Talents actress and podcaster Joanna Page has talked about the rollercoaster ride mixing acting and marriage
Joanna Page has revealed her “heart was breaking” and she was miserable in life at the same time her career took off with Gavin & Stacey. The actress loved playing Stacey Shipman but as the BBC sitcom took off, behind the scenes Joanna’s home life was not going as smoothly.
She and actor husband James Thornton were struggling to cope with him living in Leeds working on Emmerdale from 2009 whilst she remained in London.
Looking back Joanna said at Cheltenham Literature Festival: “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 Gavin & Stacey(became successful) 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.”
Thankfully romance blossomed again when James left the soap and the pair remain in love now and have four children, Eva, 12, Kit, 10, Noah, eight, and three-year-old Boe, four guinea pigs and two dogs.
A packed house is one reason Joanna says she is not planning to do any stage work in the short term and may even cut back on acting in favour of podcasting and presenting.
Writing in her book Lush, 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.”
Joanna also spoke in-depth in the book about the return of Gavin & Stacey for last year’s Christmas special, the finale of the sitcom. She recalls how emotional it was and had difficulty not crying during filming.
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. It has smashed the show’s own record from the 2019 Christmas special which reached 18.5 million viewers in 28-days.
* Lush written by Joanna Page and published by Sphere is out now.
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Source: Mirror
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