Before her death, actor Helen McCrory repeatedly encouraged her teenage children to be courageous and not be sad about her death, her husband, Damian Lewis, said.
In a moving tribute to the Peaky Blinders star, Lewis said: “She left our beautiful children, Manon and Gully, too early, but they are prepared for life.”
Lewis wrote in the Sunday Times: ‘She encouraged us to be courageous and not to be afraid. While she repeatedly told the children, “Do not be sad, because even though I am going to sniff it, I have lived the life I wanted.” ‘
McCrory, who was also known for her roles in the films The Queen, The Special Relationship and the Harry Potter franchise, died of cancer on Friday at the age of 52. She swore to her friends about the disease when she underwent treatment. to Carrie Cracknell, who directed McCrory in a 2014 production of Medea.
Lewis, himself an actor, admitted that an ‘outburst of sadness and shock’ liked her condition.
He noted that the grief over McCrory had not been overshadowed by the funeral of Prince Philip. “On a weekend in which the newspapers will rightly pay their respects to the Duke of Edinburgh, thousands of other people around the world remember m ‘Duchess, my Little One, royals in their own right.’
Lewis said he wants to focus on his wife’s professional and personal accomplishments. “Helen was an even more brilliant person than she was an actress,” he said, describing her as a “meteor in our lives.”
Lewis wrote: “Her nickname for many was Dame Helen (excuse me, Dame Helen), and although we will now never know if it would have become a reality, I think in secret, we do know.”
Lewis said McCrory was “very proud to be an artist, an actress”. He said she is most proud of her work on stage. McCrory said “doing theater is what made my heart sing,” Lewis recalls.
Sam Mendes, who directed McCrory in an award-winning production of Uncle Vanya, praised her ‘explosive energy’ on stage. Mendes wrote in the Guardian that he had asked McCrory to play the role of Sonya, but she had other ideas.
“She told me she had to play Yelena – the other young female role – and then went on for the next hour to tell me exactly why. She leaves the room with the part. It has never happened to me or since … She was clearly already halfway to delivering an excellent performance, I simply had to get out of the way and let her complete the task. Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation. ‘
Lewis recalled that actor Lauren Bacall wrongly praised her for performing Sonya, played by Emily Watson, after the production in New York. When Bacall apologized for the mistake, McCrory said, “That’s fine, Mrs Hepburn, I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” Lewis added: ‘Lauren Bacall throws her head back and laughs and roars. “You’re my kind of lady, let’s go out.” And they went into the night. ‘
Lewis said that in the weeks before her death, his wife spoke about his future relationships with women, saying that ‘love is not possessive’.
“She told us from her bed, ‘I want Daddy to have girlfriends, many of them, you should all love again, love is not possessive, but you know, Damian, at least try to get through the funeral. without engulfing anyone. , ‘”he said.