Pregnant women are fast becoming a Mirren Mack staple. This summer she plays the heavily pregnant Rose of Sharon in The Grapes Of Wrath at London’s National Theatre, having played a pregnant character in an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island, also at the National, in 2022. She recently gave birth, twice, on-screen as Katherine Villiers, duchess of Buckingham, in Sky Atlantic’s Mary & George. “I must have a face for it,” says the 26-year-old, with a laugh.
Fortunately, no padding or pushing were required to play servant Dinah in the upcoming four-part Jane Austen biopic Miss Austen — although Mack did have to dye her hair brown to differentiate the character from that of her onscreen mistress, played by fellow redhead Rose Leslie. But it was worth it. “It felt very fulfilling for the little girl in me who watched BBC’s Pride And Prejudice and Sense And Sensibility with Emma Thompson to be grown and exist within that story. It was really cool.”
As was appearing in Hedda, adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler, written and directed by Nia DaCosta and starring Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss, which shot late last year in Nottingham. “I hadn’t done a film like this before,” says Mack. “It was amazing to watch so many of these great actors do something extraordinary.”
Born in Stirling to an acting family (her father is an actor, her mother a drama teacher, while her younger sister also acts), Mack says her dad initially tried to dissuade her from joining the profession, preferring she be a chemist or a swimmer. “Those were two aspirations I couldn’t quite meet. But I think they’re very happy I act now.”
Mack attended the Dance School of Scotland’s musical theatre course, then the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. She auditioned for (and won) a part in Netflix’s Sex Education while still in her final year, following it with the lead in BBC’s The Nest; a starring role as “an elf princess turned empress who kills all sorts of people” in Netflix’s miniseries The Witcher: Blood Origin; and a twin who contracts smallpox and nearly loses her life in Paramount+’s Victorian drama The Doll Factory.
Mack has nothing currently booked post The Grapes Of Wrath, but is hoping to do more films like Hedda. “My favourite actors are chameleons, people who you don’t even notice you’re watching in a film or TV show,” she says. “They transform, and that’s what I would like to do.”
Contact: Florence Rose, Independent Talent / Jane Epstein, Independent Talent
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