56-year-old Sally Phillips is an actress and comedian who became noteworthy for her performances on sketch-comedy series Smack the Pony. She is also known for her performance as best friend Shazzer in all four Bridget Jones films.
Best childhood memory?
I had an amazing childhood because my dad worked for British Airways, so we lived in lots of different countries. I remember camping in Dubai, it might even have been Jumeirah, when there was nothing there. There were three families, these massive Bedouin tents, and we barbecued and surfed down the sand dunes into the sea. Someone got stung by a baby scorpion, I recall, but it was fine.
I probably remember being happiest doing crafting. My mother was a teacher, so we were always incredibly well stocked with paper, toilet rolls, glue and glitter. I remember making a whole teddy bear world out of cereal packets in Bahrain, with all the kids in the compound cutting around these little teddy-bear cities.
I had a really great childhood, so I’m lucky, but the thing you trade for moving around is consistent friendships. I had to learn how to have friends properly later.
Best personal characteristic?
Growing up abroad as a British person somehow makes you more British than British – a kind of Britishness that doesn’t really exist. So I find it like fingernails down a blackboard trying to say I’m good at anything. I also worry about toxic positivity, this idea that everything has to be amazing all the time. If you only ever say: “This is fantastic, my show is amazing, I’m amazing,” where is the human connection? I find it much easier to bond over honesty.
Best thing about making people laugh?
I love laughing myself. It’s selfish. I remember being at school with my friend and being told off by our French teacher, Mrs Belk, because we’d skipped a lesson to watch Boris Becker winning Wimbledon. The more she told us off, the more we laughed, and the more we laughed, the more punishment we got. I felt beyond reach, beyond authority. I remember thinking: “This is happiness.”
I love that feeling in comedy. On television, you’re not trying to play an arena. You’re trying to make the crew laugh. There’s something very cosy about that – a small circle of actors, cameras, sound people and someone watching on the monitor. It feels like being back in childhood, putting on a play for the parents. It’s heaven.
Best part about your role in The Hairdresser Mysteries?
The attraction was Jim Cartwright, one of our great playwrights. His words feel amazing in your mouth. That sounds creepy, but they do. They’re slightly hard to say, in the way proper playwrights’ words are. You don’t often get that on telly.
Before I took the part, I asked him why he wanted to do cosy crime. He said: “I just want to make people feel better.”
It’s cosy crime on a budget and on a crazy schedule, which I found tricky because I’m used to exploring and trying things, and a million takes. But Jim is brilliant and so is Charlie Jordan, who plays my sidekick. She came off Coronation Street so she was used to that pace, and she really supported me. She’s such a great technical actress and a lovely person.
Best memory from Smack the Pony?
I remember realising that a sketch I had written in the middle of the night had become real. It was about a girl who had accidentally stacked a whole supermarket with Toilet Duck. I got there and realised it had taken three grown men three days to stack this supermarket with Toilet Duck, and I thought: “Wow, this thing I thought up is now real.”
The best memories were making each other laugh. I remember opening a door and having to say Fiona Allen’s name, but I called her a different name every time. Fiona kept collapsing, and production was going: “We’re losing the light, ladies, please.”
There was another where the producer said: “You’ve got five minutes, come up with something.” That became one of my favourite sketches: a man at a bar being asked what music he likes, and he says: “That one that goes. . .” then sings the whole of Easy Like Sunday Morning. We were young and thought we were cool and rebellious.
Best thing your children have taught you?
First of all, they’re a massive mirror. My youngest son, Tom, turned to me the other day and said: “I don’t have to deal with this. I’m a child. That’s for you to work out.” And I thought, fair enough.
They’ve also taught me that kids are so much fun. My eldest, Olly, who has Down’s syndrome, is at an amazing arts college called Orpheus, learning independent skills. It’s the first time I’ve been able to be normal and not helicopter-parent. They know how to manage his current issues better than I do.
All the things I was frightened would never happen are happening. He has a gang of friends who like the same things, and at weekends he has his WhatsApp group chat on constantly while they do their stuff.
Worst habit?
I forget to shut cupboards. It drives my partner mad. I don’t finish the action. I go to make a sandwich or a meal, I get the tea out, put the tea in the pot, and then in my head the job is done. I have to remind myself: “Now close the cupboard, now put it away.”
I just don’t finish tasks properly. I’ll begin something with great enthusiasm, then leave the final bit for someone else to discover. It’s not deliberate, but it is annoying.
Worst moment on stage?
Doing a school production of The Ghost Train, directed by a friend who was a brilliant Canadian actress. None of us had learnt the lines. We got to the first show and one by one we all started laughing, turning to the back wall with our shoulders shaking. It wasn’t even that the audience was laughing. It was just big old silence on stage and us laughing. It was bad.
Worst misconception people have about Down’s syndrome?
That it means everything is “lower”. I thought that too. But actually people with Down’s syndrome have a very spiky profile. In some areas, Olly can be above average, and in others close to zero.
He can be very wise about some things while also being unable to imagine how his behaviour will affect someone else. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have empathy; he has enormous empathy and strange wisdom about how people are feeling.
A doctor once told me when Olly was little, “He’ll never write an essay.” I remember thinking: “Why would I care? Why does that matter?” He writes all the time now. People can be very ignorant about intelligence. There are so many different kinds.
Worst fear for the future?
I’m pretty scared of getting dementia. But of course, I’m most scared of anything happening to my children. That fear is more immediate when you have a vulnerable child. The other day I came home and Olly was giving someone our postcode on TikTok. He’s 21, so do I stop him having social media accounts? Do I have the right to? I don’t think I do.
Keeping him safe is a constant worry. He is vulnerable and he isn’t frightened of people, which is good in one way because it means he hasn’t had reason to be frightened. But it also makes him vulnerable. They have rights, and you can advise your children, but you can’t control everything.
Sally Phillips, 56, was born in Hong Kong before spending her childhood living in countries including Bahrain and Australia because of her father’s job with British Airways. After studying at New College, Oxford, she became one of Britain’s best-loved comedy performers through Smack the Pony, before going on to star in Bridget Jones’s Diary and its sequels, Miranda, Veep and numerous television dramas and comedies. Away from acting, she has become a passionate advocate for people with learning disabilities, inspired by her eldest son, Olly, who has Down’s syndrome. She now stars as eccentric salon owner Lily Petal in The Hairdresser Mysteries, while continuing her campaigning work and writing.
The Hairdresser Mysteries is airing now and available on BBC iPlayer.