Joanna Page is sad and emotional to be leaving the character Stacey Shipman behind after Gavin and Stacey aired its final ever episode last Christmaas
Joanna Page had admitted she broke the strict secrecy rules around Gavin & Stacey’s finale – and let her husband and mum read the scripts before becoming a blubbering wreck on set.
The actress loved playing Stacey Shipman opposite Mat Horne who was Gavin Shipman on and off for 17 years. The Christmas finale scripts were sent on email with the subject ‘Toffee Apple’ so as not to draw attention, but instead of keeping it quiet, Joanna told her beloved mum everything and even asked her to help with learning her lines.
Joanna, 48, said: “This last one the finale, it was James(Corden) who called me out the blue. I just thought, oh my god, it’s happening. And I was excited. Then they said ‘Don’t tell anybody’ and I said, Oh my god, James, of course I won’t, you know, can’t wait. I’m so excited’.
“I put the phone down and called my my mum straight away! ‘Mum we’re doing the finale’. And then told my James, my husband. And then when the script arrived, oh my lord, I just showed it to mum straight away.”
The script actually arrived when she was waiting for a burger at a service station and she read it in the car park sending voice notes to Ruth Jones along the way.
“I managed to read half of it in one service station, then had to drive to another service station to avoid getting a ticket. I voice-noted Ruth all through the second half. I was laughing and I was crying. Ruth heard it all in real time as I was actually experiencing it. She was playing my voice notes to James.”
She added that she “lied to everyone and said that I hadn’t let anyone read it” but thankfully the script secrets did not leak.
Gavin & Stacey: The Finale is the UK’s most-watched scripted show across all broadcasters and streamers since current records began in 2002, with ratings of over 19.3 million.
In her new book Lush, Joanna also admits from day two of filming onwards of the finale she cried every day of filming, making it difficult sometimes to get scenes finished,
She said: “I was crying from the second day of filming. My first scenes were Nessa and Stacey down the slots in Barry Island, riding in the back of Nessa’s rickshaw. We filmed all day. It was a riot. I was excited to be back on-set, huge crowds had come to watch and cheer and I was filming with Ruth, which I loved. I laughed all day long. Then they said, ‘That’s a wrap on Nessa and Stacey in the slots.’ I burst out crying, and I think I cried every day at some point from that moment until the end of the shoot. Ruth was crying, Chris Gernon our director was crying and I was a state.
“There were a few times, before takes, when I’d have to go into the bathroom and pull myself together. This is really embarrassing, I told myself. You’re out of control on-set and you can’t stop crying. It was difficult.”
And the emotional wrap party for the finale was so boozy Joanna had “the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life” and needed help packing her bags in the hotel. She “was in such a state” she couldn’t face a train home or carrying any bags so splashed out £380 for a taxi home.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, where she was wearing a pair of Stacey’s earring she took from the prop department along with some clothes, she admitted she would have been devastated if anyone else had got the role of Stacey as she felt it “was her” and there are so few good Welsh parts in TV shows. At this point in life she was close to quitting acting and was working in a shoe shop where her agent sent her the script.
Joanna said: “I got the script and I remember turning over the first page and reading it and going ‘Oh my God’.
“I’ve never read anything like this before in my life. This is my voice. This is me. This is my family’. “Because in RADA, you had Trainspotters Scottish thing. You have everything Northern, and then you have the Irish thing. And if you were Welsh, you were lucky to get one character in a show who was a bit dollally and simple and didn’t really say very much.
“You were lucky if you got that. And suddenly, it’s like this whole world and my family and I remember thinking, if some f**ker gets this who has famous parents or is famous from a reality show then that is it.”
Joanna also spoke about her marriage being tested when she and fellow actor James had to live apart whilst she was in London enjoying the initial G&S success and he was starring in Emmerdale for three years from 2009 to 2012.
She explained: “In the book, I talk about how difficult it was when he went off to of Emmerdale for three years. And of course, when a job comes in, you know, your first thought is you’ve got to go and do it. Because that was before we had children. And so then you’re like, a job comes in, it’s yes, yes, yes. I mean, you know, the life of an actor, it’s tough. And when a job comes in, you’ve got to go and do it.
“And so suddenly we went from being so close, and, you know, having been with each other all the time, to him off living up in Leeds, and I’m all the way down in London, and it was just after really Gavin & Stacey as well.
“So to the outside world, it looks like your life was so wonderful, and we were winning awards. And you know, it was really exciting and we were going to different things and different appearances and stuff, but inside my heart was just breaking.
“I just go back home, and I sit with Daisy our dog, and I just, you know, I didn’t go out. I didn’t want to do anything for a while, it didn’t really work as much as I could have, because I was just very miserable. I was really, really down, and I was very miserable and I found it difficult.”
Now, Joanna is living in Oxfordshire with husband ex-Emmerdale actor James Thornton and their four children, Eva, 12, Kit, 10, Noah, eight, and three-year-old Boe, four guinea pigs and two dogs.
Page says she’s at a different place in her life and hopes to write more books after finishing her memoir. Acting will take more of a back seat whilst she spends time at home with the kids, especially as it is the last year before Boe will head to school.
She said: “I’ve decided that the root of what is next for me is being myself. The whole entertainment world is so different from when I first came out of RADA.
“I can wake up one morning and think, Yes, I’ve got my own platform. I can act, I can present, I can pod. That is the way that I see myself now – it’s exciting. Last year was so busy and hectic, with all the excitement, stress and secrecy of Gavin & Stacey, and then presenting Joanna Page’s Wild Life, that right now, I don’t fancy leaving the kids and going away to a film set for weeks on end. But maybe when they’re all older and in college, I’ll think, You know what? I fancy doing a play now.”
She added: “One day, I’ll belong to a theatre company again. But, for now, I don’t want to play someone else. I want to be me.”
*Lush written by Joanna Page and published by Sphere is out now.
