In honour of Mother’s Day we’re taking a look at Islington’s best on-screen Mums.
Islington is the birthplace of many well-known actresses, while many others have called the borough home later in life. But what sort of on-screen mothers have these actresses played?
Gillian Anderson
American actress Gillian Anderson, who has reportedly lived in Islington since 2002, is best known for playing FBI agent Dana Scully in sci-fi show The X-Files and more recently British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Netflix’s The Crown. Anderson and has starred in a number of UK-based shows including Sex Education in which she plays Jean Milburn, mother to awkward teen Otis Milburn.
Jean Milburn is a sex therapist. If you hadn’t already assumed that having a sex therapist for a mum would be hugely embarrasing, then Jean is here to prove it. She is grossly interested in her son’s personal life, ensuring that he always knows that she is available to chat about anything. Otis finds the whole thing to be way too intrusive, and (shockingly!) doesn’t want to speak with his mum about his wet dreams. In season two, we cringe as Jean does an assembly on sexual health at Otis’ own school.
Despite being fairly overbearing, Jean shows us how a modern-day mother’s relationship with her son can exist outside the bounds of a traditional and secretive mother-son relationship. Jean shows us that honesty is the best policy – in a time of need, there’s nobody Otis would rather turn to than his dear old mum.
Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is best-known for her role as dark witch Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter franchise. Bonham Carter, who was born and lives in Islington, most recently starred in the 2020 film Enola Holmes where she played Eudoria, the mother of famous Baker Street detective Sherlock Holmes, his brother Mycroft and his younger sister Enola.
As a progressive mother, Eudoria raises Enola to be a strong willed, independent freethinker. Eudoria teaches her daughter martial arts, science and chess – skills seldom taught to girls in the 1880s. Despite not actually seeing too much of Eudoria in the film, Enola is able to set out on her quest and fend for herself thanks to all that her mother taught her. Eudoria is known to be fighting for women’s suffrage throughout the film, with a particular focus on the 1884 Parliamentary Reform Act which continued to deny women’s right to vote.
recently played the mother of Sherlock Holmes (Creative Commons: Made in Hollywood)
Natalie Cassidy
Born in Islington, Natalie Cassidy is a long-time regular of the British soap EastEnders. Joining the cast in 1993, Cassidy was cast as the one and only Sonia Fowler.
Becoming a mother at a young age, Sonia gives up her daughter Rebecca (later known as Bex) for adoption. Eventually ending up back in one another’s lives, Sonia and Bex’s mother-daughter relationship is tumultuous, with one storyline seeing Sonia dating her daughter’s teacher, with whom Bex has also kissed.
A later storyline in which Bex is overwhelmed by the prospect of going to Oxford University sees these two plots have a big impact on Sonia’s daughter, who eventually attempts suicide. After Bex’s recovery, she decides to go travelling. Sonia is initially unhappy about this but teaches us a vital trait of motherhood: trust. We see Sonia do the hardest thing a mother has to do – let her child leave the nest, and accept that she has to pave her own way in life.
Ultimately the relationship is very up and down, but this is EastEnders that we’re talking about…
Emma Watson
Emma Watson is best-known for playing Hermoine Granger in the Harry Potter franchise, but since then she has been pursuing more adult ventures. Watson has been known to live in Canonbury when not filming in the USA.
In 2019, Watson played Meg March in the new adaptation of Little Women. Meg is the eldest of the four March sisters, who include Jo, an outspoken, brash dreamer, Beth, the quiet, soft-spoken sister and Amy who as the youngest is often depicted as self-centered and vain.
Meg takes care of her sisters much like a second mother and is depicted as the perfect American 19th century daughter. Meg’s greatest flaw is greed, but we see her continually overcome this, working hard to ensure her simple possessions have real value.
Meg later becomes a mother and a housewife, yet contrary to popular belief she continues to be one of the most hard working March sisters. Meg has been criticised as a character for falling victim to standards of society at the time, but having an ordinary life isn’t anything to scoff at. Not everyone is built to be a Jo March.
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet is a British actress who rose to notoriety after playing Rose in the 1997 classic Titanic. Winslet lived in Islington for over a decade.
In 2004, Winslet starred in the film Finding Neverland where she played Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, widowed mother to four sons who were close friends of J.M.Barrie, writer of the original Peter Pan novel and play. It was said that the family inspired Barrie’s work and he was seen as a father figure to the boys during their childhood.
Llewelyn Davies was a fun mother, taking her sons on numerous adventures to the coast and ensured that they were always cared for physically as well as mentally. She wanted the best for her boys in terms of their education and upbringing but often found this clashed with her desires to reject the upper-class life from which she came. Llewelyn Davies wanted her children to be imaginative and encouraged a relationship with the creative Barrie, though she also wished for them to be grounded in the realities of the adult world.
She was a mother who embodied the ethos: ‘work hard, play hard’.
