For Vera star, Brenda Blethyn, family has always been incredibly important to her.
But she says nothing has shaped her as much as her experience growing up in a slum.
In an interview on 7News Spotlight on Sunday, Brenda, who captured audiences as the blunt-talking, bucket-hat-wearing British detective, Vera Stanhope, opened the door to her life and career while talking about the lessons of her childhood.
“When I was growing up, we were very, very, very poor,” Brenda, 79, told reporter Ashlee Mullany.
“We lived in a slum, actually. And when my parents died, they didn’t leave us anything material. They had nothing.
“But they had a great sense of humor. And myself and my brothers and sisters all had a great sense of humor. I’ve lost some of them now, unfortunately. But yeah, we can laugh at things, and laughter gets you through so much.”
Brenda said her experiences growing up have helped her in her role for 14 seasons as the straight-laced detective, which finished up earlier this year.
She remembers a defining moment in her childhood with a chocolate machine, which taught her “the value of things normally, not just the price.”
“I found a machine that was faulty. You flick the ball around and it either goes into a winning slot or a losing slot, whichever slot it went in, out came a chocolate bar. So there was something wrong with the machine,” Brenda said.
“And I was flicking around this thing, and I made a bag out of my skirt, and I filled it with chocolate bars and took it home. Well, my mom found them, ‘Where have you got these from?’
“And I said, ‘I want them on the machine, read the machine [sic].’ But she took me back down there and took them all back, made me apologize to the man… They [sic]taught us a lesson. And I would never, ever, ever do that again, ever.”
For Brenda, who was 64-years-old when she was offered to play Vera, the iconic character has made her known around the world.
When asked about how she feels about fame, Brenda says, “It often takes me by surprise. If somebody recognises me in the supermarket, I’ll often say to my husband, ‘What are they looking at?’ He goes, ‘They probably recognize you off the telly’. I say, ‘Oh, I wish I’d combed my hair!'”
The wide-ranging interview comes just after New Idea recently spotted the star filming her latest TV project – A Woman of Substance.
The series is expected to air in the UK later this year, with no word yet as to when it will hit Australian screens, and where it will be available to watch.
Brenda is playing the ambitious maid Emma Harte, who rises out of poverty to create her own retail empire.
The show is based on the bestselling 1979 book of the same name, by the late author Barbara Taylor Bradford.
Stream Vera on BritBox from $9.99/mth, with a 7-day free trial. Subscribe here.
