IF the name Sally Hawkins doesn’t automatically ring any bells, then you’re not alone.
The actress caught Tom Cruise looking a little confused about who she was when she collected her Golden Globe award last year.
“He looked slightly bemused and a bit angry actually,” says Sally laughing softly. “It’s probably just the way his face is but I did think, ‘It’s Tom bloody Cruise looking at me up here on the stage’, it was quite amazing.”
She remembers returning home “looking at my Golden Globe on the kitchen table and thinking, ‘My God did that definitely happen?’”.
Petite and fragile-looking, Sally appears in new UK film Made In Dagenham and has previewing George Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs Warren’s Profession in New York.
Not that you’ll hear the 34-year-old actress complain. She’s as far from a diva as you can get.
Her Golden Globe was awarded for her performance as the eternal optimist Poppy in Mike Leigh’s 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky, a film that audiences, particularly in the States, took to their hearts.
Her new film Made In Dagenham, by Calendar Girls director Nigel Cole, is set to draw a similar response from cinema-goers, with talk of awards already circulating and a possible Oscar nomination.
“Aah, really? My God that would be amazing,” she says sounding genuinely flabbergasted. “It’d be a bit of an understatement to say it would be a beautiful bonus but then if you begin to believe that hype, you’re probably going to be on your way to tripping yourself up.”
Made In Dagenham is a feel-good film based on real-life events at the Dagenham Ford factory in 1968, when the female machinists decided to take industrial action after their jobs was re-graded as “unskilled.”
Sally plays fast-talking, no nonsense Rita O’Grady and says: “I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know anything about this story of these women before I heard about this film.
“Their actions rattled industry and trade unions worldwide but for some reason, not many people know about it. It’s baffling and actually quite shameful.”
The cast includes the likes of Bob Hoskins, Geraldine James, Rosamund Pike and Miranda Richardson.
Meanwhile, Sally will be appearing in future releases Never Let Me Go with Keira Knightley and a big screen adaptation of Jane Eyre, she’s also attached to Down And Dirty Pictures with Matthew Perry and The Roaring Girl, in which she’ll play Bernadette Devlin who, in 1969, became the youngest ever female MP.
Soon everyone’s going to know her name – Tom Cruise included.
