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Gentleman Jack Star Suranne Jones Says Anne Lister Was "A Great Social Climber"

Photo credit: Matt Squire
Photo credit: Matt Squire

From Town & Country

Gentleman Jack isn’t your average historical drama. To begin with, the new series-which premiered April 22 on HBO-isn’t fiction, it’s based on the actual diaries of its subject, the rebellious English woman Anne Lister, who was known for transgressing boundaries in business and society alike. And while it portrays the life of Britain’s upper classes in the early 19th century, the series does double duty by highlighting Lister’s role as something of a trailblazer, as she’s said to be the first woman in England ever to marry another woman.

Suranne Jones, a veteran of Doctor Who and Unforgiven, plays Lister as a bright, driven, arrogant, difficult, and entirely captivating character. Here, she tells T&C about how she found her way to the role, what made playing Lister so interesting, and why forgetting everything she had learned about the character made it easier to play the part.

Photo credit: Matt Squire
Photo credit: Matt Squire

This series has been said to be a long while in the making. How was it that you became part of it?

I’ve worked with Sally [Wainwright, the series creator] on other projects, and I knew she had been working on this for about 20 years-she’d mentioned it to me once a long time ago. So, I knew the scripts she was working on were done when my agent called and said they were interested in seeing me for the series. I was so excited knowing she was going to be making this series that she was so invested in. And at 40 years old, I was looking for a fully rounded, three-dimensional character that would fulfill me creatively and be important enough to take me away from my family. I was thrilled I got the part.

Anne Lister is definitely a three-dimensional character. How do you play someone who has so many things going on that it would be easy to exaggerate and tell her story honestly?

We have her diaries and Sally’s knowledge, so there’s a stream of consciousness about this woman we can follow. Once I had done my research, I could just let it all go because she was in my bones.

Photo credit: Matt Squire
Photo credit: Matt Squire

She was extraordinary in a number of ways. For example, she owned land and ran a business when most women didn’t. What about her circumstances made her able to cross so many lines in both professional and personal circumstances; it seems like most people couldn’t get away with that.

When she was younger, she was sent away to school and was expelled. Then, she went to live with her aunt and uncle and ingrained herself in the running of their land and their business, and she had her sights, even as a teenager, set on inheriting it. She was from a young age a great social climber. And her uncle did leave it to her, which was unprecedented at the time, but she was the right person to run the estate-she had made sure of that. When we first see her on camera, she’s a 40-year-old woman who has built up all her armor, her clothes, the way she talks, how she’s extensively traveled. And of course, there’s her sexuality and the way she hides in plain sight. She’s trying to be very authentic in the way she conducts herself; she had no blueprint or community, and the word "lesbian" didn’t even exist. But she had the self-awareness to act in that way.

There was something more than that, though. She had the ability to push boundaries that might have stopped other people.

She was authentic and courageous. She knew she had a right to have her own voice and knowing that let her be curious and excited about the world. She wanted to live her life to the fullest.

This is also a show about life among both the haves and have nots of her time period, with all of the costumes and sets to go along with it. What about those kinds of tools was most helpful for you when it came to getting into character?

The extensive research was a huge part of it. I began that almost a year before we started filming. But, in any period drama, you’re transported the moment you walk on set. For costumes, we had male and female teams working on the design and underneath those clothes, I wore a corset but also men’s underwear. We were playing with gender from the beginning.

Stories about Anne Lister’s real life are out there, but what can you tell us about the focus of Gentleman Jack in this first season?

It’s not a spoiler because she was a real person, and this was all documented, but in 1834 she married another woman. They used the terms “wife and wife.” She wanted to be married in the eyes of God the same way straight couples were, and she was clear she wanted a life partner who was a woman. To say that-although they had a secret ceremony for their wedding-it’s absolutely spellbinding. We take you through that story, her coming out and the homophobia in high society, and it’s a life affirming story. And couldn’t we all do with a bit more of that?

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