A life in film-on both sides of the camera

Widow’s Walk is an award-winning new film shot in Suffolk, starring Miranda Raison and Virginia McKenna. Ahead of its regional premiere at the Norwich Film Festival, Angi Kennedy talks to its writer and director, Norfolk’s own Alexandra Boyd.

- Angi Kennedy

She’s a Norwich schoolgirl who grew up to be an actress and voice-over artist, with a career in TV, theatre and cinema on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Alexandra Boyd has written and directed her first feature film, Widow’s Walk, and it’s filmed in Suffolk, starring north Norfolkborn Spooks and Silk actress Miranda Raison, alongside the wonderful Born Free star Virginia McKenna.

When did you become interested in acting?

My mum owned a boutique called The Ark, near St Andrew’s Hall, and I went to Norwich High School. I went to ballet classes on Newmarket Road (Miss Manthorpe’s) and did some plays at school, but left when I got a place at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom when I was 16. I remember seeing Derek Jacobi in Hamlet at Norwich Theatre Royal and deciding that was what I wanted to do. The short-lived dance career led me to study acting at Drama Studio London, after which I founded a theatre company and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and all over Italy, before I moved to the States.

What was your first big break?

It’s hard to call any of my work a ‘big break’. Getting my first panto job and an Equity card felt like a break, as much as being cast in Titanic or landing a series regular on Coronation Street. Building a career is a long process for some, shorter for others. Everyone who has made any sort of success knows it takes a lot of perseverance and steady, focussed hard work.

You were in one of the biggest films of our generation, James Cameron’s Titanic. Tell us more.