I think it boils down to fear, because one's always frightened approaching a new project, as anyone is who's facing an important piece of work. I think my first feeling was more one of relief, because we had to go through the whole six episodes together and I thought immediately that we would get on as professional colleagues and that was the most important thing of all.Acting is such a strange business, you're thrown together so quickly and you're expected to work together with an intimate knowledge of each other within a few hours of saying hello Sometimes it can be very difficult. I can't remember what we talked about, but usually when actors get together at the beginning of a programme they talk about the show.I don't think I immediately thought we'd be friends on a personal level, but there didn't seem to be any of the barriers that can be put up between actors when they first meet: sometimes there's a feeling of slight abrasiveness before you get to know one another. I'd seen her before then of course, but this was the first time we spoke. My first impressions are still very clearly in my mind: they were of someone with enormous warmth.
They are like the guy-ropes that hold your tent in place.DAVID SUCHET: The very first time I really met Geraldine was in the make-up room when we were in Ludlow for Blott on the Landscape. Her back was towards me and she was facing the make-up mirror. Friends become more important as you get older and give you a sense of where you are. If not, something will have happened that will have made me extremely sad because it means something has come up and rent us asunder I hope that doesn't happen. We couldn't live together, I think we'd drive one another barmy in a minute.We will certainly stay friends.
He likes people, he's very interested in people, he's very warm, he's a nice guy. Our main difference is that I'm a very untidy, scatty person, and he's fastidious and neat. And so we are all like mates.I like good actors, I love seeing good acting, and the other thing I like doing is laughing, and that is easy with David as well, we have a very good time I like his humour and his integrity. I know Sheila as David's wife but I've known her for long enough - we were virtual nobodies when we did Blott. When he got back he phoned me and we went to the theatre together.Fortunately, because they have worked together (in that Chester production of Waiting for Godot, strangely enough), David knows Jo as Jo, not as my husband.
