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I was a jobbing actor before I was in EastEnders, and I went back to being a jobbing actor afterwards. Eight years ago, being a celebrity was not compatible with being a serious actor
some 12 years beforehand and was hardly a newcomer by any other industry’s standards). Yet she has consciously shirked celebrity-dom, deliberately turning down roles that would have taken her more firmly down that television celebrity status route. ‘I was a jobbing actor before I was in EastEnders, and I went back to being a jobbing actor afterwards. Eight years ago, the notion of being a celebrity was not considered compatible with being a serious actor.’ However she acknowledges that times have changed, and nowadays you can be both a celebrity and still have an acting career; the likes of Angelina Jolie perhaps a case in point. At last month’s summit, where Oberman was involved in the staging of a series of monologues based on the testaments of victims of abuse and violence, she witnessed how the role of ‘celebrity’ can be used to your advantage. ‘Angelina Jolie is my complete hero,’ she says. ‘I met her very briefly. This is a woman who is passionate about the subject. She has done her research and she has used her celebrity to make things happen and open up a dialogue, exposing rape as a weapon of war, and calling for the current situation – where it is the victims rather than the perpetrators who are shamed – to be addressed.’ Maybe Oberman will reconsider her career in the light of the new role of celebrity. Or maybe not. For this is a woman who seems never to have been out of work and rarely off screen, stage or radio in a notoriously insecure profession. In retrospect it seems ironic that her family, concerned about job security, were worried when she chose an acting career. Immigrants in the (real) East End, they were all
is a voice to be relished on radio – maybe that’s why she has performed more than 600 plays on Radio 4 (and that is not including the ones she has written for radio). ‘The voiceover brought in enough money to tide me over
engaged in the suitably secure legal profession. ‘My dad said,
the first year, and three days after that I got a job with the
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” So I made a deal
Royal Shakespeare Company. I was there for four years and
with him that I would finish university and then go to drama
that lead to further work, and I’ve never stopped working,’
school, and if I didn’t get a job in the first year I’d do a law
she says. ‘I always felt everything had its own merit. I did
conversion course.’
regional repertory, and learned about writing comedy at
As it happened, drama school was followed by an opportunity to do a ‘voiceover’ for After Eight mints. I totally
a time when not many women were writing comedy, and that taught me so much.’
get that: her voice is tones of rich, dark chocolate with a fresh
A career highlight was working at the National Theatre.
tang of mint and a side helping of honey and night-time. Hers
Her first season was also Nicholas Hytner’s first season, and
20 | W W W. S U S SE X ST Y LE.CO M | J ULY 2014