article on joely's decision to leave nip/tuck

Why I've given up Hollywood to be a proper mum - by Joely Richardson
By ELIZABETH SANDERSON Last updated at 20:23pm on 30th December 2006


For the actress Joely Richardson, it was an agonising decision.

After two decades of solid but unspectacular work in film and television, she had finally discovered the career-defining role most performers can only dream of.

Just as Joan Collins will be forever associated with the role of Alexis Carrington in Dynasty, and John Cleese will never escape the shadow of Basil Fawlty, millions of TV viewers now regard 41-year-old Joely as Julia McNamara, the sexy, sassy and fabulously unhinged plastic surgeon's wife in the hugely successful American satire Nip/Tuck.

Her portrayal of the neurotic and troubled Julia won her two coveted Golden Globe nominations, earned her a rumoured £3million-a-year contract and made her a genuine star in America.

It also allowed Joely to escape once and for all from the shadow of her illustrious theatrical family, an acting dynasty that includes her celebrated parents - Vanessa Redgrave and the late Tony Richardson.

The fact that she found success in Hollywood was also important to her because she has long considered herself an honorary American: her parents split when Joely was one and after their divorce she followed her father to California where she went to school.

So when it was suddenly announced that she was to leave Nip/Tuck with two years to run on her contract, it caused an avalanche of speculation on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hollywood's unwritten rules state that actresses never, ever, relinquish such a role - whatever the circumstances. In most people's eyes this was professional suicide.

But then Joely put out a statement saying that she was giving up work to care for her 14-year-old daughter Daisy, her only child, who was diagnosed with a rare medical condition just after her first birthday and needs a series of operations.

That was nearly two months ago. Now, in an exclusive interview, Joely Richardson has talked frankly for the first time about the dilemma of being a working mother and abandoning Nip/Tuck for the sake of her daughter.

Joely appears radiant now that the decision has been made and she is back in England full-time. The years in America have given her the patina of a true Hollywood star, her classic natural beauty more honed and polished than before.

"When you sign a contract to make a TV programme for the next five years, you don't know what's going to happen down the road and what lies ahead for you,' she said. "But the fact is that things happen beyond our control and now I want to be here in England with Daisy - not just for all the tougher stuff, but on a regular basis."

Daisy has been spending six months in Britain with her father Tim Bevan - the film producer behind Four Weddings And A Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary - and six months with Joely in America, but now that is no longer enough.

"For the past three years, I've been with Daisy for maybe six months of the year - I would be in America for five months over the summer and she would join me during the school holidays. At other times, we'd try and fit her school holidays and my filming commitments together. But it just got to a point where I couldn't make it work any more. It all got too much. I couldn't juggle any more.

"I've worked hard for many years and Nip/Tuck was a great job. But I just couldn't carry on with it for the sake of my conscience - or for my desires as a mother. I thought long and hard, but in the end, giving it all up was a no-brainer. How can you sleep at night, how can you feel anything in your heart about the people you love if you are unable to make this sort of decision?"

The conflict of balancing a busy working life with family is one faced by parents the world over - but when Joely decided to hand in her notice, she knew it could jeopardise her whole career: she risked incurring the wrath of the American media giant Time Warner, a powerful studio with a reputation for ruthlessness.

The company's executives could make a particularly unpleasant enemy for anyone in the entertainment industry who crossed them.

Joely recalled: "The news came out last month, but I told the studio of my decision as far back as April, just before we were due to start filming the fourth season."

Joely was in Vancouver shooting a film called The Last Mimzy, a family adventure with Timothy Hutton. She says: "After a lot of soul-searching on my part, I picked up the phone in my hotel room and called the producer of Nip/Tuck to say my daughter had some medical problems and I would not be able to complete the fourth season.

"It's a difficult moment when you realise you are going to leave. It was scary in that there was a real chance they could have sued. I spoke to a couple of people in similar situations - who wanted to leave a show before the end of their contract - and it really is no joke. If a company sues you it can affect the next ten years of your life.

"It's a very lonely moment when you make that call to them. There was a part of me that thought, well, if we end up with just a one-bedroom flat to our names that's just the way it's going to have to be."

The actress was lucky. The producers told her they understood her predicament and that her daughter must come first.

However, Nip/Tuck is one of their best-rated shows and Joely its biggest female star.

The company asked her to make the official statement to the American industry magazine TV Guide to make clear her reasons and explain that there was no bad feeling on either side.

In it she explained that Daisy had been diagnosed with a rare circulatory disease. The statement read: "Surgeons and hospitals have been a big part of our lives. We were always told that Daisy would have to have more surgery when she got older. The time has come. I love my work. But I had to be in two places at once and I thought, "If it were all over tomorrow, what would I regret?" It would be not being here for Daisy."

Until then, Daisy's illness had been a private family matter. Joely and Daisy's father had split up when she was five. Tim went on to marry artist Amy Gadney and have two more children, while Joely has had a number of high-profile relationships. She spent two years with Jamie Theakston and recently dated actor John Hensley who, despite being only 12 years her junior, played her teenage son Matt in Nip/Tuck.

She refuses to say whether she is with anyone right now, her main priority being her daughter. Her biggest regret seems to be that Daisy's illness has now been put in the public domain.

"When the studio asked me to give a statement to the magazine, it seemed like a good option. I normally wouldn't have talked about it, but the producer had given them an interview and he asked me to explain what had happened, why I was leaving and to make clear that there was no problem. So I did the interview out of respect for them.

"I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. I would like this to be a private matter. I am only speaking out now because I want to make clear that my daughter's health is absolutely fine.

"She has a vascular condition in one leg and, yes, it's ongoing but it in no way affects her heart or her valves, as it has been reported. I feel that a lot of things have been misrepresented which I think is very irresponsible when it comes to someone's health.


The fact is we all just want to protect Daisy. Her father is really great and a big part of her life. Although we haven't been a couple for many years we're all in this together. Daisy and I have had some phenomenal years and very soon she will have grown up and will be off flying high and doing her own thing - as it should be."

While Joely's decision to give up her high-profile career was unquestionably an admirable one, there can be no escaping the irony that with Nip/Tuck she had finally achieved the success which for so long looked likely to elude her.

Born into the fourth generation of a celebrated acting dynasty, Joely always seemed to be in the shadow of her parents' glittering achievements.

There was a competent performance in Peter Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers, an appearance alongside Glenn Close in Disney's 101 Dalmations,and a smattering of TV roles from Poirot to Lady Chatterley's Lover. A starring role in the romantic comedy Maybe Baby with Hugh Laurie finally put her on the Hollywood map, but it was her role as Julia McNamara that gave her brilliant reviews, the Golden Globe nominations and a 'Friends'-style pay package that, rumour has it, ranged from £3million to £4.5million a series.

Joely will not divulge the true figure. But she said: "I never earned anywhere near £3million. Everywhere I go now, be it the post office or the corner shop, people react differently to me. It puts you in a different bracket, but you can't just say, for instance, out of the blue to the cabbie, 'It's not like that you know, I don't earn anywhere near that much.'"

Nevertheless, she has become part of the LA A-list and is recognised around the world.

Although the actress steadfastly refuses to go into what lies in store for her and Daisy during the coming year, it is certain to be a very different, and difficult, time for both of them.

Joely recently bought a house in South-West England, close to her daughter's school and expects to be spending most of her time there.

It was here that the family spent Christmas, playing what must have been this year's most accomplished game of charades. Joely's sister Natasha Richardson and brother-in-law Liam Neeson were visiting, as were her uncle and aunt, Corin and Lynn Redgrave.

Joely says: "I only got back three or four weeks ago and since then I've been painting and decorating until about 10 o'clock trying to get the house in order. I don't mind as I love decorating but it's been quite frantic.

"There were a lot of us this year, all my family from this side of the pond. Mum and I cooked the turkey.

"Then at New Year all my family from the other side of the pond are coming over to stay. Again, it's going to be a lot of people. It's very exciting as we haven't all been together for about ten years. I think the last time was my sister's wedding."

Although the American gossip columns have already begun predicting the return of Joely and her alter-ego, the actress insists that nothing is set in stone. She has, however, just received a job offer that would be based in the UK.

She says: "I can't say too much at the moment. I wasn't planning on doing anything but I had a meeting the other day about a job for a British TV show which means I might go back to work in England.

"The job is in England so it means I can be around, which is the most important thing. It would also be nice to do a British accent for a change.

"I do really love my work but as to whether I'll ever go back to Nip/Tuck, who knows? It depends how everything sorts itself out next year. We'll have to see at the time.

"It just feels fantastic to be back - although in my mind I never left. My work takes me to other countries for a lot of the time and that is what is so exciting about it, but as far as I'm concerned home is here."

And for now that is all that matters ...to her and to Daisy.



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