FINDING A HAPPY MEDIUM

Actress SASKIA REEVES talks with James Rampton

Saskia Reeves is not amused, Choosing such roles as a woman who commits adultery with her brother (Close My Eyes) or a lonely lesbian who goes on the road with a murderess (Butterfly Kiss), she couldn't be called one of life's court jesters. Her image is as severe as Elizabeth I.

Alex Graham, the executive producer of Plotlands, the new six-part BBC1 serial about the creation of the suburbs in the 1920s, admits that "in the past, she found herself locked into a particular kind of role in a particular kind of movie. She was associated with hard-edged, low-budget British feature films directed by Michael Winterbottom or written by Stephen Poliakoff. She had an edgy, elfin quality about her."

It's the same when you meet her face-to-face. Initial unease - she doesn't give many interviews - soon gives way to an unexpected warmth and (would you believe it?) smiles. Her hair scraped back, highlighting her limpid green eyes, Reeves is sipping coffee in a central London cafe.

She attributes the earnest reputation to her bone structure. "I have one of those faces that hangs in a certain way and makes me look miserable," she explains. So all along, she has just been suffering from an image problem.

At one point, she even dissolves into giggles. "I'm not serious at all. I've been working for 15 years so I've done my fair share of intense characters, but I've never said, `Don't come to me with comedy!'"

Plotlands is not exactly going to have comedy producers carpet-bombing her with phone calls. However, the role of Chloe, an abused wife who flees with her two daughters to build a new life on "their own little piece of England", confirms Reeves as one of our most magnetic actresses.

On their first night in the new settlement, Chloe hears a rustling outside their tent. She storms out and hisses with conviction to no-one in particular and to the world in general: "If you touch my daughters, you're dead." Later, in an achingly plausible gesture, she tries to hide her despair from her daughters by putting her hand over her mouth to stifle sobs. The actress herself reckons that one of her strengths is her concern to be believable "from A to Z".

Louis Marks, the producer of Plotlands, contends that "At no point in the programme does she just give you two dimensions."

Graham agrees. "Without lapsing into cliche, I'd use two `I' words to describe her. One is intensity. She has the technique, but is also blessed with photogenic features and presence. The other is integrity. Without being a method monster, she committed to making things authentic."

The executive producer concedes that this can make her demanding on set, but maintains that the ends justify the means. "Other actors are demanding, too, but you look at the end result of their efforts and wonder why you went through all that grief," Graham continues. "That's not the case with Saskia."

Reeves argues that Plotlands overall isn't necessarily intense. "It's meant to be entertaining," she says. "It may be set in 1922, but people don't change. We still want the same things - a sense of community and love."

Reeves doesn't see it as a problem that Plotlands is yet another period drama. "This period does not distance you," she reasons. "You get a hint of the period from the costumes, but it's not rammed down your throat. You must leave the period behind and get on with the story. The corsets shouldn't get in the way."

Plotlands is Reeves' first major television serial - a fact she ascribes to the pitiful lack of meaty screen roles for women. "I don't want to sound wanky," she says, "but I was grateful to be offered this. I wanted to do Butterfly Kiss because you don't get many films with two female leads."

As our conversation ends, she springs another surprise by gleefully saying how much she enjoys the term "luvvies". "I think it's delightful," she beams. "There are luvvies around. One book I most laughed at was Nigel Planer's I, An Actor [a consummate send-up of luvvie-dom]. It's so true. Acting is not the be-all and end-all. In work, I can bring some of that `let's not take this too seriously' attitude. Everybody could do with a bit of that. You need to laugh about things."

Saskia Reeves is in Plotlands, starting tomorrow on BBC1 at 8.30pm; i.d., Screen Two on 31 May; and Butterfly Kiss, Screen Two on 14 June

EYE TEST

Mid-1960s: Born and brought up in London

1970s: Went to improvisation workshops with her sister every weekend

Early 1980s: After drama school, first job at the Covent Garden Community Theatre. She did lots of pub theatre. "I remember performing in a West End pub. It was an all-woman show, and the blokes there didn't like it. The last thing they wanted in their pub was theatre. I'm sure they thought we were lesbians." She went on to join the RSC, where she played such parts as Annabella in `'Tis Pity She's A Whore', Silvia in `Two Gentlemen of Verona', and Miranda in `The Virtuoso'

Late 1980s and 1990s: TV: Greta in `Metamorphosis', Antonia in `Antonia and Jane', Irina in `Summer's Day Dream', Bridget in `The Perfect Match'. Film: `December Bride', `The Bridge', `Close My Eyes', `Traps', `i.d.', `Butterfly Kiss'. She admits to chilling out after an intense early career: "As a younger actress, I was really single-minded. But I'm in my early 30s now, and I have learned to relax a bit, be less anxious. Now is the time to do the musical!"