‘Sorry, everything’s just a mess,” Sally Hawkins says as she gives me a Zoom tour. “This is my temporary office. I say temporary, but I’ve been here for two years. It’s where I work and write.” Shelves are stacked higgledy-piggledy with books, paintings and photographs, and on the wall is a photo of an exceedingly handsome Staffordshire bull terrier. “That’s my childhood best friend, Max. I loved him very much,” she explains, ducking off camera and re-emerging with a painting of Max. The next day an email arrives in my inbox with details of the artist, should I wish to commission a picture of my labradoodle, Gene.
It is the start of August and Hawkins, who confesses to finding interviews so traumatic that she sometimes
