Patricia Arquette

From David Lynch to Martin Scorsese, Patricia Arquette has worked with some of film’s most distinctive directors. But she also saw opportunity on the small screen just before TV’s new ‘Golden Age’, and she’s now shining in a new binge-worthy drama. Total Film meets a risk-taking talent not afraid to make her voice heard.

- Matt Maytum

I don’t think you can really play someone,” muses Patricia Arquette. “I couldn’t even play myself. It would always be fiction. Human beings are too complicated.” Arquette is on the thoughtful form when TF meets her in London’s Soho Hotel on a drizzly May morning. If our chat gets off to a serious start, it’s because she’s in town to talk about The Act, a miniseries gifting her a transformational turn. In the show – which has already aired in the US and is now available to stream via StarzPlay in the UK – Arquette plays Dee Dee Blanchard, a real woman whose murder in 2015 unearthed some unsettling facts.

Blanchard – who suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy – tricked everyone (including medical professionals) into believing her daughter Gypsy had cancer. The Act picks up as Gypsy (Joey King) starts to realize she might not actually be unwell. “It was the weirdest character to play,” says Arquette.

Today, the 51-year-old star looks nothing like the figure on the poster that’s displayed beside her. Relaxing on a pale blue sofa, she looks sharp in a pale check suit, her face framed by a blunt blonde fringe and thick cat-eye glasses. And even though the topics of our conversation are sometimes heavy, Arquette remains approachable, candid, warm. Maybe it’s her unmistakeable breathy cadence – even though she’s softly spoken, you’ll know the accent that’s been a fixture of cult film and TV since the ’90s.