Of course Harriet Walter would choose this place, I think, swishing through the revolving door of Arlington in Mayfair into an Art Deco hall of mirrors reflecting monochrome stripes and polished tile. The atmosphere is almost cruelly chic. Where else would a woman famous for her portrayal of stony-hearted, acid-tongued ice queens want to meet?
我想哈丽特•沃尔特(Harriet Walter)当然会选择这个地方，我穿过伦敦梅菲尔区阿灵顿的旋转门，进入一个装饰艺术(Art Deco)的镜子大厅，镜子反射出黑白条纹和抛光瓷砖。这里的氛围几乎残酷地时尚。一个以冷酷无情、尖酸刻薄的冰雪女王形象而闻名的女人还会选择哪里见面呢？
The waiter takes me to a table in a discreet corner. David Bailey’s black-and-white portraits of 1960s icons look on from every wall. The nearest is of a white-stockinged, kohl-eyed Penelope Tree in 1967, photographed lounging next to an open bottle of champagne, cheekbones like razors. It all makes perfect sense.
服务员把我带到一个隐蔽角落的桌子旁。戴维•贝利(David Bailey)拍摄的20世纪60年代偶像的黑白肖像挂在每一面墙上。最近的一幅是1967年拍摄的佩内洛普•特里(Penelope Tree)，她穿着白色长筒袜，画着烟熏妆，懒洋洋地靠在一瓶打开的香槟旁，颧骨如剃刀般锋利。这一切都显得非常合理。
So when Walter herself appears, the disorientation is profound. She looks soft — almost fluffy — in a powder-pink herringbone tweed suit and pearl earrings. Her smile is eager and warms up the atmosphere by several degrees. And then there’s her voice. At first she speaks so quietly she sounds almost timorous. It is genuinely hard to believe this is the same person whose sardonic drawl ripped shreds out of her spoiled children in Succession or barked orders as Brutus in a production of Julius Caesar set in a women’s prison. How on earth will she pull off playing Margaret Thatcher in her next TV role, I wonder?
所以当沃尔特本人出现时，迷失感非常强烈。她穿着粉色的人字斜纹粗花呢套装，戴着珍珠耳环，看起来柔软而几乎蓬松。她的微笑热情而温暖，让气氛瞬间升温。然后是她的声音。起初她说话声音很小，几乎听起来胆怯。真的很难相信这就是那个在《继承之战》中用讽刺的口吻斥责被宠坏的孩子们，或者在以女子监狱为背景的《尤利乌斯•凯撒》(Julius Caesar)中扮演布鲁图斯时发出咆哮般命令的人。我想知道她将如何成功地在下一个电视角色中扮演玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)？
As usual, first impressions are misleading. Over the course of the next couple of hours, in a gradual crescendo, all these characters, and more, will make appearances at our table. Harriet Walter is just warming up.
像往常一样，第一印象是误导性的。在接下来的几个小时里，随着时间的推移，所有这些角色以及更多角色都将出现在我们的餐桌上。哈丽特•沃尔特正在热身。
She’s had plenty of opportunity lately to practise the art of summoning characters she’s played back to life. Her new book She Speaks! is a collection of speeches for Shakespearean women, in which Walter imagines (in blank verse) what Ophelia or Cressida or Desdemona might have said to an audience had they been able to talk frankly instead of being left silent while their fates were decided by the men around them. It’s Walter’s way of redressing the balance of power a bit — and of sharing some of the theories she’s developed in five decades of performing Shakespeare.
最近，她有很多机会练习把自己扮演过的角色唤醒的艺术。她的新书《她说话了！》是一本莎士比亚女性演讲集，在书中，沃尔特（以白话诗的形式）想象了奥菲利娅、克蕾西达或苔丝狄蒙娜可能会对观众说的话，如果她们能够坦率地说话，而不是在周围的男人决定她们的命运时保持沉默的话。沃尔特用这种方式稍微纠正了权力的平衡，并分享了她在五十年莎剧表演生涯中形成的一些理论。
Walter sits down opposite me, gesturing to Penelope’s legs. “There’s vintage,” she murmurs. “They were all the people I wanted to look like when I was 17 — and really didn’t.” Born in 1950, Walter was exactly that age when the picture was taken, about to decide that she wanted to become an actor. Since then, hers has been a fantastically varied career, starting with regional theatre, then the Royal Shakespeare Company, the West End and Broadway. She’s done period drama, from Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995 to the 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. She’s had six words in a Star Wars movie and six seasons as Detective Inspector Natalie Chandler in Law & Order: UK. But even so, until relatively recently, her name might elicit only a vague nod of recognition among those outside the theatre world.
沃尔特坐在我对面，指着佩内洛普的腿说道：“这是复古的。”她低声说道，“他们都是我17岁时想要成为的人，但实际上并不是。”沃尔特出生于1950年，拍摄这张照片时，她正是17岁这个年龄，正要决定要成为一名演员。从那时起，她的职业生涯跌宕起伏，从地方剧院开始，然后是皇家莎士比亚剧团(Royal Shakespeare Company, RSC)、西区和百老汇。她参演了时代剧，从1995年的李安(Ang Lee)执导的《理智与情感》到2007年根据伊恩•麦克尤恩(Ian McEwan)的小说改编的《赎罪》。她在一部星球大战(Star Wars)电影中只有六个字的台词，还在《法律与秩序：英国版》中担任了六个季度的侦探督察娜塔莉•钱德勒一角。但即使如此，直到最近，她的名字在戏剧界之外的人中可能只会引起模糊的认可。
One of the reasons you can play something convincingly is because you’ve been on the receiving end of it
你能够令人信服地演绎某件事的原因之一是因为你曾经亲身经历过