Nicola Walker has revealed that she’ll never use “tweakments” like Botox after watching her mother suffer with multiple sclerosis (MS) before her death aged 54.
The Unforgotten star, 56, opened up about losing her mother as a 29-year-old, revealing in a new interview that it feels “very difficult” and “very strange” to overtake her in age.
The actor, who stars in forthcoming comedy Alice and Steve, told The Times that after watching her mother take part in drug trials and endure injections during her treatment for MS, she chooses to shun “tweakments”. MS is a chronic autoimmune condition that affects the brain and spinal cord and can cause fatigue, numbness in parts of the body, muscle cramps and memory issues among other symptoms.
open image in gallery“Anything that isn’t necessary for a medical reason… I don’t understand,” Walker said, adding that she worries about her own mortality “because I don’t want my son to go through what I went through, which was really painful”.
Walker, who shares son Harry, 19, with husband Barnaby Kay, also revealed that she put off her wedding because celebrating big life events after her mother’s death felt “like a betrayal”.
“When you overtake [a parent] in age, it’s very difficult, very strange,” she said. “So there’s a sense that life’s very fragile.”
Walker’s big acting break came in 2003 with spy drama Spooks, with the actor playing Ruth Evershed for five years. She later starred in Last Tango in Halifax, receiving a BAFTA TV Award nomination for her role as Gillian Greenwood before winning an Olivier in 2013 for her performance in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the National Theatre.
More recently, she starred as detective Cassie Stuart in Unforgotten from 2015 until 2021 and as hard-nosed family lawyer Hannah Stern in The Split.
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Walker’s departure from Unforgotten came as a shock to fans, with her character being killed off in a car accident at the end of series four. She later admitted that she felt “guilty” for the way she left the show, telling Radio Times in 2022: “If we’d known Covid was coming, we would have given people a less depressing storyline.
“When it came out, I thought, ‘Crikey, we could have given them something more cheerful. The last thing they need is to be made to feel really sad about this brilliant cop.’”
The actor is now starring in “wrongcom” Alice and Steve, in which she plays a mother whose best friend, played by Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement, begins a romantic relationship with her 26-year-old daughter.
She told The Guardian in a recent interview that she sympathised with furious Alice while playing the role. “You do always feel that your character’s right when you’re playing them but I really felt it with Alice, that I would do the same in her situation. I would do more. I would draw blood,” she said.