Cover story
Gavin & Stacey star Joanna Page on her career comeback, the pressures of late motherhood and working with Johnny Depp
An eye test made Joanna Page realise she had to reignite the acting career she’d paused for almost a decade to be a full-time mum. ‘I’d thought, “I don’t want to do any acting, I don’t want to be taken away from the family,” but when the optician asked me to read the beginning of a chapter from a book, I went off on one. I found myself going, “It was a dark night, he looked through the window and he saw her,”’ explains Joanna, 46, dramatically reciting the words.
‘I didn’t need to commit to it that much, but I really enjoyed it. I thought, “Jesus, I think I need to go and do a bit of acting!”’
Shortly after leaving London’s prestigious drama school RADA, the West Glamorgan-born actress was cast alongside Johnny Depp in his 2001 movie From Hell. Two years later, she joined the all-star British blockbuster Love Actually, then in 2007 became leading Welsh lass Stacey Shipman in James Corden and Ruth Jones’ hit comedy series Gavin & Stacey, the show that made her a star.
But 10 years ago, after starting a family with her former-Emmerdale-actor husband, James Thornton, 47, Joanna felt a deep urge to invest all into family life.
After their firstborn, Eva, 10, the couple had sons Kit, seven, and Noah, six, and in December 2021, following a surprise fourth pregnancy at the age of 44, Joanna gave birth to a baby girl, Boe.
On her w&h cover shoot in Berkshire, the entire brood burst from Joanna’s iPhone as she proudly shows off an array of adorable videos recorded at the new family home in Oxfordshire.
And she’s beaming for professional reasons too. On top of a brand-new job on ITV’s This Morning, exploring the UK’s most famous TV and film locations, Joanna is making her long-awaited return to acting, starring in Russell T Davies’ new comedy drama, Men Up, about one of the world’s first Viagra trials, which took place in Swansea in 1994.
Funny, brilliantly unfiltered, brimming with motherly love and enjoying a new career path, Joanna is on a personal and career roll.
When I had Eva, everybody said that as a self-employed actress, I should carry on.
I got a part in Breathless [an ITV series about the NHS in the 1960s], then went to work on Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, playing, I think, the worst Queen Elizabeth ever. I had gigantic boobs because I was breastfeeding. I would come off set, sit in my trailer, the corset would literally burst open and I’d feed for half an hour, express for half an hour, get a mouthful of food then go back on set. Meanwhile, James would drive along the Cardiff hills trying to get Eva to sleep, while I’d sit there thinking, ‘I just want to
