Harriet Walter

In 2012, London’s Donmar Warehouse opened an all-female production of Julius Caesar, starring Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus and directed by Tony Award-nominated director Phyllida Lloyd. The production was set in a women’s prison, and it was the first of a trilogy of all-female productions, all starring Walter, that The Guardian would call “one of the most important theatrical events of the past 20 years.” Julius Caesar was featured on PBS’s Great Performances on March 29, which made it the perfect time to call up Dame Harriet to discuss her decades-long career. We asked her about gender in Shakespeare, playing Ophelia, Portia, and Brutus, and her 2016 book, Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare’s Roles for Women. Harriet Walter is one of the most acclaimed performers on the British stage. She won the 1988 Olivier Award for Best Actress, the Evening Standard Award for her work as Elizabeth I in the 2005 London revival of Mary Stuart, and has starred in Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 2, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Say to All the World ‘This Was a Man’” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Dan Sterling at The Sound Company in London.