Lesley Manville says her stage and screen careers ‘feed each other’

VPM | By Michel Martin and Ava Pukatch

Published March 2, 2026 at 10:00 AM EST

Ciarán Hinds as Gerry and Lesley Manville as Stella in director Polly Findlay's Midwinter Break. — Ciarán Hinds as Gerry and Lesley Manville as Stella in director Polly Findlay's *Midwinter Break*.

In the new film Midwinter Break, Lesley Manville plays Stella, wife to Gerry, played by Ciarán Hinds. The retired couple travels from Glasgow to Amsterdam, where long simmering cracks appear in their marriage.

“Relationship films always appealed to me to watch as well as to be in,” Manville told NPR. “You’re depicting people’s existence. It’s a very pleasing and satisfying relationship to develop, especially if you’ve got a good sensitive actor like Ciarán and you’ve got a very good director [Polly Findlay].”

Manville spoke with Morning Edition host Michel Martin between rehearsals for an upcoming production of playwright Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre in London.

Manville has balanced a career on both stage and screen for more than 50 years.

Her stage career began as a teenager with the 1972 West End musical I and Albert. She earned an Emmy award nomination for portraying Princess Margaret in Netflix’s The Crown and an Oscar nod for her performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread.

Her theatrical work in London has earned her several Laurence Olivier nominations and two Best Actress wins, one for her portrayal of Jocasta in Oedipus. That production transferred to Broadway to rave reviews and closed in February.

“I really can’t bear it if I’m not on stage for a couple of years,” Manville said. “I miss it. I think it’s ultimately where my heart is. I think if I had to do one thing for the rest of my career, it would be theater. But they all feed each other.”

Manville said stage work is exposing.

“You cannot be edited around,” Manville said. “You cannot be made to look better than you are. The audience can look at you all the time if they want to. And you’ve got to deliver something that’s consistent for possibly two hours, rather than two minutes.”

Mark Strong as Oedipus and Lesley Manville as Jocasta in Oedipus, which closed on Broadway in February. — Mark Strong as Oedipus and Lesley Manville as Jocasta in *Oedipus*, which closed on Broadway in February. Julieta Cervantes /

Oedipus, in a contemporary retelling of the Greek tragedy set on election night, features a large, red clock counting down to the polls closing. In the final minutes, Manville, as Jocasta, delivers a long, painful monologue, recounting a story she’s never told before: how at 13, she was made pregnant by the country’s leader and the baby was taken from her.

She delivers the speech to her husband Oedipus, played by Mark Strong, who eventually learns he is her son and had murdered his father.

She sits in a chair, practically motionless, as the clock ticks down behind her. Barely a sound can be heard as the audience is fixated on her every word.

“It’s an extraordinarily emotive piece of writing,” Manville said. “And never once did I deliver that speech without it affecting me. You could hear a pin drop and people who had coughs before stopped coughing.”

Manville is also an advocate for older women securing more acting roles.

“I think there is a far more interest now in stories about women of my age,” said Manville, 69. “Our story is as vibrant and vital as a 20-year-old’s story. We’ve lived longer lives. We have more stuff in us. We have more emotions in us. We’ve been through more.”

Nudging an industry that has long prized youthful looks, she insists that there’s a market for these stories.

“I think it is getting better slowly,” she added. “And long may that continue.”

Olivia Hampton edited the broadcast and digital versions of this story.

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Michel Martin

Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.

Martin came to NPR in 2006 and launched Tell Me More, a one-hour daily NPR news and talk show that aired on NPR stations nationwide from 2007-2014 and dipped into thousands of important conversations taking place in the corridors of power, but also in houses of worship, and barber shops and beauty shops, at PTA meetings, town halls, and at the kitchen table.

She has spent more than 25 years as a journalist — first in print with major newspapers and then in television. Tell Me More marked her debut as a full-time public radio show host. Martin says, "What makes public radio special is that it's got both intimacy and reach all at once. For the cost of a phone call, I can take you around the world. But I'm right there with you in your car, in your living room or kitchen or office, in your iPod. Radio itself is an incredible tool and when you combine that with the global resources of NPR plus the commitment to quality, responsibility and civility, it's an unbeatable combination."

Martin has also served as contributor and substitute host for NPR newsmagazines and talk shows, including Talk of the Nation and News & Notes.

Martin joined NPR from ABC News, where she worked since 1992. She served as correspondent for Nightline from 1996 to 2006, reporting on such subjects as the congressional budget battles, the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, racial profiling and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At ABC, she also contributed to numerous programs and specials, including the network's award-winning coverage of Sept. 11, a documentary on the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy, a critically acclaimed AIDS special and reports for the ongoing series "America in Black and White." Martin reported for the ABC newsmagazine Day One, winning an Emmy for her coverage of the international campaign to ban the use of landmines, and was a regular panelist on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She also hosted the 13-episode series Life 360, an innovative program partnership between Oregon Public Broadcasting and Nightline incorporating documentary film, performance and personal narrative; it aired on public television stations across the country.

Before joining ABC, Martin covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and national politics and policy at the Wall Street Journal, where she was White House correspondent. She has also been a regular panelist on the PBS series Washington Week and a contributor to NOW with Bill Moyers.

Martin has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Candace Award for Communications from The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Joan Barone Award for Excellence in Washington-based National Affairs/Public Policy Broadcasting from the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association and a 2002 Silver Gavel Award, given by the American Bar Association. Along with her Emmy award, she received three additional Emmy nominations, including one with WNYC's Robert Krulwich, at the time an ABC contributor as well, for an ABC News program examining children's racial attitudes. In 2019, Martin was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism. She is the 2021 recipient of PMJA's 2021 Leo C. Lee Award.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Martin graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at Harvard University in 1980 and earned a Master of Arts from the Wesley Theological Seminary in 2016.

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