Nancy Carroll in The Voysey Inheritance, National Theatre, London, 2006

If someone else had played this role in The Voysey Inheritance it wouldn’t have got to me. I cannot imagine anyone else being able to do it in order to make me feel empathy. Nancy Carroll played Alice Maitland and the scene that really blew my mind was the one between her and Edward, played by Dominic West.

The whole play is about love and money and it examines both in a very interconnected way. Inheritance is at its centre and inheritance is what you give to people, which is why people get so distraught about wills.

There is an amorality about Alice, an almost practical viciousness. But because Nancy Carroll has such grace and is such a beautiful person bringing such phenomenal understanding to everything she does, she made you see her character’s point of view.

It’s easy to watch someone reinforcing what you already think, but what her unprincipled character was expressing and advocating about money was the absolute opposite to what I would do. Yet I felt for her: I wanted her love, her relationship and their lives to work.

Alice says disdainfully to Edward: “That’s the worst of acting on principle: one begins thinking of one’s attitude instead of the use of what one is doing.” I just don’t know another actress who could carry that part off. The actor’s major tool is empathy, and in terms of that, I think what she did was spectacular.

You can go to the theatre and think it has made you aware or changed your ideas, but it’s very, very rare for theatre to change your life in a practical way. Nancy’s character talking about the importance of being in charge of your own money and not letting other people take control really did change mine.

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