Emily Mortimer

Three things you should know about Emily Mortimer: she speaks fluent Russian; she’s written two screenplays, one of which has already found a producer; and, in spite of her growing film stardom, American husband and a home in New York, she remains very much a Brit (in the best sense of the word) and very un-lovey.

The first two are significant because for some years Mortimer played out her persona in the press as a gormless ingénue who took neither herself nor her work seriously – ‘making fucking up a virtue’ was how she once put it. So it’s enlightening to learn that the oldest daughter of the late Sir John Mortimer and his second wife, Penelope, is in fact a smart and quietly motivated Oxford graduate with the sort of gentle, empathetic personality that makes you want to tell her all your secrets.

The third fact is significant because, in spite of an increasingly high-profile career that has gone from bit-parts in Elizabeth and Notting Hill to major roles in Match Point, Lars And The Real Girl and Martin Scorsese’s forthcoming Shutter Island, Mortimer has not succumbed to the ubiquitous actress-on-autopilot mode when consorting with members of the press. Warm, chatty and modest to a fault, she contradicts the notion that actors are a self-absorbed lot, interested in others insofar as they reflect their own glory back at them.

A couple of days earlier, at our cover shoot, she’d been palpably nervous while preparing to have her portrait taken, which only further endeared her to the assembled crew. But, really, her vulnerability is her strength. As a performer, Mortimer’s gift is in bringing a human dimension to the story at hand – whether innocent or complicit, her character most often functions as the narrative’s emotional compass. And in person, her emotions are no less evident.

Mortimer has had a tough year, losing her beloved father in January following a long illness. She is full of gratitude that her and husband Alessandro Nivola’s five-year-old son got to know his grandfather before the literary giant shuffled off this mortal coil. ‘They adored each other,’ she says, her voice a little huskier than usual. ‘Samuel has a love of words and humour and he totally gets the absurdity of life. Fortunately, he didn’t inherit Dad’s looks,’ she adds, her sweetly sad eyes twinkling with mirth.

The setting for our interview is Balthazar, the perennially hip brasserie in downtown Manhattan, where the 37-year-old arrives studiously early, wearing a strapless maxidress and a generous smile. Naturally curious and completely ungrand, she asks almost as many questions as she answers, and the interview soon becomes a spirited and wide-ranging conversation.

Interview

You’ve been based in the US, on and off, for a decade now, since meeting your American husband, Alessandro. Does living in New York make you feel more or less English?

My five-year-old mocks me every time I open my mouth. He talks with an American accent, which I don’t mind, but I do resent him taking the piss out of mine! So that makes me feel very English.

Has emigrating changed you as a person?

When I was preparing to move, my overriding feeling was that I was giving something up. Now I feel more like I’ve gained something. I didn’t realise quite how closed off I was – myopic, in a way – until I came here. It’s made me less judgmental.

Being an expat also messes with your concept of home, doesn’t it?

You start to belong everywhere – and nowhere. When I went ‘home’ to England there would always be something missing because my life wasn’t there any more. I used to find that horrifying but now I feel as though not really belonging is something to be embraced.

You met Alessandro on the set of Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labours Lost. Was it a romance of Shakespearian proportions from the get go?

I remember describing everyone in the cast to Mum, including this American guy I didn’t know what to make of and who I’m sure found me very irritating, and she said, ‘That’s the one you like’. I said, ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Then he asked me out.