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Anne-Marie Duff interviewed about playing Joan

Joan the Firebrand
Anne-Marie Duff

The first thing that struck me about the play was its relevance for today's audience. I was also excited by the notion of performing Shaw beacuse he's such fascinating writer: his plays are full of similar themes, but they're all so different. Saint Joan is a visceral play, with a very different flavour to his others.

Ten years ago, when I played Cordelia in King Lear at the National, Richard Eyre told me to think about Saint Joan as a kind of model. I suppose there are similarities: they both are on a crusade, have a strong sense of doing right, and are completely uncompromising with the self-righteousness of youth.

Joan is a real firebrand, and I found that very exciting. She's an incredibly strong young woman, with so many different qualities, which is great for an actor, because it gives you so much to work with. She's a champion, and we need champions. Sometimes they turn into despots and maniacs, sometimes they become saints!

I suppose actors usually share some characteristics with the person they're playing. I can certainly relate to Joan's tenacity, her drive, and her ambition. I'm also drawn to characters that have a real commitment to an idea, who throw themselves up against it, and end up a bit bruised.

Joan's language is very juicy, but it has an epic as well as a colloquial quality, which adds to her peculiarity and separation from the rest of the world. I find her speeches very beautiful, and incredibly moving; they're fiery and inciting, but also really tender and poetic, which is not something you normally associate with Shaw.

Prior to, and during, rehearsals we've all done masses of research. There are many brilliant books about Joan, about the Hundred Years' War, and Joan herself. We found out what she was born into, what shaped her, what was happening at the time the voices first came to her, or when she left home. They help to realise her in a way that a book of saints never can.

We've also thought a lot about territory, relating it to current situations such as that in Palestine. We live in a world full of young martyrs. What's the difference between Joan and them? The play brings up lots of such questions, which is fascinating: I like having that kind of debate going on in my head.

Anne-Marie Duff was interviewed by Jonathan Croall