\n<\/p>\n
No one broods quite like Nicola Walker, whose eyes have transfixed viewers in television shows like \u201cUnforgotten,\u201d \u201cLast Tango in Halifax\u201d and \u201cThe Split.\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cAnnika<\/a>,\u201d the British crime drama now in its second season on PBS, she holds that gaze as a marine homicide detective, her speedboat slicing through the waters near Glasgow.<\/p>\n But in a video interview while just outside London, where she lives with her husband, the actor Barnaby Kay, and their teenage son, Harry, Walker was radiant and witty. When she agreed to talk about her cultural essentials \u2014 true-crime podcasts, the theater director Ivo van Hove, the harrowing reality series \u201cAlone<\/a>\u201d \u2014 she recalled her agent asking if she was going to be truthful.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Is it bad if I tell them that really one of my cultural highlights this week has been sitting in my underwear, eating a bag of Spanish Lays crisps with a can of Coke, watching the \u2018Beckham\u2019<\/a> documentary?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m in love with both of them,\u201d Walker added. \u201cDavid and Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n 1<\/p>\n When I was a young girl, we moved to rural Essex, and the nearest town was Harlow \u2014 one of the new towns built post-World War II. Frederick Gibberd, the architect, thought that ordinary people should brush up against art in their everyday lives. On the way to the shopping center, I\u2019d walk past sculptures by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Rodin. I used to climb all over Hepworth\u2019s \u201cContrapuntal Forms,\u201d<\/a> and no one ever stopped you. Hepworth said statues must be touched \u2014 that\u2019s how they begin.<\/p>\n 2<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always loved stand-up because I could never do it, and Stewart is, for me, the best stand-up working for years now. I recommend \u201cContent Provider.\u201d<\/a> It\u2019s like he smashes up the rules of comedy, glues them back together and then throws them at you.<\/p>\n 3<\/p>\n Watching Ivo or being directed by Ivo is like having an injection of energy and hope, because he makes theater in a way that you realize you\u2019ve always wanted theater to be made.<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n I lost my mother a very long time ago. Too young. She bought me a copy of \u201cBeloved\u201d when I went up to university, and she wrote in it, \u201cTo My Beloved.\u201d That thing they say about what you would save from your burning house, apart from pets? That book. I was 19, and it opened up the whole world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 5<\/p>\n The U.K. one was like a family camping trip gone wrong: They\u2019ve got lost in the dark and they\u2019re scared of the foxes and the owls hooting. Then we happened to see \u201cAlone USA.\u201d Crikey. Ten people. Bears, wolverines. I watched a man win a series because he shanked a musk ox to death.<\/p>\n 6<\/p>\n When I was pregnant, I played \u201cClosing Time<\/a>\u201d on a loop, and Harry used to sort of wriggle. I don\u2019t know whether I\u2019ve made that up, but all I know is he loves Tom Waits. When Harry was about 3, I went for a fitting at a famous costumier, and Tom Waits walked in. I was too scared to say, \u201cMy 3-year-old knows all the words to \u2018Closing Time.\u2019\u201d I really regret it, and my son has never forgiven me.<\/p>\n 7<\/p>\n When I was 16, I really identified with her. All that introspection of youth. You\u2019re allowed to be that doom-laden because you\u2019re so young. As a 53-year-old, I don\u2019t see myself. I see Sylvia Plath, and I want to literally jump in the book and save her.<\/p>\n 8<\/p>\n I love reading poetry out loud. This might be due to studying English at Cambridge. One of my favorite poems is Billy Collins\u2019s \u201cIntroduction to Poetry\u201d<\/a> \u2014 the idea that you have to tie the poem down to a chair and beat it into submission to give up its meaning. I felt that\u2019s what I did as a student, and it took me ages to find my way back to poetry because, for me, it was work. But now I think it\u2019s flesh and bones when you say those words.<\/p>\n They give me the confidence to step out of the caravan and walk on set. Annika\u2019s playlist was fabulously eclectic: Benjamin Clementine\u2019s \u201cNemesis<\/a>,\u201d David Bowie\u2019s \u201cFill Your Heart<\/a>,\u201d The Darkness\u2019s \u201cI Believe in a Thing Called Love<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n 10<\/p>\n I have a guilty obsession that a lot of women have (as \u201cS.N.L.\u201d pointed out in a very good musical skit<\/a>): true crime. There\u2019s this Australian podcast, \u201cCasefile,\u201d<\/a> and the guy always starts with this warning, \u201cThis podcast contains stories of a sexual nature, injury to women,\u201d or whatever. And my husband\u2019s shouting, \u201cAre you listening to that bloody man talking about killing women again?\u201d Yeah, I am. Why am I? It\u2019s the same reason we like crime dramas. Because the comfort of watching something that terrifies you and seeing it resolved makes you feel a little bit safer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTouching the Art<\/span><\/h3>\n
Stewart Lee<\/span><\/h3>\n
Ivo van Hove<\/span><\/h3>\n
Toni Morrison<\/span><\/h3>\n
The U.S. Version of \u2018Alone\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Closing Time\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sylvia Plath<\/span><\/h3>\n
Reciting Poetry<\/span><\/h3>\n
9<\/span><\/h3>\n
Playlists for Roles<\/span><\/h3>\n
Murder Shows<\/span><\/h3>\n