The big interview

‘AGE IS JUST A NUMBER & Ihave a huge appetite for life!’

Call The Midwife star Jenny Agutter opens up to Nathalie Whittle about dealing with stage fright, telling off Tom Cruise and celebrating her 70th birthday with fish and chips

JENNY WEARS: DRESS, DASKA. EARRINGS, THE DIAMOND STORE Asfar as fan encounters go, Jenny Agutter has had some fairly unusual ones. ‘One time, I was walking in the jungle in Tobago,’ she recalls at the GH cover shoot. ‘I was wearing a face mask, and this American woman suddenly stopped me and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re Sister Julienne!”’

Since making her screen debut more than 50 years ago, Jenny has certainly amassed her fair share of fans. She’s the stalwart star of BBC One’s Call The Midwife, having played Sister Julienne since the show’s inception in 2012. Now she’s back for the 12th series, and excitedly reveals that she’s already signed up for series 13.

Having recently turned 70, Jenny says she has a lot to be thankful for, including her long marriage to Johan Tham, with whom she lives in Cornwall, and being a grandmother to two-year-old Oliver, the child of her GP son, Jonathan. ‘Turning 70 has made me determined to do the things I enjoy with the people I love,’ she says. Here, she shares how she’s doing it…

You’ve been playing Sister Julienne for more than a decade – did you ever expect that at the start?

No way. I didn’t ever see this happening. I thought we’d do six episodes and that would be it. I was sat on a bus once when the woman next to me said, ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, but I have to say, I watch Call The Midwife and I have a particular interest in it because I was a nun for seven years.’ I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, I’ve been a nun longer than her!’

There was uproar from fans when Sister Julienne almost died in a train crash in the last series. How did you feel about it?

I was worried along with them! I said to the producer, ‘Um, where is this storyline going?’ and she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to work out; you and Dr Turner will survive’ – and so we did. It was very heartening to get that kind of reaction.

I heard Tom Cruise’s helicopter made filming the latest series tricky…

Oh, yes. He was filming the latest Mission: Impossible film and his helicopter would land in the field nearby and interrupt us. It wasn’t always him, of course, but every time we’d hear it, we’d go, ‘Oh, come on, Tom!’ I did quite like the idea of rushing along in my habit and saying, ‘Look, can you just stop this, Tom? This is ridiculous!’

Did you get to meet him?

Unfortunately not. I was picking chestnuts one day when the helicopter was getting ready to take off, and I had this idea that I was going to offer him some chestnuts in exchange for stopping the noise. But I never