Sarah Lancashire says she was not daunted to take on a role made famous by Meryl Streep for her first big US TV drama.
In Julia, launching on HBO on March 31, the ex-Coronation Street star plays chef Julia Child, someone Meryl Streep so memorably portrayed in 2009 film Julie and Julia.
But Happy Valley actress Sarah, 57, said: “For me, it’s quite simple. It’s a completely different project and the nature of the project is different. The tone is different.
“You do 50 different Hamlets, you do 50 different actors, they’ll all be different. And so it didn’t really occur to me.
“The benefit from the film for me was that it was the first time I’d heard of Julia. Because she did not have a presence in the UK.
“But other than that, it didn’t really play any part in my preparation or participation of this piece at all.”
The mum of three, who was awarded an OBE in 2017 in the same year she picked up a Bafta for BBC One’s Happy Valley, also says she refused to become an impersonator of the idiosyncratic chef and even ditched her vocal coach.
She said: “At some point, I put the written material away.
“It didn’t necessarily make sense with what we were trying to do, which was a drama as opposed to a documentary.
“I’m not a mimic. I can’t impersonate. Also, she did have this extraordinarily complex vocal change.
“I had to find something which worked in parallel and was comfortable.”
The show is her first attempt at “cracking America” for decades.
She first appeared as Raquel Watts in ITV ’s Corrie, and has found acclaim in dramas such as Last Tango in Halifax and Channel 4 ’s Kiri.
Creator Daniel Goldfarb said: “We just got incredibly lucky with finding Sarah. She’s one of the greats, the greatest ever. Her Julia is so full and rich. Sarah found her interior life.”
Showrunner Chris Keyser added that without Sarah there would be no show. He said that her audition was an “extraordinary transformation”.
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