Miriam Margoolyes talks Trollied, Twitter and more

Miriam Margolyes has found herself in a funny sort of predicament.

After making a series of sparkling appearances on The Graham Norton Show, telling Dominic Cooper and Lily Allen she didn’t know who they were and adding that Cooper’s box office hit Mamma Mia! was “dreadful”, the 73-year-old is feeling the pressure to be amusing.

“It’s scary, you know you’re supposed to be entertaining and that’s a huge burden, because you don’t know if you are or not.

“But I love meeting new people and finding out what makes them tick,” explains the actress, known for her roles in Blackadder and Harry Potter, as well as her extensive stage work.

Brought up in Oxford, she crafted a career on stage, radio and screen before winning a best supporting actress Bafta for her role in Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence in 1993.

Admired for her wide-reaching work, including her one woman stage show Dickens’ Women, and engaging exchanges on radio and TV shows, Margolyes credits her older parents for her love of a good natter.

“My mother was very frightened of childbirth, so she didn’t actually have me until they’d been married 11 years,” says Margolyes, whose latest role is as mischievous Rose in Sky1 comedy Trollied.

“No one thought they’d have any children and she didn’t have any more after me, so I grew up with older parents and therefore, I think conversation was more natural to me than playing with other children.”

After playing kindly Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, Margolyes, who competed on University Challenge as a Cambridge University undergraduate, is often approached by starstruck children.

“I know that I will go to my grave as Professor Sprout, whatever else I’ve done,” she says good-naturedly.

“I’m grateful that I was able to be in that series of films. I remember being mobbed in Lithuania, which I didn’t expect, because of Professor Sprout.”

While Margolyes is perfectly amenable, she does draw the line at using a certain social media network to interact with fans.

“I have nothing to do with Twitter. I don’t approve of that sort of thing. What is it 127 characters or something like that? Ridiculous. I won’t be trammelled.”

Although she “draws the line” at Twitter, she has found Facebook more “useful” because it allows her to track down members of her family.

“You find out things you obviously didn’t know [before, from relatives you’ve met on Facebook],” says the actress who became an Australian citizen last year and spends a lot of time in the country with her civil partner.

“What I really want to know is about the people who are dead; they’re the ones who really interest me. The young are quite interesting, but people keep sending me pictures of their babies and it’s too tedious.”

Although she restricts Facebook to personal use, she appreciates the need to have a web presence and has her own website.

Many things have changed in her profession over the years but her love of acting remains the same.

She still loves the interaction between characters, opting for roles that are “quite human” and offer the audience the chance to see her in a different light.

And her latest part as Colin’s “naughty” nan Rose in Trollied certainly fits the bill.

“Rose wants the world on her terms,” says a beaming Margolyes, who played Juliet’s nurse in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. “I quite like that actually. She is vulnerable, she can be hurt, she’s quite emotional and she’s quite sexy, in a rather disgraceful way. She believes everybody is in love with her.”

Miriam Margolyes in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002)

Much as the actress enjoyed the role, she won’t be tuning in any time soon.

“I don’t like watching myself because I only see the mistakes I make,” she explains.

“And that makes me sad because I think ‘I should have done that better, that’s not right’, so it’s just too depressing.”

Now in its fourth series, the supermarket-based comedy, set in Warrington, boasts Jane Horrocks and Mark Addy among its cast.

Usually “beady” about comedy, Margolyes enjoyed the scripts for Trollied, especially as it included an on-screen brawl.

“It’s a full-on, hands-on, chin up and wham [fight]!” says Margolyes, who worked with a stunt co-ordinator to film the fight sequence, which she’s professionally tight-lipped about.

“I think the only other time in my whole career that I’ve had to fight someone was with Arnold Schwarzenegger in End Of Days and I was playing Satan’s sister, so this is a little bit different,” she says with a laugh.

Buoyant in personality and career, Margolyes is determined to keep stretching herself.

“I’d love to do more Shakespeare, because that’s hard,” she explains.

“One should do difficult things as you get older. You shouldn’t fall back on the easy things, so I do hope that I keep working. That’s my main aspiration, because after a certain point, people think you can’t do it, so you have to prove you can.”

Trollied is on Sky1 on Mondays

Oxford school days remembered

Miriam Margolyes’ family came to Oxford as evacuees during the war after their home in London was bombed. Her mother was pregnant with her at the time.

As a girl she attended Oxford High School – “the best school in the world”.

“I love it still. It had amazing teachers, and still has, and that to me is what Oxford is. My memories with Oxford are all connected with my family and my school,” says Margolyes. “Although my mother is the person who formed me, my school taught me about art and literature.”

Other famous shelf-stackers

* Sam Claflin: The Hunger Games actor worked as a “trolley wally” in his local Sainsbury's for three years before going to drama school.

* Vernon Kay: While he was studying for his A-Levels, our Vernon was a shelf stacker at a Tesco store in Wigan.

* Kevin Bridges: The Scottish stand-up worked in Co-op in Clydebank as a shelf stacker after being rejected for the same position at ASDA.

* Martha Collison: Teenage Great British Bake Off contestant Martha Collison worked on the cheese counter at Waitrose.

* Michelle Pfeiffer: In her youth, Hollywood star Michelle Pfeiffer worked as a cashier in a Californian supermarket.

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