Ruth Wilson has shared how her Catholic upbringing sparked her interest in acting.
The 41-year-old actress is one of Britain’s most talented actors, having appeared in films such as See How They Run, True Things, and Luther.
Ruth, who grew up in Surrey and was an altar girl while attending Catholic school, revealed in a new interview that her experience at church gave her “my first sense of what theatre is.”
Looking back at her time living at home as a child, she described her religion as ‘sensual’ and noted she knows other actors who come from Catholic backgrounds. ‘I think [Catholicism] actually gave me my first idea of what theatre is,’ Ruth, whose mum was a probation officer and dad a banker, told Tatler.
‘Catholicism is so sensual as a religion, the smells, the iconography, the colours, the outfits – it’s incredibly vivid.’
So also told the outlet: ‘I know a lot of actors who are Catholics. I think it gets into your blood.’
Coincidentally, the actress’s newest production, the six-part series The Woman in the Wall, involves Catholicism.
The criminal thriller follows Ruth’s character Lorna, who is plagued by her time as a teenager at one of the Magdalene Laundries.
The Magdalene Laundries, which were mostly administered by the Catholic church, were institutions where ‘fallen women’ were imprisoned and forced to labour.
Sex workers, unmarried women who became pregnant, and even abused and orphaned children were among those who fell into the category of “fallen women.”
Touching upon the black humour in her new series, Ruth recently told the Evening Standard: ‘It’s quite quintessentially Irish in that way. Every tragedy has to have humour in it.
‘It allowed me to find quirk with Lorna, to push the boundaries and be more creative.’
See the full feature in the October issue of Tatler available via digital download and on newsstands from Thursday August 31.
