Anna Chancellor pleased with Donald Sutherland’s praise for kissing scene

Actress Anna Chancellor says it was “rather marvellous” of Donald Sutherland to praise her kissing skills after filming a scene in their new TV drama.

The pair star together as John Paul Getty and his mistress in the Danny Boyle series, Trust.

Chancellor, 52, said her co-star was a flirt, telling Radio Times magazine: “I like that. I can completely take that.

“What was it he said? ‘Kissing you is so fantastic. I’ve never felt anything like this…’”

She laughed: “Really, Donald? You really think I’d go for that?”

“He is crazy about women. I did think it was rather marvellous and very 1970s of him.”

Speaking generally about today’s climate in the wake of the MeToo movement, Chancellor also said that the lines between flirting and sexual harassment had been slightly blurred.

“There is a vast difference between someone making a pass at you, which is slightly the game of men and women, and sexual harassment,” she said.

“I think the two have slightly merged.”

She said: “Even though I haven’t experienced sexual bullying, I’ve been in countless rehearsal rooms and on endless film sets where I just know I’m not going to be heard because I’m a woman.

“Some (male) directors just can’t help it. The man is the most important person. It’s just how things have been for so long. I can’t tell you how many boring scripts I’ve read in which the guys take the main parts and carry the central story…”

She said: “I hope and pray that, sooner rather than later, women are offered more interesting, radical and complex projects.”

Chancellor also stars in Ordeal By Innocence, the BBC’s Agatha Christie drama.

Ed Westwick, who has been accused of sexual assault, which he denies, was replaced by Christian Cooke in the drama.

“When we did the reshoot, I realised that ultimately we are all so replaceable,” Chancellor said.

Chancellor said she is lucky not to have experienced a dearth of roles as she gets older.

“You have to stop saying: ‘I’m not somebody who would do that’. You have to be open to anything. I’m tall and dominant and quite masculine in a way, so I can play alpha female,” she said.

The full interview is in this week’s Radio Times magazine.