Brenda Blethyn’s loving the settled life

She’s worked with Hollywood legends like Robert Redford, been up for Oscars and is in demand for projects all over the world.

But Brenda Blethyn has told The Sunday Post how Northumberland has become her acting home and she’s hoping that doesn’t change anytime soon.

Brenda is back tonight in a new series of ITV’s hit crime drama Vera and says it’s a most welcome return.

“I feel Northumberland is a real part of me now,” confides Brenda. “I get an apartment in Newcastle rather than staying in hotels and that makes me feel even more settled.

“This is the fifth series and we’re all ready to start filming the sixth in May.

“Because of the commitment, this is now the main focus of my acting and that’s just fine with me.”

As the central character DI Vera Stanhope, Brenda, 69, is in just about every scene.

Taggart may have continued after the death of Mark McManus but when I suggest there surely couldn’t be a Vera without Brenda, she’s quick to reassure that she’s in no rush to take her leave.

“I feel a real commitment to the part and the whole production,” she insists.

“ITV have invested in keeping the production values and everything else really high. And I honestly do love doing it, so I’ll keep on turning up as long as they want me to.”

The changes have been rung this time around with the departure of David Leon who played trusty sidekick Joe Ashworth.

He was the detective sergeant who got the brunt of Vera’s verbal volleys but for whom the crusty old copper had the deepest affection.

That affection ran just as deep between Brenda and David, an acclaimed director as well as actor.

“He was a big miss,” admits Brenda. “We got on so well and I just wish he’d had a chance to pop along during filming and say hello.

“So, yes, starting the first episode without him for the first time was strange.

“But it was written to reflect the departure and Kenny Doughty, who has come in as replacement DS Aiden Healy, has fitted in really well.

“He’s been very good.”

Scots actor Jon Morrison is still very much part of the detective squad room as put-upon DC Kenny Lockhart. And Brenda says she’ll be looking at him in a new light now.

“I came across a film he was in on the TV recently. He looked as if he was 18 or 19 and he had this mass of curly hair. He was like an Adonis!”

Brenda says the Geordie accent has become such second nature that she doesn’t even think about it now.

The locals’ approval helps her feel at ease with it, as does slipping into the trademark big coat and hat.

As she’s much more glamorous and svelte than the dowdy detective she portrays so convincingly, Brenda concedes she doesn’t get recognised as her screen alter ego too much.

She can’t help but chortle as she recalls donning a Barbour jacket for a walk near her Ramsgate home recently only to be spotted by a viewer wondering why she was wearing Vera’s coat.

“It went straight back in the wardrobe,” laughs Brenda.

The Academy Award nominations were for Secrets and Lies and Little Voice and her talent has seen her rub shoulders with the A-list of the movie world, including Brad Pitt.

But she’s a modest, self-effacing delight who recalls how she almost turned down the chance to work with Redford because her mum was ill at the time.

“She just told me to get out there and send her back daily bulletins!

“I sometimes have to pinch myself and wonder whether I really did work with some of the stars I’ve had the pleasure of filming with.”

After some three decades together she and partner Michael Mayhew finally tied the knot in 2010.

They’ll have been married five years come June.

“It feels more permanent somehow,” she adds.

“There’s a different feeling to it, I don’t know why.

“It’s hard to explain but, oh, it’s just lovely.”