Maxine Peake talks to Film Stories about her work in I Swear – and collecting the people she plays on screen and stage! Now playing in UK cinemas is the extraordinary I Swear, a film that tells the life story of John Davidson MBE. John, who was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, learned of his diagnosis ... I Swear | Maxine Peake on bringing Dottie Achenbach to the screen
Maxine Peake talks to Film Stories about her work in I Swear – and collecting the people she plays on screen and stage!
Now playing in UK cinemas is the extraordinary I Swear, a film that tells the life story of John Davidson MBE. John, who was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, learned of his diagnosis in a time when understanding of the condition was minimal at best. I Swear, written and directed by Kirk Jones, explores his life and his eventual decision to campaign for Tourette’s awareness. Our own review of this acclaimed movie can be found here.
One of the key ingredients in John’s life has been his friend, Dottie Achenbach. She’s played by Maxine Peake in the film – there can be few greater compliments! – and she talked to me about bringing Dottie to the screen.
Chatting from rehearsals for the stage production The Last Stand Of Mary Whitehouse, Peake got sent the script for I Swear by Kirk Jones and was quickly interested. Still, she tells me that “sometimes, I’ve signed up for films, and then they never quite happen when they’re supposed to. They slide down the year, they bash into other jobs.”
Not here, though. “This was very much ‘this is when it’s happening’. It was quite a quick process.”
That meant that Peake had research to do, and she was soon in touch with the real Dottie. “She should have her own film. What an extraordinary woman. The life she’s led. When I first got the role, I was working at the time and I couldn’t get up to Galashiels [where Dottie lives] so I just wanted to have to a chat.”
Thus, a phone call. A phone call that went on for several hours, hearing Dottie’s story. I do wonder if it changes the work for Maxine Peake, when she can talk directly to the person she’s going to be portraying on screen. “Well that for me is the beauty of the job,” she smiles. “It’s usually the research, and the people that you meet, that are really fulfilling. It’s like constant education, you’re always learning.”
“You’re going into different worlds, different experiences that you know in an ordinary life you never dip into, and then you get to meet these real people.”
Peake has met a lot of people this way, and when the work is done, she doesn’t delete them from her phone and move on. Quite the contrary: it sounds as if Maxine Peake’s phone contacts list is a mini-IMDB of many of the people she’s met during her research.
“I’ve gathered up people along the way and forced friendships on them,” she laughs. “They become friends. You get really close to them as you dip into their life, and I sort of think there’s a responsibility as well. That you don’t just play these people and go thank you for your time, I’m off now.”
As such, if they want to say in touch, Maxine Peake says she’d be silly not to. It gets us briefly talking about the documentary Subject, which focuses on subjects of documentaries and what happens when the film crews moved on. It’s a powerful film, and is aligned to a degree with the point that Peake is making.
In terms, then, of a reunion with Dottie? Peake is determined to get up to Galashiels to go and spend more time with her, even though the film is now out in the world. “We’re going to hire a camper van, me and my husband, and we’ll get up there!”
Peake delivers, for me, one of the most quietly powerful moments in I Swear, a moment where she addresses how John feels he has to apologise for what he can’t control. It sounds like it went straight to her heart, too.
“I just feel in a society now, just in general, where everybody’s got an opinion on everyone else’s being. It’s your gender or your sexuality, or, you know what I mean, your appearance, and it’s so frustrating, and it’s like, deal with your own lives, get your nose out of other people’s lives. You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors with people. You have no idea the pain and suffering that people are going through. Yet we’re in a world now, especially with social media, that everyone’s got an opinion, an unformed opinion, either on a headline or a picture or and I just think, which, you know, what has John got to apologise for? You know, absolutely nothing. Celebrate that young man, and now this grown man, has made such an amazing life for himself, against all odds.”
Still, typically, Maxine Peake brings the credit for her wonderful delivery of the ‘apology’ moment back to Dottie Achenbach. “When I met Dottie, I was like, wow, this woman’s extraordinary. You pick up on people’s energies. There’s a wisdom and an understanding to her that I think when most people would get angry, would get upset, Dottie knows better.”
I leave then Maxine Peake back to being Mary Whitehouse, in a performance that predictably has gone on to be acclaimed as well. But I do think her and everyone’s work in I Swear mean it might just be a job that she’ll be talking about for a long time to come. And if you see a camper van rumbling towards Galashiels with her in the front seat? It’d be fair to assume that her and the real Dottie might be about to have a get-together…
I Swear is in cinemas now.
