The Paddington actress Sally Hawkins and her film producer brother, Finbar
The siblings on Sally's role as Mrs Brown and braving the red carpet
Nick Duerden Sunday November 15 2020, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
Sally
I sort of fell in love with Finbar as soon as I was conscious of him. He was everything I ever wanted to be, and still is. He's just such an impressive human being and he happens to be able to do everything I can't — including speaking eloquently to people and making sense. He was always very verbose — language comes naturally to him, as does writing. The fact that he has just written his first book makes me proud of him. I love literature too, but for a long time I struggled to read. I was kind of dyslexic … and a bit of a tit. So I looked up to Finbar and, as a child, I followed him around everywhere. I'm sure I was probably an irritating ball of baby.
All my cultural references came from him. I was very much a girl and he was very much a boy. My bedroom was pink and covered with flowers; his was dark and black. The poster on his door came from the film Alien: "In space no one can hear you scream". It was fascinating to watch him become a moody teenager. I also found his friends fascinating, these other boys from his school. Very pretty, too, some of them.
I'd been a fan of cheesy pop, so it was Finbar who got me into the cool stuff: everything from the Ramones to Goldfrapp to DJ Shadow. And it was him who first sat me down to watch a Mike Leigh film, Secrets & Lies, and said: "You've got to watch this." He was right. When Mike Leigh later gave me my break in acting [in the 2002 film All or Nothing] he was very proud.
The siblings on Sally's role as Mrs Brown and braving the red carpet
Nick Duerden Sunday November 15 2020, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
Sally
I sort of fell in love with Finbar as soon as I was conscious of him. He was everything I ever wanted to be, and still is. He's just such an impressive human being and he happens to be able to do everything I can't — including speaking eloquently to people and making sense. He was always very verbose — language comes naturally to him, as does writing. The fact that he has just written his first book makes me proud of him. I love literature too, but for a long time I struggled to read. I was kind of dyslexic … and a bit of a tit. So I looked up to Finbar and, as a child, I followed him around everywhere. I'm sure I was probably an irritating ball of baby.
All my cultural references came from him. I was very much a girl and he was very much a boy. My bedroom was pink and covered with flowers; his was dark and black. The poster on his door came from the film Alien: "In space no one can hear you scream". It was fascinating to watch him become a moody teenager. I also found his friends fascinating, these other boys from his school. Very pretty, too, some of them.
I'd been a fan of cheesy pop, so it was Finbar who got me into the cool stuff: everything from the Ramones to Goldfrapp to DJ Shadow. And it was him who first sat me down to watch a Mike Leigh film, Secrets & Lies, and said: "You've got to watch this." He was right. When Mike Leigh later gave me my break in acting [in the 2002 film All or Nothing] he was very proud.