under his wing. She's been really courageous and quite modern.

"Until Blake came along, I don't think she ever really saw herself as being available, or anything other than a widow and somebody who was in service to the people around her. I don't think it is a weakness on her part. I think she's just a product of her time, her society and her church."

Even Lucien, who uses her as the Watson to his Holmes, still expects her to have the roast dinner on the table – even after she has been working with him all day.

"And he never helps with the washing up," Garner adds, laughing.

"There's a beautiful kind of confusion and grey area for Jean as she moves from being his housekeeper to his partner and I love all that. I love how complex that is for her and, in the moral code of the day, how unacceptable that would have been in Ballarat back in the 50s when you are a woman employed by a single man and are edging towards being his love.

"It's just scandal and particularly for someone like Jean who would never imagine she would find herself in the position where people were talking about her behind their hands."

stuff.co.nz - April 1, 2017

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The church says to her, 'If you want to marry this man, (a) we won't do it, and (b), if you do marry this man, you can't be part of this congregation. So she has to choose between him and her faith. She's been a dedicated member of that church, and to have them turn their backs on her so easily makes her question what the faith is, or what its merit is.

They can't become Mr and Mrs Murder. Jean has to maintain her post as housekeeper.

TV Week - Oct 14-20, 2017

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Jean really is an elegant woman, as many women were at that time. They were preened, they had their hair set and most of their clothes were tailor-made, so clothing just looked so much more beautiful then.

Jean is a widow and a Catholic, so things are very complicated for them. It's a dilemma of faith and passion  this season.

Creating Jean is a team effort - Yours - 2017

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Jean needs to be thinking about herself in in a different way. It's been business as usual in terms of how she and Blake relate. And because of that, she's got to the point of reconsidering what the meaning of her life is.

TV Guide 2017

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For me this entire series is about Jean weighing up her faith with her love for this man. The church says to her 'even if he does get a divorce, you're a widow and you cannot marry him.

They are under the microscope of a very small town where people think they are living in sin even though nothing conjugal has happened between them. Jean bears the wounds and scars of her community who are pushing her out of the fold.

Doctor in Love - 2017

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In some ways, they're very damaged people. They're not young. They're in their 40s and 50s. And they've lived complicated, painful lives and have lost. I love that idea that it's not easy.

TV Week - 2017

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Lucien and Jean are free to contemplate a future together. But it's not as simple as one would think.

Sorrow Songs writeup - TV Week - 2017

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She's a single woman living under the same roof as a single man. For three or four seasons, they were able to convince everyone there was nothing in it and it was all above board. As they've fallen in love, the people of the town have turned on Jean and think she's a fallen woman. She feels ostracized and judged. She's losing everything for this man.

Rumor Has It - 2017