Ashton is still buzzing with birthday love – as well as, perhaps, early praise for her lead role in period drama Mr Malcolm’s List. He insists he avoids looking at reviews or worrying about what the public thinks, but it’s impossible to stay completely in the dark. “Obviously, you end up hearing things… That’s the thing I’m hypersensitive to, what that means for filmmakers in particular,” she says candidly. This year marks the start of a new chapter for Ashton, both personally – she’s expecting her first child with fiancé Tom Hiddleston – and professionally: alongside Mr Malcolm’s List, she’s got a villainous role in The Marvels on the horizon. Both developments will bring a level of attention he is not used to. Despite starting out in showbiz when she was just six years old (she appeared as an extra on the beloved British-Caribbean sitcom Desmond’s), Ashton managed to avoid the chaotic life of many in the limelight from a young age. Zawe Ashton wears dress, Giambattista Valli. Earrings: Alexis Bittar. Tights: Falke. Heels: Giuseppe Zanotti. Main image: Valentino. Photos: Jacob Pritchard. Styling: Marissa Ellison. Hair: Ursula Stephens. Makeup: Soo Park I ask if she deliberately keeps what is most sacred to herself. “I’m not Gwyneth Paltrow. I don’t know how to do that,” she says, by which she means airing the most intimate parts of her life for the world to analyze. Although, let’s be real, this is already happening without Ashton’s permission: ever since she and Hiddleston were first linked in late 2019, after starring together in the London revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, the internet has been abuzz with feverish speculation about their relationship. . However, she doesn’t want to overshadow Paltrow. “I mean, I love Goop out of all of them,” she adds, referring to Paltrow’s Netflix series Sex, Love and Goop, which takes couples on a journey of sexual and spiritual awakening. “I ate it in one night,” he says. It’s an admission you’d never imagine being made by the character she’s best known for – the painfully edgy Vod from Fresh Meat, the cult TV comedy set in a Manchester student flat. In contrast to Vod’s take-no-prisoners attitude, Ashton is all jokes and smiles, radiating warmth. Although Ashton closely guards her private life, during the recent press tour for Mr Malcolm’s List she couldn’t hide her very visible pregnancy. “This is hysterical,” he says. “Nobody wants to go on a press tour at the same time they want to keep their personal life private, but that’s my ‘contractual professional obligation,’” she says, part serious, part lighthearted. Ashton with fiancé Tom Hiddleston at the Baftas in March 2022. Picture: Getty Images Ashton landed in New York for the film’s premiere just as news broke that Roe v Wade had been overturned. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s nothing dumber I could be doing right now than promoting a light-hearted movie.’ I also knew very well that my presence in that promotion would be as a pregnant woman.” She argues that it is more important than ever to recognize the different journeys of people who have children. “We are having very important discussions about the autonomy we have over our bodies. What better autonomy could I have than to do it my way?’ Ashton knows that not everyone had the same experience. “I have so many friends who have gone through real heartbreak, in terms of pregnancy and conception. I hope I can represent anyone on this journey, in whatever way they are on it. Because it doesn’t get more ancient than that,” she jokes, nodding to the fact that she’s having her first child in her 30s. Ashton grew up in east London in a close family unit with her Ugandan mother and English father, both teachers. She started acting when she was a child and never lacked for work. In addition to her starring role in Fresh Meat, she has had roles in films ranging from St Trinian’s 2 to Nocturnal Animals and most recently appeared in the fourth season of The Handmaid’s Tale. However, before Mr Malcolm’s List, he had never acted in a period drama. Set in 19th century Britain, the film follows the hilarious and often devious character of Julia Thistlewaite (Ashton), who in season four is looking for a match in high society and is in very real danger of being labeled as an outsider. Her character plots revenge against the eligible bachelor Mr Malcolm (Sopé Dírsù) after he rejects her for not meeting all the criteria on his list of qualities for a future wife. He enlists the help of her cousin Selina (Freida Pinto), whom he hopes will fall in love, only to break his heart or at least massively embarrass him. It’s a role that makes the most of Ashton’s comedic timing, and it’s no surprise that her performance was the most talked about of the film. Dress: Carolina Herrera. Floral hats: JR Malpere. Photo: Jacob Pritchard/The Guardian It wasn’t until she watched Bridgerton that Ashton envisioned finding a niche for herself in the period genre. After falling in love with a world of romance, gossip and tea, she sent her team an email saying: ‘Put me in a corset ASAP’ – but I didn’t think it was going to happen!” With the serenity of the best romantic comedy, it didn’t take long for the invitation to list Mr Malcolm. The actor who had previously been cast in the lead role had withdrawn and Ashton was given just 24 hours to decide if she wanted it. Despite being the second choice, he enthusiastically accepted. “You shouldn’t have an ego about it as an actor,” he says. “Filmmaking is complicated, it’s difficult, it’s expensive, it’s weird. And wherever you end up, wherever you end up. Well, I was excited to do it, because I had just watched Bridgerton, and I’m not going to lie, I thought, ‘The door’s open!’” It wasn’t always like that. Ashton tells me that when she was studying acting in Manchester, the teachers took a white-centric approach to period drama. “There was this terrible moment when you had to do period pieces where the reference, or sometimes the explicit message, was that anyone of color in the cast had to imagine themselves as white,” he recalls wistfully. “That’s actually what a director said to us as a team when we were doing a restoration comedy. And you can imagine that the comedy immediately left the bones of the seven colored people.’ Ashton, of course, is far from the first black actress to share the trauma of being a minority in a majority white acting class, which is why she’s now taking time to talk and connect with other students. “I decided to commit to it this year,” he says. As a self-described “creative chameleon,” it didn’t make sense to Ashton that other people’s artistic imaginations didn’t extend to seeing black people enter unknown worlds or characters. “I couldn’t understand why the imagination I had as a reader of classical pieces wasn’t being interpreted on the screen.” She finds it absurd that it took almost 32 years of acting for her to be tasked with donning a bonnet. “Sometimes there’s that background, like, ‘Well done for keeping up enough energy to wait for this moment to happen.’ And that’s how you feel entering the period drama.” The process of getting into this character was like allowing myself to feel happy, goofy, tender, clumsy, goofy, soft Many of the roles Ashton played before Mr Malcolm’s List were painful (with the notable exception of Fresh Meat). Earlier this year she starred as a sexual assault survivor in Lucy Kirkwood’s urgent 25-minute BBC drama Maryland, a play filled with the collective anger of women fed up with a failed criminal justice system. In Dreams of a Life (released in 2011, the same year that Fresh Meat premiered), she played the almost silent role of Joyce Carol Vincent, the woman from north London whose corpse had been in front of her TV for three years before anyone notice her. he was gone. The tension of these characters’ worlds stands in stark contrast to the joy of Ashton’s final part. He relished the chance to come out. “The process of getting into this character was like allowing myself to be happy, goofy, tender, clumsy, goofy, soft.” These are, she suggests, states of being that black women are often assumed not to experience. “I thought, ‘Why would anyone think that my peers and I weren’t capable of this happy, tender thing?’ What is this;” Sign up for Within Saturday The only way to get a behind-the-scenes look at our brand new magazine, Saturday. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers, plus all the must-read articles and columns delivered to your inbox every weekend. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. You are allowed to play a fun role, I point out. “I’m absolutely allowed!” she says. “I realized that about myself at some point on set. It was a huge penny that dropped.” He reflects on a protest he took part in in the east…