When they were cast as Gavin and Stacey Shipman in the sitcom Gavin and Stacey, Joanna Page admits that they were “complete and utter unknowns.”
Gavin and Stacey star Joanna Page admits that the hit BBC show “didn’t pay very well”. The 48-year-old made the revelation after admitting she once worked in a shoe shop after suffering a blow during her TV career.
Joanna launched her career in 1999 when she starred as Dora Spenlow in the BBC’s adaptation of David Copperfield. She later went to star as Judy in Richard Curtis’s Christmas flick Love Actually before landing the role of Stacey Shipman in Gavin and Stacey in 2007.
The mum-of-four admits that “money is unpredictable” as an actor and recalls one moment when both she and husband James Thornton saw their shows dropped by the BBC. She told the Mail on Sunday : “It was terrifying but we scraped through – me by working at a shoe shop, James by doing voiceovers. Then, luckily, we started getting acting work again.”
When Joanna and Matthew Horne first started appearing in the roles they were given, both of them admitted that Gavin Shipman and Horne were “complete and utter unknowns.” She revealed that neither of the pair had “silly money” when the show ended.
Gavin & Stacey didn’t do well at all, according to Joanna, “Co-star Mathew and I were recently laughing at how poorly they performed.”
The cast would have “done it for free,” she continued. Joanna claims that the show “paid well” after it first aired on the BBC, where she claims she began securing modeling contracts with make-up companies and landed roles in advertisements.
The 2024 Christmas special was one of the most watched programs of the century thanks to the success of Gavin and Stacey, which attracted almost 191 million viewers. However, BBC bosses have previously acknowledged that Larry Lamb, the show, saw it as an “experiment.”
He acknowledges that the cast wasn’t “in it for the money” and claims that James Corden and Ruth Jones had a “low budget” for the series.
He stated in an interview with the Mail in October that Gavin and Stacey were always working for very little money. No one was aware of how it would operate, so a limited budget was used right away.
“Everyone was in the same boat,” the statement read. You were doing it because you adored the project and the people, not because of the money.
Joanna, who studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada), has previously acknowledged that her career would be hampered by her Welshness. She remarked, “I couldn’t believe it, when I spoke at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. I turned around and left, but I haven’t returned since.
Source: Mirror
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