Greta Scacchi Interviewed by Peter Guttridge

Italian-Australian actress Greta Scacchi, best known for roles in films such as White Mischief with Charles Dance and John Hurt, Presumed Innocent with Harrison Ford, Merchant Ivory’s Heat and Dust, The Player, Emma and Looking for Albrandi, talks about her life and career.

Scacchi was born in Italy to an English mother and Italian father and later moved first to England and then to Australia after her mother remarried. She returned to England to train at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Scacchi made her debut in the 1982 German film Das Zweite Gesicht before going on to appear in the films that made her name. She won an Emmy for the role of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna in the television film Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny and has been nominated for a Golden Globe and other awards. She was recently seen on British television as Countess Rostova in the BBC’s 2016 adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Scacchi also appears regularly on the stage including recently alongside Kenneth Branagh in the title roles of John Osborne’s The Entertainer at London’s Garrick Theatre. Scacchi received Italy’s highest honour, Knight of the Order of Merit, for her services to the arts.

Here she talks to crime writer and critic Peter Guttridge, a former director of Brighton Literature Festival and founder of Scarborough Book Festival.

This event is part of Italian day at the festival.