Miriam Margolyes: ‘I’m playing a nun but don’t worry – I keep the nipples out of it’

After 85 years on planet Earth, one thing is crystal clear: Miriam Margolyes is here for a good time, and by Jove, will she have it.

Over the course of her decades-long career, the onscreen legend has created a boisterous public persona – known for her foul-mouthed tangents, no-filter anecdotes and steadfast moral backbone.

She’s brought us to tears of laughter with her gasp-worthy reality TV show moments, like the time she wrought havoc on This Morning with ‘steaming vaginas’… need I say more?

But the fierce loyalty she’s inspired across generations comes down to more than just her wicked sense of humour. She’s won forward-thinking people over with her willingness to speak up in the face of injustice, whether standing with Palestine or championing trans rights.

And, of course, her stage and screen presence speaks for itself, with memorable turns as Juliet’s Nurse in Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, winning a Bafta for Mrs Mingott in The Age of Innocence, and cultivating yet more fans during her time as Mother Superior in Call The Midwife.

‘I don’t need to make any more money. I made money. I’m not a millionaire. Well, I am a millionaire, but only once maybe. I’m not a billionaire, and I just feel I want to have fun now and do good work and work with nice people,’ she tells Metro when she sweeps onto my screen for an early-morning Zoom call.

So is there a movie that fits her new ethos?

Well, according to the veteran actress, her new feature, Holy Days, a rambunctious road-trip comedy about three nuns – Sister Luke (played by ar Miriam), Sister Agnes (Judy Davies) and Sister Mary Clare (Jacki Weaver) – who must save their nunnery from being flattened by developers, ‘ticks all the boxes’.

This is an endearing little movie – set in New Zealand and directed by Riverdale star Nat Boltt (‘We were lucky to have her,’ Miriam praises at one point.)

‘Everybody is struggling one way or another, and this was a film about nice people winning, and all the s**ts are winning at the moment, so that’s why I like the film,’ she says as to what drew her to it.

It leans full throttle into the slapstick comedy of it all, one of Miriam’s specialities, with recurring gags about falling-out dentures and off-piste jokes about prostitution.

I could never be a nun, quite definitely, and I could never be a midwife as well.

During one memorable scene, Sister Luke makes a run for the ocean to joyous results.

‘I wasn’t quite sure what that scene was going to turn out like because my body is ugly, and I didn’t want to be on show as a fat old tart who’d taken off a habit and was revealing all,’ she recalls.

Then continues: ‘And it was cold, and I was a little bit nervous in case I fell over, which I wouldn’t have done very well [with]. But you know, there was a bottom cheek visible, but there were no nipples, and that’s the essential thing: keep the nipples out of it.’

In the end, Nat worked her magic, and she dubbed the scene that made it to the big screen ‘rather charming’ – a descriptor that fittingly sums up this whole movie.

In fact, the filming process was a constant surprise, like how much she enjoyed working with young actor Elijah Tamati, who plays Brian, a young boy dealing with the loss of his mother and joins the nuns on their divinely inspired adventure.

‘It’s surprising because I’m not particularly fans [of] children. I mean, I like them up to a point, but I’m very glad to say goodbye to them.

‘I thought he was a terrific kid [and] his mother was a terrific mum. It was a very happy movie, and you don’t always get that, but I did.

It’s not just a ‘funny’ movie, though, as Miriam is keen to point out. There’s deeper commentary about the role faith plays in a person’s life. This is not the first time Miriam has had to play a Godly woman, notably starring in Call the Midwife as Mother Mildred.

Love is important. Love is something that can conquer things. Love is a tower, and it’s higher, let us hope, than the tower of Babel.

Although she believes the two roles couldn’t be further apart, she acknowledges both characters share the ‘same simple faith’, something she does not have but managed to pull from the text.

‘It’s a very strange thing to be a nun,’ she says in a contemplative tone.

‘I’ve never quite fathomed how people can live so altruistically, because I certainly couldn’t. I could never be a nun, quite definitely, and I could never be a midwife as well.’

She’s clear that she ‘doesn’t laugh at Sister Luke’ but ‘feels with her’ even if, in her real life, she considers those who believe in God ‘are wrong’.

Although she thinks Sister Luke would have been ‘better off not being a nun’, there is one aspect she thoroughly relates to. ‘It’s not just a feel-good movie. It is about choosing a way of life and fighting for what you believe in, and that I passionately believe in,’ she says.

As for what it can offer those watching who might be processing their own grief, she reflects: ‘I hope it provides a sense of comfort and a knowledge that love conquers all, which is what Chaucer wrote in the 14th century, and it’s reiterated here.

‘Love is important. Love is something that can conquer things. Love is a tower, and it’s higher, let us hope, than the tower of Babel.’

More than halfway through our conversation, I’m struck by just how much verve Miriam has for, not only her work, but for living life to its very fullest, no matter the limitations.

When talk turns to her Oscar-nominated short, A Friend of Dorothy, she remarks: ‘That was a film that I hardly got any money for. I would say almost none, but that didn’t matter and look where it got me. Got me to the Oscars.’

In fact, she adds: ‘It was a glorious experience, and I discovered, again, my pleasure in filming because filming is a rather exhausting process of doing the same thing over and over again, and, in a way, sometimes the actor becomes the least important [thing].’

She hopes to reprise her role for a full-length version being written by filmmaker Lee Knight.

The British-Australian star has been on her fair share of star-studded film sets over the years (showering compliments on her current co-stars Jacki and Judy, who she calls ‘wonderfully inventive’).

We soon take a trip down memory lane as she recalls her time working with the inimitable Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons on the 2004
István Szabó-directed movie Being Julia.

I’m 85, and I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. 

After regaling how captivated she was by Jeremy’s ironclad knowledge of film technique, wisdom he tried to pass on to her, I can hardly get a word in edgeways before she hails Annette ‘a class act’ and reminisces about meeting her husband, Warren Beatty, years prior.

‘He was a hell of a naughty boy when I first met him. He and I fronted up to each other, kind of. I wasn’t going to be bossed around by this chap, and she told me that he remembered me.

‘He said: “Oh, she was a powerhouse”. So that was rather flattering, and I was quite pleased about that,’ she quips.

As our chat takes yet another turn, she jokes at one point: ‘I can talk the hind legs off a donkey, as you’re probably finding now,’ though I don’t mind.

With a movie to promote and a tour coming up, what does the future look like for Miriam, I ask.

‘I know it’s extraordinary. I’m 85, and I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. [I feel] pretty tired most of the time, but I manage, and I get great joy from people I meet and doing a show to an audience,’ she says.

Later adding that she’ll keep going ‘as long as I keep my health.’

‘I mean, I can’t walk. This is one of the problems that I can’t do energetic things. I can’t run upstairs and bop people on the head and things like I used to do.

‘I love communication. There’s a lot to say because we live in a world that has never been worse, and we have to try to make it better. Every single one of us. So that’s it. My love of my work is fuelled by a moral outrage,’ she declares.

As our conversation comes to a close, we take a few more zig-zagging turns, including a tangent about what makes good eyebrows.

Naturally, we also bonded over our shared second and third immigration experience (Miriam’s great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Belarus), which led to a mention of her upcoming memoir, ironically named Miriam’s Full English.

Regardless of the dire straits the world is in, or the fact there are bad people doing bad things, it all comes back to one message for the eccentric screen star.

‘Our film is about goodness and kindness and decency and honour and love, and that goes a long way.’

Holy Days is available to watch in UK and Irish cinemas now.