All Fired Up

Whether she’s talking Hollywood sexual politics or Paw Patrol,Romola Garai isn’t here to play. Lucy Pavia meets the star of the BBC’s adaptation of The Miniaturist for a very lively chat

A lot of people stuck their head above the parapet this year to call out the deep-rooted misogyny of the entertainment industry. But if 2017 is the year the battle got going, it’s worth paying homage to the women in the vanguard. Romola Garai has been calling bullshit on Hollywood for years. ‘It’s an industry that hates women,’ she shrugs, as we sit post-shoot on the sofa in an east London loft. ‘I think most actresses, whether they’re public about it or not, feel this very intensely.’

Thirty-five-year-old Garai is a great interviewee – she’s warm and open, and doesn’t mince her words. You might have caught a flavour of this watching her present an award at the TV BAFTAs a few years ago, when she woke up the audience with a joke about having 23 stitches in her vagina after giving birth (she’d rejected some blander wording given to her by the ceremony’s organisers). Then there’s the brilliant disruptor roles she excels at, like 50s TV producer Bel in The Hour, Alice in Suffragette and, her latest, as Marin in an upcoming TV adaptation of Jessie Burton’s bestselling novel The Miniaturist. The latter is set in 17th-century Amsterdam and stars Garai opposite Anya Taylor-Joy and Alex Hassell as a trio of characters who resist the norms of Dutch society in their own individual ways – on the surface a Christmas-friendly BBC period drama, but one that ditches a traditional romantic storyline to explore sexual politics, race and gay rights. In other words, something right up Garai’s street.

Have you always been a staunch feminist or was there a specific experience that crystallised your views?