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‘Losing a child, it’s so frightening’: Juliet Stevenson discusses the death of her stepson

‘The truth is that when you get a shock like that, when you get lost like that, you just stagger from moment to moment,’ said actor

Ellie Harrison
Wednesday 21 April 2021 05:01 EDT
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Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Stevenson (Dan Wooller/Shutterstock)

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Juliet Stevenson has reflected on the death of her stepson, Tomo Brody.

In November 2020, Brody died suddenly at the age of 37. He was a documentary filmmaker and the son of Stevenson’s husband, the anthropologist Hugh Brody. The cause of death has not been revealed.

Speaking in a new interview withThe Guardian, the Bend it Like Beckham star said: “Tomo was one of the most beautiful human beings who ever walked the Earth. He was incapable of lying. And he was amazingly good at love. Losing a child, it’s so frightening.

“So much of the year has been about survival, the whole country watching these terrible statistics nightly on the news. But the young people were supposed to be OK.”

She added that the family has found it “strange” to go from being “joyous” to “tragic”, adding: “Not being able to mourn together, it was like Alice in Wonderland or something. We’d fallen down some rabbit hole and everything was just wrong. The truth is that when you get a shock like that, when you get lost like that, you just stagger from moment to moment.”

Much of the interview focussed on Stevenson using painting as a way to get through lockdown and grief.

Stevenson can next be seen in the ITV drama The Long Call, a crime series inspired by the best-selling novel by Ann Cleeves.

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