Dame Joanna Lumley has just celebrated her 80th birthday, an impressive milestone given she's been busy filming the Netflix hit Wednesday, recently starred in the second series of BBC’s Amandaland and has a forthcoming ITV travel documentary exploring Argentina on the horizon. But she’s refreshingly unfussed about ageing.
"80 is the same as 85 or 60 or 90,” she says in this exclusive interview with HELLO!. "It doesn't mean much to me because I'm still walking, working and operating. If you think back 100 years ago, you'd be jolly lucky to reach this age at all."
© FilmMagicThe actress, who has won a Tony award and two Bafta TV awards, says retirement isn’t imminent for herself or her musician husband, the conductor Stephen Barlow, who she married in 1986.
"We just keep on going, but probably, gradually, dust will settle on our heads and people will stop using us. I play very good ancient grannies, vicious, ghastly mothers and sorrowed aunts."
Joanna was previously married to the actor Jeremy Lloyd from 1970 to 1971, and has a son, Jamie
Lumley, 58, with the photographer Michael Claydon. She has two grandchildren: Alice, 23, and Emily, 22.
© David M. BenettWhat would Ab Fab's Patsy be like at 80?
Best known as glamorous champagne-quaffing Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, which primarily aired from 1992 to 2003, the actress imagines Patsy at 80: "I think as long as there was some drink involved and Eddie was by her side, she'd be happy as anything.
"The last time we saw Patsy and Edina as ‘old people’, she was extremely cheerful in some ghastly care home. I think Patsy had a vodka drip into her arm and they'd opened some champagne – even though they were cracking their wrists, dribbling and blubbering. They were as happy as clams."
© Getty ImagesJoanna's work for the Born Free Foundation
The star, whose acting career began in 1969 with the spy film Some Girls Do followed by a role as a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is also a passionate animal lover.
She has been a patron of the Born Free Foundation, which works to stop the exploitation and suffering of wild animals, since 1984.
A vegetarian since her early thirties, Joanna is opposed to animals being in captivity and is a prominent voice for Born Free’s campaigns particularly against trophy hunting.
She is especially vocal about protecting giraffes, describing the creatures as "gentle, harmful to no one". "Why people shoot them as trophies is almost unbearable," she says. "And the same goes for pangolins, which I just adore – beautiful, scaled creatures who harm nobody and nothing.
"I loathe the hunting of rhinos and elephants for their ivory, and lions are bred in captivity and used at every stage of their life. There are so many things that Born Free opposes and tries to mend in some way."
The star's 40th wedding anniversary plans
In October, Joanna and her husband will reach a major milestone in their marriage. "This year, we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary,” she tells us.
Have they planned a celebration? "No, but with any luck, he's going to be able to join me at the end of our shoot in Argentina and we'll spend some time in Buenos Aires," she says, adding: "The only place I'd never visited was South America, so to go to Argentina and do a three-episode programme was a dream come true."
© Popperfoto via Getty ImagesJoanna's current acting projects
Joanna is currently filming the Netflix juggernaut Wednesday, in which she plays Wednesday Addams's grandmother, Grandmama Hester Frump.
"It's unbelievably splendid and marvellous," she tells us of the show. "I've never met such expenditure on a project since I was in the James Bond film millions of years ago."
Amandaland is another TV success. "Gosh, it's just the best fun and Lucy Punch is a dream – the whole cast, we all adore each other. I think Lucy is quite exceptional; she's extraordinarily beautiful and physically very funny, she's got funny bones."
To support the Born Free Foundation visit bornfree.org.uk
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