Six years on from her breakout role as Lady Sybil in Downton Abbey, Jessica Brown Findlay is gearing up for the release of the second season of Harlots. The 29-year-old actress plays Charlotte, a rebellious, witty and outspoken courtesan, in ITV’s wildly successful costume drama about the booming sex trade during the 18th century.
A major selling point of the series has been the epic all-female creative team: “It felt like a safe space to experiment and delve into storylines that were going to be handled in a fantastic way,” she says.
Here, Jessica opens up to GLAMOUR about how she finally learnt to accept herself, the danger of whittling down important subjects to a social media hashtag, and why she will never apologise for being a woman.
It’s shocking how quickly a woman can lose her voice
The first series showed how quickly a woman can lose her voice, even someone like Charlotte who is mouthy and outspoken. I find it very relevant to today and obviously how to overcome that.
Charlotte has bitten off more than she can chew
In season two, Charlotte is stuck between two worlds. She’s having to blend into one and pretend to be loyal to people that she’s not necessarily being loyal to. I think she’s bitten off more than she can chew. She leapt into her decision at the end of season one about taking down Lydia. She doesn’t believe the way she runs her business is moral or that it’s ok to do that to young women. She morally has the high ground but she finds herself in a really difficult situation as Lydia’s web is much further reaching than just Lydia. It’s not a case of just taking one person down. She’s got to start from the foundation and work her way up and that’s where we find her.
The female team was a massive selling point of the series
It was definitely an amazing thing having an all-female creative team. When the credits of Harlot were given to me, alarm bells started going off in my head. It was such an interesting, essential story and I was concerned as to who was going to tell it. I met with Moira Buffini and Coky Giedroyc who are such exciting, incredible women who spend their lives making female-driven material and that was ultimately such a huge attraction to me because it felt like a safe space to experiment and delve into storylines that were going to be handled in a fantastic way. I knew it was being made for the right reasons and it wasn’t there to exploit actors and that felt so exciting because it is not always the case. It felt so different to how structurally things arise.
There’s nothing like the ridiculousness of a man trying to tell you how to be sexy
I think the biggest thing I felt on the Harlots set was safety. I could be on set and discuss anything I need to. I knew if I wasn’t comfortable with something, it would be accepted, it was allowed to be discussion. There’s nothing like the ridiculousness of a man trying to tell you how to be sexy. The male gaze, I get that, but when a man is trying to tell you what it is inside you that makes you feel sexy, it’s like mate no.
Getting behind my character’s liberation helped me feel accepting of my body on screen
The biggest thing for me in Harlots is that Charlotte is incredibly comfortable. Her body is her business and her business is being notorious, is having a reputation, saying what she thinks out loud in front of people. When she’s intimate, she gives them a performance. It is not her behind closed doors on her own feeling vulnerable and there are moments in season two where we really see that in Charlotte. She’s functioning from a source of trauma. Her intimacies with people are changing so I channelled that side of her. It’s liberating to be Charlotte and not me.
To whittle important subjects down to a hashtag can diminish the huge roots it has in our society
I think the most exciting thing that’s happening at the moment is that there are many stories being written for many different people. The more varied and diverse your writers and producers, the more varied the stories will be. When I was younger, I would watch things or look at things and there are certain parts of my own understanding of myself that took a really long time to come into the forefront in entertainment or music. I was waiting for someone to speak or do or behave in a way that made sense to me and that’s happening more and more, but the biggest thing that needs to happen is for the conversation to not slip away. That’s the most dangerous thing. To treat these subjects as trends is dangerous. To whittle important subjects down to a hashtag can diminish the huge roots it has in our society.
In all the scope and range that it is to be a woman, I will never apologise
In the past, things have happened to me personally and to a lot of other women where the media have tried to expose or shame us. When you’re an actor who’s not particularly media-savvy or expecting the unexpected, you feel like a young woman who has been violated against their own will. You feel scared. It took me a very long time to be able to discuss this, even to close friends, because my initial reaction was to blame myself. I’m a very private person and I don’t do social media. I think it’s definitely been influenced by the fact I had such a horrific experience that I even more opposed to sharing anything about my real life. It’s interesting because as I get older and play interesting characters and phenomenal women, I found my own acceptance of myself. I feel liberated and I no longer feel any shame. You’re always having to interact with media and it can have this other end to it. It’s taken me a lot of personal growth to put my chin up again and not apologise for being a woman. I will never apologise for being a woman. In all the scope and range that it is to be a woman, I will never apologise.
The costumes are not always practical… You end up apologising nine times because you’re constantly going into people
I find it the costumes in Harlots so exciting, particularly because Charlotte uses what she wears as an armour. She goes out into the world and really knows that she needs to grab attention and accentuate all the parts of her that are necessary and yet she’s really playful with it. If you’re going to do something that’s historical, you want to do it 100% at full capacity. Costume wise, Harlots is turned up to 11. It helps with the whole creating the façade of the performance. It’s not always practical though – sometimes I walk through a door and forget how much taller my wig makes me. You end up apologising nine times because you’re constantly going into people. In the third series we’re filming, the hems have gone up which is really exciting because you can leg about town a lot easier.
