Latest news with #JillHalfpenny
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jill Halfpenny opens up about the challenges of life as an actress - as she admits being out of work makes her feel 'pointless'
Jill Halfpenny has opened up about the challenges of being an actress - and how long periods out of work make her feel 'pointless'. The Strictly Come Dancing winner, 49, who recently starred in Channel 5 drama The Feud, said as she gets older the lack of structure in an actor's life has gotten harder. And Jill admitted that she's quick to warn up and coming performers about the dark days of being out of work. 'When ever anyone asks me for advice about being an actor, I always say, "How to do you operate in your downtime", because they are the most challenging times,' she said. 'The work when it arrives is easy, but it's when you're in your own head, going, "I'm so pointless". I literally need to put points in my day to make me feel that there's a point to me being here today.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. The Byker Grove star continued: 'When I am out of work and I've been out of work so much in my career, I've had long spells when I am not doing anything and I realise that I like structure, for my day to be punctuated with certain things. 'I really struggle, maybe now more than ever with just waking up and my boyfriend will say, "So what have you got on today." 'In my head I am saying "Nothing, absolutely nothing." I have to give myself structure and its mentally hard.' Speaking on Sophie Ellis Bextor's Spinning Plates podcast, the Geordie actress revealed that she sometimes envies her friend with their so called, normal jobs. 'Some of my friends don't like their jobs and they'll say, "Oh I've got an 8.30am meeting and it's with a person I hate and I've got a two hour meeting with them". 'And I find myself thinking, "I wish I had a meeting with someone I didn't like" because at least it would be something and I'd have something to whinge about, like "Oh that meeting was dreadful." 'But no, there's nothing to say, you're out of work, never knowing if you'll work again. You have the faith and think, logically something will come up, but there are no facts there.' TV favourite Jill has come through a tragic time following the death of her partner Matt James, who collapsed at his local gym from a heart attack in 2017, aged just 43. The terrible event was especially triggering for the star, who had been through the trauma of losing her own father to sudden heart failure after he died playing football when Jill was only 4 years old. Writing in her recent Memoir, A life Reimagined, she spoke about how the aftershock of her father's death led to a period of unprocessed grief in her 20s. She said: 'I realised a lot of my behaviour was down to this unprocessed grief. I got divorced, I stopped drinking alcohol and then it all seemed so clear – the jigsaw pieces fit.' But then when she was forced to go through a season of grief in her 40s, she now feels that she emerged, a 'better person.' 'Grief has made me a better person. Processing the grief has softened me and I've become less judgemental about myself. I am my own worst critic, but I have got better,' she said. Now Jill, who is based in Newcastle, has found love again with marketing executive Ian McAllister and the pair recently enjoyed a romantic trip to Paris together. In her memoir she said: She said: 'For the first time since Matt died, I have met someone and fallen in love. 'The relationship has helped me understand the importance of all the work I have done before I met him. 'I can allow myself to be happy and in love without feeling any guilt. I can be vulnerable and scared and understand where it's coming from. 'I can be free and open, allowing myself to be seen without fear of abandonment. Jill was previously married to actor Craig Conway from 2007 until 2010 and together they are parents to 17-year-old son Harvey.
Daily Mail
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Feud viewers rage 'this is torture!' as they sink claws into 'absolutely ridiculous and farcical' finale - vowing 'never to watch another Channel 5 drama again'
The Feud viewers raged 'this is torture!' and sank their claws into the 'absolutely ridiculous and farcical' finale after weeks of anticipation. As the last episode of aired on Wednesday, some watchers even vowed to 'never watch another Channel 5 drama again'. The gritty neighbourhood drama featured a talented cast including soap star Jill Halfpenny as Emma Barnett and Gavin & Stacey's Larry Lamb as Terry. Downtown Abbey's Amy Nuttall starred as Sonia, while Tessa Peake-Jones, from the hit show Only Fools And Horses, played Barbara. Despite the impressive line-up, the end of the six-part series failed to impress some viewers. Many took to social media to express their disappointment and posted on X: 'And the Bafta award for worst drama goes to... drum roll... THE FEUD.' Some criticised the fast timeline of events after Sonia and Alan's house went up for sale and how fast John seemed to be released from police custody. They penned: 'This storyline is absolutely ridiculous. The timeline is farcical.' '#thefeud never watched anything so ridiculous in my life before too much to list, but one question can planning permission be reversed so easily?' 'So much potential with all that talent. Turned into a right shower of ****! Timeline all over the place, plot holes, rushed ending, stupid plot twist and unexplained son turning up randomly for for no reason. #Thefeud.' While another claimed they would never watch another drama by the broadcaster and said: 'This is torture. I am never watching another Channel 5 drama. #thefeud.' '#thefeud And I thought the previous mini-series before this was bad.' '#TheFeud Started off very promising, went on for too long & then left a number of questions unanswered… not forgetting that several bits of the storyline were, well, quite frankly, ridiculous. Such a pity as the cast were great.' Despite the impressive line-up, the end of the six-part series failed to impress some viewers who took to social media to share their thoughts 'Watching #TheFeud on @Channel5_tv - what a bizarre series. I can't quite work out if it's actually a comedy or not. The acting, script, storyline and incidental music is so ridiculous that it just can't be a serious thriller, surely...' However, some were more positive and one wrote: '#TheFeud was brilliant. Jill Halfpenny = great actress, and her character was completely unlikeable. 'But the music throughout the series = so distracting! Made what could've been an excellent thriller into a caper.' But earlier in the series, fans were overjoyed when an Only Fools And Horses legend Tessa made an epic return to TV in the Channel 5 drama. Tessa plays Barbara, a nosy neighbour who voices her views against Emma's extension plans and is also dealing with her son going missing. While a second added: 'Knew I recognised her - Raquel is back!' Tessa starred in Only Fools And Horses as Raquel Turner, who dated Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter, portrayed by David Jason. Other stars include Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones as Jon Barnett, Coronation Street's Chris Gascoyne as Peter Barlow and Black Mirror's Alex Macqueen as Nick. Speaking of her role, Tessa told Radio Times: 'We all put on a public face when we meet people and have to behave, and then behind closed doors there's the private face which could be anything. 'For Barbara, it's more emphasised, because what she's dealing with behind their closed doors is so much more extreme.' According to the Express, when one viewer spotted the actress, they wrote: 'It's Raquel from only fools and horses! Haven't seen her in years!'
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jill Halfpenny looks back: ‘My dad died when I was four and I lost my partner in 2017. Some days, I still struggle'
Born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, in 1975, actor Jill Halfpenny landed her breakout role as Nicola Dobson in Byker Grove at the age of 14. She has been a mainstay on TV screens since: starring in EastEnders, Coronation Street, Humans and Three Girls. In 2011, she won an Olivier for her West End role in Legally Blonde the Musical. Her memoir about navigating grief, A Life Reimagined, was published in 2024, and she is starring in The Feud on 5, launching on 14 April. She lives in Tynemouth with her son, Harvey. This was my first holy communion. I don't remember much about the day but I do recall the click-clack of the heels. The rest of the outfit was a bad choice – very old-fashioned and womanly, especially as I was a tomboy who loved trainers and tracksuits. If I'm honest, the main benefit of having holy communion, as a girl who likes to eat and drink, was the fact that during boring old mass I'd now get some bread and wine. My expression here is so awkward, which perfectly represents how I felt at that age. I was always very nervous. I didn't know what to do with my face; I clearly wasn't keen on showing my teeth and I'm holding back a bit in general. School made me especially anxious. I was geeky – not one of the cool girls. As soon as I got into the building, I'd think: 'Get me out of this place.' There were a lot of big personalities, and it took me a long time to find a space where I belonged. Fortunately, I had dance class to retreat to after school. Dancing became a way of releasing something inside me, something that I didn't have the vocabulary to express. My dad died of a heart attack when I was four. It was never addressed and as a result I liked to stay busy. I was always filling my time trying not to think, and I hated the idea of going home and realising that I had nothing on. The quietness of Sundays was awful. I thrived on stress and stimulation; I danced as much as I could. Without knowing, I was learning a lesson: ballet is often painful, but if you stay with the pain it gets a lot easier. It took me decades to realise the same method applies to dealing with grief. By the time I was 13 I knew I wanted to be an actor. It wasn't as if I was going around telling everyone. I kept it quiet. But I have to give huge props to my mum – she always supported me. Normally, parents might suggest you have a backup plan if you're choosing a risky career path – 'Just do a degree and you'll have something to fall back on' – as if they think you're probably not going to make it. Mum never did that. Her attitude was always: 'If it makes you happy, do it.' Luckily, that worked out. Being in Byker Grove was thrilling. There's no other word for it. You could not get me out of the door quick enough on the mornings we were filming. The only thing was, it attracted a significant amount of negative attention at school. A car would be waiting outside school to take me to set, and someone would knock on the door and say: 'Jill, your car is here!' I was at an urban, working-class school. It wasn't a place where students thought: 'She's working hard doing something she loves – and earning money. How cool is that?' The culture was to denigrate – to make me feel stupid, as if I was being a show-off. Going through puberty was already awkward and weird, and being on telly definitely made it worse. I left drama school at 21, and for the next five years I was booking episodes on all of the usual jobs: Heartbeat, The Bill, Peak Practice. I was doing a lot of theatre, a lot of touring. I was a bit of a raver at the weekends. My sisters were into pub culture; backcombing their hair and drinking lager. Meanwhile, I wanted to get a ticket for a massive party in a field and slip into a leather waistcoat and miniskirt. A lot of the time I'd think: 'Oh God, I don't know whether I can pull another nine-hour rave.' But I would often find somewhere to sleep on the floor. It would take days to recover, but I loved every second of it. In my 20s, it was as if I'd hit the ground running: I was on Coronation Street and EastEnders, Strictly, and then Chicago on the West End. Suddenly, people knew my name, but I wasn't quite ready to absorb all this good stuff that was happening to me. I felt empty inside. My relationships were breaking down, and I started to question if I even wanted to be an actor. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion All of that unaddressed grief stopped me from being able to fully feel present with happiness. I kept waiting for something to fill the hole; for everything to fall into place. When success started happening, and I still wasn't fixed, I started to unravel. I spent my 30s working on that: I had been leaning on alcohol to stop the thoughts, and eventually I went to AA. I got sober. I thought: 'Hey, look at me. I'm ready for my life now!' I met a man named Matt. We fell in love. We were so happy together. Then, in 2017, he died. I was like: 'Huh? That doesn't seem right. That's not how that was supposed to happen.' I thought I'd done the work, I thought I'd been a good girl, I thought I'd done all the things I should do. Matt dying of a heart attack brought me to another level of surrender entirely. I realised that what you have to do when life implodes is … nothing. You can't productivity your way out of grief. Some days, I still struggle. I am prone to existential moments where I honestly don't know what life is about or why I am here. Then other days, I go: 'That's a real crock of shit that, Jill. It's all overthinking, so get on with it and have a nice time.' My experiences of losing my dad and Matt have taught me such valuable lessons about how to treat others who are grieving, too. When I was in the thick of it, I could never answer the question, 'How are you?' It was too big. 'How was this morning? How was school drop-off?' were far better. Breaking the grief into specific bits makes it easier to talk about. While I am not as awkward as the little girl in the photo, there is still a bit of shyness about me. I can be open and confident because of the nature of my job, but I'm not like a lot of actors, who are able to walk into a room and hold court. I always think: 'Why are you still performing? The camera's not even on!' It's just not who I am. I suppose that's why I am often cast as the 'everywoman'. The character, who, when you watch the telly, you can go, 'That could be me.' I'm not Nicole Kidman. The dramas I am in are never like Emily in Paris, full of scenic backdrops and beautiful clothes. If I'm on your screen, you're probably more likely to think: 'She's going to go through a very hard time, but, in the end, we're going to be fine.' Which pretty much sums up the story of my life.
