Maxine Peake interview: 'Sometimes the darker the work, the more fun you can have'

Maxine Peake’s recent work has been rather intense; three series of serious-minded legal eagle Martha Costello QC in Silk on BBC1, followed by two series of poor and downtrodden Grace Middleton in the corporation’s period drama The Village. And now she is about to play Blanche DuBois, the fey Southern Belle who descends into madness in Tennessee Williams’ iconic melodrama A Streetcar Named Desire, at Manchester Royal Exchange.

It’s a huge role in the theatrical canon and Peake is excited by the challenge. I ask if she likes the troubled Blanche.

“Yes I do,” she replies. “She has moments when she can be very unlikeable and manipulative, but those are the traits of somebody who is trying to survive. There is self-obsession there, too, but she is trapped in her own narrative. When she was young she married a guy who she found in bed with another man and she has constantly tormented herself, and invented a version of herself that she can live with.

“She can be pretty horrendous to be around but there are flashes of warmth too. And she plays weak but I don’t think she is, because she starts the play as a survivor. By the end that light is extinguished because of what Stanley does to her.”

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Stanley is married to Blanche’s younger sister Stella, and Blanche finds him “common”. After living at close quarters in their tiny New Orleans apartment, he tires of what he sees as her airs and graces, taunts her and then rapes her, sparking her mental crisis.

Stanley is being played by Ben Batt and Stella by Sharon Duncan-Brewster and despite the emotional extremes they have to take their characters to, Peake says the cast have enjoyed the rehearsal process. “Sometimes the darker the work, the more fun you can have. We have a giggle and we don’t take it too seriously. That's where madness lies.

“You're forcing yourself into a high emotional state [on stage], but I do think that your brain learns to switch off. You have to.” Indeed, Peake has said that if she does need to leave the angst at work, a spot of vacuuming when she returns home does the trick, or a night DJing with vinyl at a local club.

Streetcar is directed by Sarah Frankcom, with whom Peake has frequently collaborated, and they worked together on Peake’s critically acclaimed Hamlet at the Royal Exchange in 2013.

“We have a kind of shorthand,” says Peake, “and it’s one of those relationships that just works. I feel really supported. She knows how I work and we have real confidence in each other. I'm a slow burner and it can take me a while to get there, I need to let it ferment and she understands that.”

Frankcom’s straightforward approach matches the down-to-earth Peake’s. “She doesn't make a fuss about her directing and I don’t like to make a fuss about acting.” So she’s not a fan of Method acting, where actors totally submerge themselves in a role?

“I take bits and pieces from everything,” says Peake. “But I think the Method can be very isolating and sometimes it's more about ego than playing the character truthfully. I have occasionally worked with actors like that, making a great fuss about what they do, and people think they're great – the squeaky wheel gets the oil... I think an actor's process should be very personal and private, and sometimes I have thought, ‘Oh please put it away now’.”

Peake, who grew up in a working-class Bolton home, is a political animal, happy to lend her voice to causes close to her heart – helping working-class students into drama schools among them. She is a keen Jeremy Corbyn supporter, and believes he will win the Labour leadership contest (the result will be announced on 24 September).

But could he win a general election? “ Yes he could, absolutely he could. I don't know if it's because I'm seeing it from a North West [of England] perspective, but he's massive here, packing out meetings wherever he goes. I really believe he could do it.”

Staying with politics, I notice she hasn’t played a baddie since her chilling performance as Myra Hindley in See No Evil: The Moors Murders in 2006, so I jokingly ask if she would ever play Margaret Thatcher. “Oh she's a real baddie, her policies were horrendous,” says Peake, horrified. “But I think we have done quite enough on her.”

But would she consider playing her, if asked? “It would depend on the angle – it would have to be a very unsympathetic Margaret Thatcher.” I think that means we’ll never get to see Peake take on the former prime minister, but at the other end of the scale, what about a comic book hero in a big-budget Hollywood movie?

Peake laughs and plays along with this fantasy CV. “It's not something I would seek out but I'm desperate to do some more comedy because that's where I started [with Victoria Wood’s sitcom Dinnerladies and Paul Abbott’s Channel 4 drama Shameless].

“I'd love to do something a bit tongue-in-cheek – maybe a superhero being a bad-ass. I've always fancied being a bit of warrior, on a horse swinging a sword around, sorting out the men... Oh yes, that sounds lovely,” she says, laughing at the notion.

Over to you, Hollywood.

A Streetcar Named Desire opens at Manchester Royal Exchange on 8 September (royalexchange.co.uk http://royalexchange.co.uk)