From Leigh to Los Angeles
Olivier Award-winning actress Lara Pulver on working with her husband, life in LA and her unwavering respect for NHS staff
Born in Rochford and raised in the pretty coastal town of Leigh-on-Sea, Lara Pulver launched her career on the West End stage before finding primetime fame in shows including Spooks, Sherlock, True Blood and The Split. During the pandemic, she landed a lead role in ITV’s latest medical drama Maternal, alongside her real-life husband, actor Raza Jaffrey. Here she reveals the joys of playing a successful surgeon, back on UK soil…
Happily settled in the Hollywood Hills with son Ozias, five, and two-year-old daughter Thea, Lara’s family life couldn’t be more different from her own early childhood in Leigh growing up with her sister, a teacher, and her mother, a council worker. Lara’s parents split when she was eleven, and her mother sent her to the local amateur dramatics society to keep her occupied – her first foray into acting.
Since then, her career has been brimming with heady experiences from musicals and a stint as a Bond girl in Fleming to filming alongside Tom Cruise in sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow, back in 2014. Aside from a tabloid flurry when she appeared naked pre-watershed opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, her private life remains comfortably under the radar with her versatile CV doing the talking.
Maternal meant relocating to Liverpool where her husband Raza was raised, and Lara, 42, clearly relished being part of a uniquely British production that is full of humour, while exploring the tumultuous experience women can face at work following maternity leave.
While audiences have lapped up the BBC’s award-winning dramas Motherland and raw biopic, This is Going to Hurt, based on the memoirs of medic-turned-playwright Adam Kay, Maternal places parenthood and the medical profession under the microscope in a niche way, with some heart-rending scenes.
Lara’s character, surgeon Catherine MacDiarmid, graces our screens in episode one, swan-like as her baby daughter coos in her arms while being dropped off at nursery. Fellow mothers wrestle with bags, bottles and screaming offspring, making Catherine an inspiration long before we see her perform in the operating theatre.
But while the viewer is asking, ‘how exactly has she got it so together?’, we quickly see the huge pressure she is under, not just as a new mother, but as a lone parent who is soon reminded that she cannot expect her mother to step up to grandparent duties at a moment’s notice. We also quickly see her inform the father, a former fling, of her daughter’s paternity, and we realise Catherine’s life is complex with absolutely no manual to lean on.
‘I don’t know anything about the medical profession, yet I related on so many levels,’ reveals Lara, who regards the subject matter as ground-breaking.
‘It was wonderful to play her brilliant directness. It’s not even a façade. You see Catherine’s slightly steely exterior – the armour, because she works in a very male-orientated profession. She feels vulnerable in a way she never has before, because chemically when you become a mother you change. You can pretend to put that hat back on, but you are no longer the same person.
‘I felt huge empathy for her. What was lovely for me was that I’m five years further down the line (with motherhood), and with the realisation I can’t have it all without a lot of help!’
Lara moved to California in 2009, when the London musical Parade she was starring in at The Donmar, and for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award, transferred to Los Angeles. Shortly after, she was cast in HBO drama True Blood (alongside fellow Essex actor Stephen Moyer) and has remained Stateside ever since, albeit missing her and Raza’s romantic strolls along the River Thames. Lara was delighted to return to the UK to film Maternal.
‘Raza is from Liverpool originally, so all his aunties, uncles and cousins were there. So, we had extended family around us.
‘It was such a gift to have a family unit with our children being so young. They had Aunty Mindy (co-star Parminder Nagra) round the corner. And Parminder got a ‘manny’ (male Nanny) out of Raza’s cousin! It was amazing to go to work and come home to my family, which is very, very rare.’
So, would Lara recommend mixing business with pleasure? ‘Raza is a pleasure,’ she smiles with genuine adoration. ‘The loveliest, kindest man. He’s bloomin’ talented and not bad on the eye. What a gift. Such a blessing.
‘It was our first opportunity to work on-screen together; you never really know what it’s like until you’re on set. Also, it served the story because Catherine and Jack (Raza’s character) needed to have history, so for us to have that intimacy on-screen wasn't a problem.’
Maternal is sure to spurn much-needed debate about the level of support new mums receive in the workplace and what we can do as a society to value that transition.
‘It’s the best script I’ve read in years. Jacqui (writer Honess-Martin) has found this wonderful balance of wit and humour,’ Lara tells me. ‘My character has this lovely naivety that she can have it all. But you can feel frustrated with the experience of motherhood and still love your children fiercely.’
Luckily, Lara was able to undertake her research for the role over in LA, focusing on how female surgeons are regarded by male colleagues.
‘I followed a male and a female paediatric surgeon. You button down on any emotion or vulnerability. Some scenes I thought, “That's dramatic licence!” but a family friend, who’s an obstetrician, told me, “Nope, I was in the middle of surgery once and my nanny couldn’t turn off the house alarm. So, I got a call mid-surgery, my nanny was put onto loudspeaker and I talked it through with her.” Extraordinary!’
‘There’s a reason why surgeons don’t retire. It’s more than a profession; it’s a way of life. They do an incredibly difficult job for not enough money. They’re worthy of more than a clap.’
It's also incredibly topical to portray the challenges NHS staff are dealing with, as we limp through yet another very difficult winter. ‘I think the NHS is in absolute crisis,’ declares Lara, who feels privileged to represent and try to reflect the pressure of tough decisions frontline workers face daily.
‘Having lived in the States now for 12 years, I have such a respect and appreciation for the NHS, because the US healthcare system is so divided between haves and have nots, and it’s heart-breaking.
‘And the fact that we have the NHS, even when it’s failing, it’s still operating on some level. My mother-in-law was in hospital recently and there were 180 patients being admitted into A&E that day.
‘Maternal is absolutely shining a spotlight on the NHS in a celebratory way, just as much as in an eye-opening way.’
If Maternal strikes a chord with viewers, something tells me Lara would jump at donning scrubs and a scalpel for a second series.
Maternal is airing weekly on ITV1
