Standing in the Soho production offices, Adelaide Clemens couldn’t help feeling a little frustrated.
Having flown herself from New Orleans to London, the actress had finally convinced acclaimed director Susanna White to give her just 15 minutes to audition for the upcoming BBC/HBO television drama Parade’s End. Based on the little-known classic Ford Madox Ford novels and set during World War I, it tells of an unhappily married aristocrat Christopher Tietjens who falls in love with a young suffragette named Valentine.
Determined to show White she would be the perfect Valentine, Clemens had arrived wearing full period costume. Yet for some reason the director was stalling, waiting for someone called Tom. “I had no idea who ‘Tom’ was,” Clemens remembers. “I’m thinking it’s the camera assistant or someone, but you know, please hurry up! Because you’re wasting time, I’ve flown halfway across the world! And then in walks Tom Stoppard.”
The legendary playwright had written the screenplay and was closely involved in the production. So involved in fact that he jumped in and read with Clemens. Her heart in her mouth, the 23-year-old actress kept up with the fearsome Stoppard as he ran her through vocal drills, testing her accent, her range, her speed. “He pulled me this way and that, you’re Cockney, you’re from Essex, you’re from Kent, you’re from Wales, faster, faster. It was just extraordinary.” Then he stood up. “All I remember him saying was: ‘Well, you’ve wasted far too much of my time’, and he just left.” Clemens was devastated. “I literally bawled the whole way home. I thought I’ve made the utmost fool of myself. [I thought:] Adelaide, that’s the lowest you will ever go!”
Back at her budget hotel, she rang her mother in Australia, weeping down the line. It was a part she had been obsessed with, racing back to the trailer to read it during breaks on the film shoot of horror flick No One Lives. It was her third horror, a genre she’s not overly fond of, and finally she had found a part that she could really sink her teeth into. And it looked like she had blown it. Still, she wanted to make the most of her time in London, so after a tearful night, she gathered herself together and spent what would have been her last day wandering the streets of Notting Hill. And then the phone call came.
I thought I’ve made the utmost fool of myself.
[I thought:] Adelaide,
that’s the lowest you will ever go!
Back in Sydney, Clemens tells the story with relish. The young Australian actress is home from LA to spend time with her family. Born in Brisbane, then living in Japan, France and Sydney, Clemens is a natural storyteller. Her accent flits from British to bogan, deep South to a smattering of eloquent French and, at our shoot, she has everyone in fits of laughter as she goofs around. She’s charming and witty, and those elfin features frequently brighten into a wide smile.
As a teenager Clemens appeared in Love My Way and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but her breakout role was in 2010’s stylised teenage drama Wasted on the Young. Although the box office wasn’t generous, the reviews were positive and she moved to LA four years ago.
The going was tough: she counted 412 auditions before she landed her first gig. However, she persevered, scoring leads in the gamer movie Silent Hill: Revelation 3D opposite Sean Bean and the indie flick Generation Um…opposite Keanu Reeves.
Then came Parade’s End. Despite his odd sense of humour, Stoppard was convinced and that phone call was to ask her to read opposite Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Tietjens. The actor was won over in an instant, calling her “a brilliant, brilliant actress”. She won the part of Valentine and went on to win over UK critics, who have been unanimous in their praise of her performance when the mini-series aired there late last year. It will soon be shown here on Nine.
Her admiration for Cumberbatch was mutual, with Clemens describing the actor as “fiercely intelligent”. And although she was daunted by the calibre of British talent who also star in the mini-series, including Rebecca Hall as the deliciously bitchy Sylvia Tietjens, Rupert Everett, Roger Allam, Miranda Richardson and Rufus Sewell, everyone was welcoming.
The shoot was 17 weeks long, filming in London, Kent, Oxfordshire and Belgium. Clemens spent as much time as she could with the group. They were all particularly fascinated by that period in history. “There was always this discussion about the era,” she remembers.
Curiously, the only time she wasn’t on the shoot was when she flew back to Australia to film The Great Gatsby. The dramatic change between the two periods made a very real impact on her, as she went from corsets and class divides to flapper dresses and champagne swilling. Like everyone else on Gatsby, she says it was “extraordinary” and describes working with Baz Luhrmann as “electrifying”. She laughs as she remembers him directing by whispering into a microphone. “And he doesn’t think that he’s being very loud, but he’s being very loud. One of the first times I walked onto the set, all I heard was, ‘Moral dilemma! Moral dilemma! You’re in a moral dilemma!’, really loudly across the whole studio.”
“a brilliant,
brilliant actress”.
She will also appear in US mini-series Rectify. It follows Daniel Holden (Aden Young), a death-row inmate released from jail after years of wrongful imprisonment. Clemens plays his Christian sister-in-law Tawney, who feels a spiritual connection to him. “It’s the most amazingly written [script] and the dialogue has so many layers. It’s going to be a good one.” One of many for this rising star
First published in Vogue Australia April 2013
