Hilary Mantel in conversation with Harriet Walter (Full)

Recorded 11 September 2014, Union Chapel, London
In a recent Guardian interview, the actress Harriet Walter reflected on the impossibility of ever really knowing another human being. Yet, like the novelist Hilary Mantel, she has devoted her professional life to inhabiting characters not her own, often historical ones. Walter’s notable roles include Elizabeth I, Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra, while Mantel has twice won the Man Booker Prize for her extraordinary portrayal of Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies - adapted for the stage by the RSC, currently playing in the West End, and soon to be serialised on BBC2. In a conversation jointly hosted by the RSL and Intelligent Life magazine, and chaired by the playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, they reflect on how they get to grips with a character, compare notes on capturing personality on the page and the stage, and discuss how to maintain a sense of self while becoming someone else.
We are grateful to the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation for supporting this event.
In partnership with Intelligent Life.

[@elainepayne7047]

I have always felt Hilary Mantel is more than a writer of great ability. Something not of this world? Perhaps all great writers have an “otherness’ about them.

[@Gaverny]

She's so damn clever and insightful. Out of this world for sure 👍

[@edwise4543]

My dream: a cup of tea with Hilary Mantel.

[@racheldemain1940]

I always read the book first as my imagination will cast my characters, so my Thomas Cromwell may not be somebody else's if they were then to watch the adaptation or the play. I didn't watch Wolf Hall as I wanted to live in the book myself.

[@JimNolan3]

Wonderful interview. Thank you for posting. Mantel is a writer of the highest order.

[@davidbruson]

Extraordinary interview with two masters of their craft!

[@talxlaohxra1238]

Bloody marvellous.

[@antigaia1817]

I knew next to NOTHING about the Tudors when I started Wolf Hall. for those who havent read it, PLEASE don't let that disuade you. It's an amazing book and you will pick up on enough history along the way to enjoy it

[@TorontoCreatives1]

The interviewer asks well formed and appropriate questions.

[@adamcarroll1975]

Love this interview, and all involved! Hilary Mantel is fascinatingly wonderful at what she does. (Also, this interviewer reminds me - looks wise - of Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction.”)

[@pixels2u]

agree, although maybe more of a caricature of Glenn Close in F.A.

[@howlinhonky]

when the interviewer leans forward i think robert plant

[@sharonreichter2537]

Spiritual infuence.

[@patriciaclark6171]

RIP Hilary ❤

[@TheAuntieBa]

Thought provoking, in ways I’d not expected and not thought of before, in regards to secrets. As someone who remembers past lives from a very young age, I knew what it is like to be male. I wonder if this can be part of a writer’s ‘imagination’, even when they don’t have access to those memories.

[@yvonneheald6456]

Two wonderful women. A great actor and a great writer. A suberb interview. RIP Hilary x