The Magnificent Two Press Pack - Page 3
I LEAD A DOUBLE LIFE
"When I'm working, on a film or a play, I'm Margit Saad - actress. But when I get home, I shut out the actress as I shut the door and become just plain Margit, a wife and mother. I lead a double life."
Margit agreed that many actors get so involved in their roles that they 'live' the part 24 hours a day, thus making their home life difficult at times.
"But," said Margit Saad, the German actress who stars with Morecambe and Wise in their latest comedy, "WHAT HAP¬PENED AT CAMPO GRANDE?", "I have solved this problem.”
"I would never dare to let my work rule my life to such an extent." She said on the set of "WHAT HAPPENED AT CAMPO GRANDE?", at The Rank Organisation's Pinewood Studios.
"In the first place, it would probably turn me into a complete neurotic, and in the second, my husband would never stand for it.”
"He's a stage director, which means that he is dealing with actors all day. The last thing he wants to come home to is a wife who's completely wound up in her acting role.”
"So I make a point of being a proper hausfrau when I'm home. But, as you can imagine, with both of us having theatrical careers, my husband and I are constantly talking about our work.”
"Most of our friends are in show business, and when we have them round for dinner or drinks, naturally enough, the conversa¬tion very soon turns to the theatre.”
"This is fine, because although I'm talking shop, I'm not being self-centred, pacing the floor with furrowed brow and behaving in character with the part I might be playing at the time."
Miss Saad has a nine-year-old son, Pierre Dominique. How does he react to having an actress mother?
"I don't think he's really aware of the fact," she said. "Some¬times his school friends say I saw your Mummy on TV last night', but he was probably in bed at the time. I don't tell him when I'm going to appear.”
"As I said, all our friends are theatrical people and so he's been brought up in a theatrical atmosphere. We take him to the theatre a lot, and he just accepts it as part of his world.”
"Naturally, he misses me when I'm away. I get very homesick, too at times, but when I'm working I often forget my husband and son completely for hours on end.”
"This shocks me, when I think about it, but it's necessary, because if you're going to do your job properly you've got to concentrate 100 per cent - to the exclusion of all else.”
"But then, when I get back home, I revert to being a wife and mother. That's one role that comes naturally to me. Do they give Oscars for the best housewife?"
© Rank Organisation 2008