Actress Sam Bond speaks to Gemma Calvert about how her career soared post 50, supporting Queen Camilla, and a secret appreciation for Jude Law in leather trousers!
Sam Bond arrives at Platinum’s west London location house with a confession. ‘I woke up feeling cross,’ she says. ‘The trouble is, I don’t like having my photograph taken. Even on my wedding day my cousin took the pictures. There were no posh ones!’
Yet here she is. Punctual, full of pleasantries and hungry to get cracking (after a steadying glass of Sauvignon Blanc, no less).
As one of the UK’s best-known actresses of stage and screen, Sam is no stranger to finding her feet during uncomfortable moments. Take the job she landed in her mid-50s in the West End musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done professionally,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t sung in front of people since I was 21 and in pantomime. At 21 you’re utterly fearless. At 54, I was not! On opening night, I completely froze with terror. A friend, who was part of the chorus, had to physically push me on stage, then I shook because I was so frightened. I shook for six weeks, then after all that utter terror, I did actually quite enjoy it.
‘I think all actors are stoical,’ continues Sam, reciting words of wisdom once imparted by film and theatre director Sir Richard Eyre, who she worked with on Amy’s View. ‘He always said stoicism is one of an actor’s finest qualities, because you have to just carry on.
‘I’m good at overcoming challenges. I don’t like to be stopped by things. I’d rather crack on and have a go.’
It’s the same story today. Bolstered by the encouragement of ‘a lovely crew’ – her words – Sam quickly loosens in front of the lens and, dare it be said, appears to delight in her first magazine photoshoot in years.
It’s 42 years since Sam discovered fame in a BBC adaptation of Mansfield Park in the 80s after studying drama at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which she helped fund by working as a singing waitress.
Global fame came when she was cast as Miss Moneypenny in four of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond films, then, later, appeared in Downton Abbey as Lady Rosamund Painswick before joining ITV period drama, Home Fires. But it’s her latest TV project, playing retired archaeologist turned amateur sleuth Judith Potts in the second series of TV crime drama The Marlow Murder Club, that unites us today.
‘It’s heaven to shoot with joyous people, including an awful lot of women – not quite as old as me! I am the oldest of the sleuths. I feel very blessed, and I feel immensely lucky,’ says Sam of the UKTV drama, based on the Robert Thorogood novel of the same name.
Luck is a word Sam draws on when assessing her career, which truly began to blossom in her later years. ‘There was a moment in my 50s, when you enter what can be the “invisible middle-aged woman era”, and I did have a panic, but then lovely things happened,’ she explains.
‘As I turned 50, I was in the West End play What The Butler Saw, which starts with my character, having spent a night out on the tiles, arriving home to her husband with a young waiter who she’s picked up. She drops a fur coat and is in her petticoat because she’s lost her clothes. A wonderful headline in one of the papers said, “Still fabulous at 50”. That was the beginning of a whole series of plays in the West End. I did Downton Abbey in my 50s. I also did Home Fires, of which I’m still immensely proud. Then you turn 60, and it’s okay! This part of my life has been hugely fulfilling.’
‘It’s a very interesting and experimental time in my life’
Family ties
Sam was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company when she and her actor husband, Alexander Hanson (now together 37 years), welcomed their firstborn, Molly. When Sam fell pregnant ‘quite swiftly’ after with their son, Tom, her mother – actress-turned-producer Pat Sandys – was aghast. ‘It was the only time she really got cross with me professionally. She said to me, “Well, that will be the end of your career. You can’t be an actress with two children,” because that’s what had happened to her after she had three children,’ says Sam, adding, ‘I guess I proved Mum wrong!’.
It’s 25 years since Pat passed away after first being diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1991 when Sam was performing in Edward Albee’s two-act play Three Tall Women alongside the late Dame Maggie Smith. Her ‘great friend’, who she later starred with in Downton Abbey, died last September at the age of 89.
‘She’s hugely missed,’ says Sam. On losing her mum when she was just 38, she adds: ‘Grief doesn’t stop. I still go, “Oh, she’s not there” when the important things happen, like when Molly got married.’
Sam lost her father, Philip Bond, an actor in 1970s BBC nautical drama The Onedin Line, suddenly in 2017. He suffered a heart attack on board a cruise ship in Madeira and while Sam never had therapy to process his loss, she confirms she did have counselling to unpick a complex relationship with her father.
‘I loved him very, very much, but he was a very difficult man to love. When I first got together with Alex, 37 years ago, my father didn’t respond well because I was his eldest daughter and he adored me.’
Beautifully, it’s Pat who Sam ‘summons most’ when playing Marlow Murder Club sleuth Judith. She and the cast filmed the last series in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, over three months last summer. ‘Mum had an analytical mind like Judith. She loved crossword puzzles – she was the one who taught me to do them – like Judith. She liked a glass of whisky at 6pm, like Judith! Playing that character feels more and more like a tribute to my mother who was the first TV producer to get permission from the Agatha Christie estate to put Agatha on the small screen. My mum produced the first Agatha Christies that were on TV.’
Acting runs deep in the Bond genes. Both Sam’s children are in the business and at the time of our shoot, Brassic regular Tom is on location in Tenerife. Molly, who ‘lives very near’ to Sam and Alex’s home in South London, has had roles in Doctors and Father Brown. She also played a younger Judith Potts in the first Marlow Murder series.
Sam ‘isn’t keen’ to discuss her kids in a professional capacity but happily talks candidly about her changing role as a mum.
‘They were both at home until about 26-ish, so were constantly in my life. They’re now in their 30s and very much have their own lives so I have to not be a cloying mother. I miss them and love them enormously. They’re both very happily partnered. I’ll say, “Why don’t we have lunch tomorrow?” And they go, “Oh, sorry, mum, busy”. It’s more that I can’t get enough of them!’
Notwithstanding a ‘grandpup’ and Tom’s ‘two gorgeous cats’, Sam’s not yet hit grandparent territory but is looking forward to that chapter.
‘I do go into a, not a meltdown in a bad way, but if I’m in a restaurant and there’s a little one… we were in a pub recently and there was a six-week-old [baby]. I do love a little thing, I really do! A conversation I have with girlfriends all the time is, “What would you be called?” she says. ‘I don’t think I’d be Nana Sam. A girlfriend of mine is known as Gigi and I quite like Gigi!’
Career highlights
With an occasional glint in her piercing blue eyes, Sam is riveting company. Over a tuna and cucumber baguette lunch, she talks of acting greats such as Dame Judi Dench (‘she acts with absolute instinct’) and Sir Derek Jacobi (‘When Derek and Dame Maggie got together they became like 25-year-olds again’), and her appreciation for Jude Law’s 2019 stage portrayal of Henry V (‘He was really very good – and had great legs in leather trousers!’).
Another of Sam’s most enthralling memories features the present-day King, who she has supported and met at ‘various occasions’ during her 35 years as an ambassador of The King’s Trust (originally established as The Prince’s Trust), and Queen Camilla.
‘I met Camilla just before they were getting married,’ recalls Sam. ‘We had a fundraising evening for The Prince’s Trust at Windsor. He went down one side of the room and she came down my side, and we were introduced. I said, ‘Many congratulations, ma’am, what splendid news’ and she went, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t think so from the press!’. I just looked at her and went, “You know, sometimes you just have to say, F* ‘em!”. Queen Camilla then roared with laughter and replied, “Oh, f* ‘em, oh that’s frightfully good!”. Now that’s a real person.’
Brimming with stories and oozing industry heritage, you can quite imagine Sam around the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! campfire, regaling her fellow campmates. But imagine, alas, is all it will ever be.
‘My agent once rang and said, “Stop me when you want. You’ve been asked to do I’m A Celeb”. I said, “No”. I didn’t even want to know about the money,’ says Sam. She wouldn’t even entertain it for a million?
‘No! I’d be so unhappy. You get no make-up, it’s in Australia and I’m a redhead so I’d burn, there are insects, and I don’t want to be helicoptered in. I did a Celebrity Bake Off and that was terrifying. If you’d asked me at [the age of] 40 about Strictly, that would have been very tempting, but I’m not doing Strictly at 63, thank you very much!’
These days, Sam keeps herself in good fitness with regular walks, occasional swimming and weekly sessions of her beloved Pilates.
‘If anyone is thinking about doing Pilates, I couldn’t recommend it more highly. I first started when I’d sustained a back injury in a theatre rehearsal. Pilates has been a godsend. I’ve got a niggly neck and Pilates has made it stronger. The breathing that goes with the movement is immensely calming and terribly good for you too.’
Sam draws the same positivity from her work, which explains why she foresees no retirement on the horizon. ‘I can’t imagine stopping whilst I can still work and that’s because what I do isn’t a hobby,’ she smiles. ‘I love what I do. I’m very lucky!’
All episodes of The Marlow Murder Club series 2 are available to stream on U (visit u.co.uk).
Sam was photographed by David Venni (@davidvenni, davidvenni.com), assisted by Gabriel Lloret, styling by Kate Barbour (@kate_barbour), hair and make-up by Dottie Monaghan (@dottiemakeup). With thanks to Locations Direct (@locationsdirect.co) and to Shelley @awaylists.
