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Born in Grindon, County Durham, in 1981, Charlotte Riley is an actor and writer. She studied English at Durham University before training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda). Riley first came to prominence with her portrayal of Cathy in Wuthering Heights in 2009, and has since appeared in series such as Peaky Blinders and Press, as well as on stage. In 2017, she founded The WonderWorks, a network of childcare support options for people involved in the TV and film industry. She has two children and a stepson with her husband, the actor Tom Hardy. Riley stars in the BBC’s new series Babies, Trying on Apple TV+ and the forthcoming Tomb Raider Amazon series.
I was always described as cheeky and smiley as a kid, and this photo of me in my dad’s office in Teesside proves exactly that. It was my first time going to work with him, so I wanted to wear a jumper that was just like the one he usually wore. I have vivid memories of the room smelling of drip coffee, and I know that I was happy, even though it was a super boring place to be.
I spent a lot of time there, and was mostly left to my own devices. I was allowed to raid the stationery cupboard and would make artwork out of whatever I could find – Dad was a fitter for Imperial Chemical Industries and ran an engineering company, so there was a lot of art made out of filtration components. When I was around nine, he would put me to work – if I wasn’t clearing out a cupboard, I was making calls to clients. I was never scared, because he treated me as if I was competent and had the ability to do anything. He instilled this idea of, “What’s the worst that could happen? You might be shit at it. And what?” I was taught to fail well – and enjoy failing.
My family are all creative in some way – Mum used to make curtains and was amazing in the garden, and Dad used to manage a band. Me and my two older siblings would go on long car journeys with Dad, who would put Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin on the car stereo. He’d press pause and say, “Did you hear that lyric?” Grindon might have been lacking in cultural capital in the 80s and 90s, but I formed a healthy appreciation for the arts through Dad’s passion for music.
When I was 10, my parents scrimped and saved and managed to get me a scholarship to a girls’ school. I was really behind academically and felt out of place. Then the auditions for the school play came up and I got the part of Captain Hook. People found me funny in rehearsals and I started to think, “This might be something that I’m actually OK at.” When I turned up on stage in front of an audience, dressed as a pirate, I could see my family dying laughing. They didn’t know what to do with themselves. It gave me an out-of-body sensation that I’d never experienced before, and I wanted that sense of flow and joy again.
All I cared about as a teenager was going to see live music. I’d save up my money from my pub job and go and see bands like Fun Lovin’ Criminals or Terrorvision. My parents gave me a lot of rope, so I never pushed back against them. I was allowed to get on a coach from Teesside to Loch Lomond when I was 13 to go and see Oasis, which seems absurd now. But I knew that if I rebelled too much, stayed out too late or drank too much, then they wouldn’t be so generous with my freedom.
One of the big turning points in my life was joining the comedy group, Durham Revue. It was essentially 10 people in a room dicking around, coming up with really questionable sketches, none of which are repeatable. Lamda was equally brilliant and ridiculous. I have memories of having to pretend to be a piece of bacon. The teacher would say, “You’re flaccid bacon. You’re not cooked yet. And now you’re sizzling. Oh, it’s heating up. You’re sizzling in a pan!” I would go along with it, but was always thinking, “If my parents could see me now …”
I assumed when I left drama school that I would be auditioning for characters that were northern. Instead, I was getting characters with more RP accents, and, as I was a young woman, lots of ingenues. That being said, I did get the part of Cathy in Wuthering Heights, a role I felt prepared for because I had walked the moors and I’d been to all those villages. Tom [Hardy] played Heathcliff. The first time we met was in rehearsals, somewhere in Ealing. I was going through the scenes with him and realised we had great rapport and banter, so it was fun. But the really important thing, and the greatest test of character even though it sounds trivial, was that he made me a really cracking cup of tea – 99% of people cannot make tea, but Tom’s mother is from Ripon, so it was amazing. I thought, “Well, this is all going to be fine then.”
When I played Kate Middleton in King Charles III, I had my baby with me. All my memories of that job are about trying to figure out how to be both a mother and an actor at the same time. That’s where the idea for The WonderWorks began. I was on the call sheet, so they had to make adjustments for me – I had space to pump, somewhere to store milk, and they gently worked the day around it. But when I spoke to crew members, it was clear that kind of support didn’t exist for them, even though it would help them just as much. I’d hear stories of people pumping in toilets or struggling to make it to work at all. In the end, I stepped away from acting for five years to be with my kids, and to set up the company. Was I worried about my career? My granny always said, “What’s for you won’t go by you.” I live by that mantra every day.
I love being an actor, but I love living my life more. I’ve learned that work is one long escalator with a carrot dangling at the top of it. If you get to the top, there’s just another fucking carrot and another fucking escalator, and you’ve ignored everything else in the pursuit of moving forward. Bigger and flashier doesn’t always mean better. I wrote two plays in my 20s, and those experiences were so nourishing creatively for me that it gave me a compass for how I approach all of my decision-making. I always ask, “Does this feel right? Does it help me grow?”, rather than, “Where will this take me next, professionally?”
Some of my favourite moments of creativity now come when my kids are finished painting and they’ve scattered off and nobody is watching or cares, and I get stuck into the leftover paint and make something just for me. Because all I ever wanted as a kid was to take things from inside my head and put them out into the world.
If the girl in the photo met the 44-year-old me, she’d be thrilled that I’m an actor. But nothing too over the top, because she’s already pretty pleased with herself. After all, what’s more fun than spending the day with Dad in a tiny office in Teesside?
