Nicola Walker Compared Wedding to Going to Work As an Actress
You might have heard people refer to their wedding as the most beautiful day of their lives.
How often have you heard them say that it was like going to work?
Well, for British actress Nicola Walker that was exactly what getting ready for her marriage felt like.
Nicola Walker on Why She Got Married
Walker's interview with Radio Times (via Independent) was one of the rare occasions where she opened up about her wedding.
Albeit, she warned listeners from the get-go that it wasn't the most romantic story.
So much so that she even contemplated not telling the truth.
First off, she confessed why she got married to her husband and fellow actor, Barnaby Kay.
Spilling the beans almost 20 years after her wedding, she revealed that she only got married to provide a sense of security to her son, Harry Kay.
Nicola Walker Comparing Work & Wedding
Further along in the interview, she also affirmed that, for her, the entire marriage ceremony felt like going to work.
She even contrasted her wedding against her profession to justify her statement, which could have otherwise become controversial.
"Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair," she listed before adding, "I can see that would be really appealing if you don't do it for a living."
"It's a public performance," she claimed. With her statement in mind, it wasn't hard to imagine that Walker was not heavily invested in the idea of a grand wedding.
Instead of having a grand function with a star-studded guest list, the actress chose to have a "tiny family thing."
Nicola Walker Feared Not Getting Work after Pregnancy
Charlotte Cripps once wrote for the Independent that there was a no-nonsense air about Walker, much like most of her characters, which, going by her interview, is undoubtedly true.
In the same interview, Walker shared how she had feared losing out on work after becoming a mother.
While her post-pregnancy hiatus remains one of the longest of her career, her fears never met reality as she was back to working on set, as early as six months after her baby boy was born.
In fact, she shot the fifth season of Spooks while pregnant, hiding her baby bump behind files. She'd officially left the show after her son was born, but wasn't gone for long.
Getting Back into Showbiz after Pregnancy
After her departure from the show, she'd met up with the show's producer Jane Featherstone to let her meet baby Harry.
As the meeting drew to a close, Featherstone let Walker know that she was missed.
In Walker's words, the conversation went something like, "And I said, 'I really miss you!' And she said, 'Do you want to come back?' And I went, 'Yes I really do.'"
That was it. She was back on the show. Although she admitted that she would never sign onto a show like that because her agent was not particularly happy with how it all went down.
From there on out, she started getting an unexpected amount of work. So much so that it was a struggle for her to manage her workflow both emotionally and workwise.