Laura Haddock for Harrods Magazine [MAy 2014]

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Posted on 6/5/2014, 08:59

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Laura nel numero di maggio 2014 di Harrods magazine: intervista e photoshoot. // Laura in May 2014 issue of Harrods Magazine: interview and photoshoot.

CITAZIONE

Both on camera and off, the last year has been a momentous one for Laura Haddock. So much so that it would be entirely understandable had she acquired a few of the more, shall we say, objectionable airs associated with stardom. There’s not, though, a smidgen of artifice about the 28-year-old actress, who came to the fore in the BBC’s Upstairs Downstairs and then starred in 2011’s The Inbetweeners Movie, which broke UK box-office records on its opening weekend.

Since then, Haddock’s profile has gone up a few more notches. She’s currently playing Lucrezia Donati, the female lead in Da Vinci’s Demons, the steamy global hit (it airs in 150 countries) that reimagines Leonardo da Vinci’s life as a young man. And on the domestic front, she and her long term beau, Hunger Games heartthrob Sam Claflin, tied the knot in a secrete ceremony last July, and overnight became arguably Britain’s hottest acting couple.

A few days before we met, she and Claflin had walked the BAFTA red carpet together, arm in arm in Burberry, giving Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie a glamorous run for their mone. “If you’ve got your buddy there, it’s much nicer,” she says, recalling how nervous and excited she was during the previous BAFTAs. And Haddock was happy to lend her 27-year-old husband to his adoring followers. “It’s frenzied for Sam,” she says. “Bless him. They’ll go crazy until Leonardo DiCaprio turns up and he’s pushed out of the way!”

At film producer Harvey Weinstein’s BAFTA after-party, Haddock got a surprise embrace from Oprah Winfrey, “I think it was a mistake,” she laughs. “As she was leaving she hugged me and said ‘Darling, I love your dress!’ And I hugged her and said, ‘I love your dress.’ Then she left and I was thinking, Well that was Oprah giving me a massive hug. Sam and I just burst out laughing. He was like ‘Do you know her?’ and I was like, ‘Not a clue. Obviously. Never met her!’ But she was lovely.”

This summer, Haddock gets her own crack at a Hollywood franchise, playing Meredith Quill (that’s all she can reveal) in Guardians of The Galaxy, a superhero-packed affair with an A-list cast including Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Benicio Del Toro. So did she and Cooper have a chat at the BAFTAs? “Sam’s just worked with his girlfriend [Suki Waterhouse] in a film called Love, Rosie, so you kind of meet people.” But, she says, “I didn’t tell him we were going to be in the same film. He was nominated [for American Hustle]…he had a big night. He’s lovely, but it just didn’t come up.”

Being “overly pushy” is also not the done thing for well-brought-up girls (Haddock’s father, Ian, works in finance; her mother, Debbie, practises reflexology) from leafy Harpenden, Hertfordshire. A modern-day English rose, she looks to the likes of Kate Bosworth and Miranda Kerr for style inspiration, and has a penchant for designers such as Isabel Marant, Christopher Kane, Chanel and Oscar de la Renta. As a 10-year-old she would transcribe scenes from her favourite movies, Pollyanna and Hook, then recruit her younger siblings Beth and Jack, to perform “with” her in front of the family- “But I’d do all the parts and wear all the costumes,” she says. “So a lot of the time, they’d just be standing there,”
Though she always wanted to be an actress, at 16 she was torn between that and her other “big love”, lacrosse- at which she represented southeast England.

“Then I broke my leg, and took it as a bit of a sign.” By the time she finished studying drama at Chiswick’s Arts Educational School, she had already found herself an agent who would prove pivotal on both a professional and personal level. Four years ago, having forced a solid career in My Week With Marilyn. Also up for the film was fellow hopeful Claflin. It was, she says with enviable certainty, love at first sight. “We always thank those guys who were involved with that film. I was hoping he’d be bad so I’d be put off and wouldn’t have to fall in love!”

Haddock called her agent right after the audition, telling him how much she liked Claflin. It transpired that the two shared the same agent - and the young actor had made a similar call: “We lived minutes apart and didn’t know it,” she says.

Given their twin successes, the couple has to be apart for long periods. Currently, Haddock is spending eight months a year filming Da Vinci’s Demons in Wales, while Claflin is based in Atlanta, working on Parts One and Two of The Huger Games: Mockingjay. “It’s hard,” Haddock confesses. “Thank goodness we don’t have anything to compare it to; it’s been like that since we met.”

Other young actors might blanch at the difficulties of fame, but Haddock and Claflin are able to maintain a sense of perspective and gratitude for their good fortune. “I absolutely love this job.” She says. “You know, Sam and I daydream all the time about having our own production company, where we can put all of our talented mates in one production, just hang out together and make a film. It would be a dream.”

While their transatlantic lifestyle has its challenges, and is far from normal, any nascent Brad and Angelina comparisons are way off the mark; in fact, the couple’s dinner parties are mostly reserved for “buddies we’ve had for years”.

“When you’re in your house and in your jammies and you’ve got your dog, and you’re cooking …whatever you’re doing is just normal,” Haddock continues. “Sam, to me, is like a massive geek, husband, person who I just clean the house with…”.

Talking of which, it seems the couple is very particular when it comes to domestic chores, with Haddock admitting something of an obsession in that area. “Sam’s got it as well,” she laughs. “I like things at right angles and I’m constantly wiping things down. But if I start doing other people’s houses, I should get it seen to.”

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Laura Haddock for Harrods Magazine [MAy 2014]

[Laura Haddock // Lucrezia Donati]