Harry Potter star bares all for Vogue at 82
Harry Potter actress Miriam Margolyes has graced the cover of British Vogue and bared all for a shoot with the publication, stripping down to share her thoughts on life, love, career, and everything in between.
It was an important step for Miriam - best known for her role as Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter and her BAFTA-winning performance in The Age of Innocence - who confessed during her interview for the magazine’s Pride issue that “I like my face. I think my face is kind and warm and open and smiley.
“But I hate my body. I hate [having] big tits, a drooping belly, and little twisted legs.
“I’m not thrilled with that. But you can just make the best of it. You have to. You do the best you can.”
Miriam’s beaming smile was front and centre in the ‘nude’ shot, which saw the 82-year-old star sitting at a table and dressed only in a pearl necklace, an array of carefully arranged desserts in the foreground to cover her.
A self-confessed “bit of a child” who “can’t resist naughtiness”, Miriam came armed with her wit and humour as she opened up about her life - from her feelings about her own body, to her experience as a Jewish lesbian since coming out as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community in 1966.
“I never had any shame about being gay or anything really,” she told Vogue’s Chris Godfrey. “I knew it wasn’t criminal because it was me. I couldn’t be criminal.”
As Miriam confessed, however, her parents hadn’t quite seen it from the same perspective. Her mother, she explained, had made her swear on the Torah that she wouldn’t have sex with a woman again, and that she has regrets about revealing that part of herself to them.
Both of her parents have since passed away - her mother of a stroke just months after Miriam came out - and while Miriam doesn’t think they ever came to accept her sexuality, she never stopped loving either of them.
She went on to share that she and her partner of 54 years, Heather, have a civil partnership but don’t live together - and never have.
“We were able to lead our lives without diminishing them,” she said. “I didn’t want her to have to give up anything. And I didn’t want to give up anything.
“I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it too. And so far, it’s worked.”
“Gay people have the luck to be able to fashion the relationship they want,” she added. “It’s much more flexible for us.”
And as for why Miriam is so open when it comes to topics others might shy away from, she had a simple answer in store, explaining that “it’s a strong position if you’re not afraid to be who you are.
“We’re all so insecure. People are frightened such a lot of the time and what I’ve always tried to do is to make people feel more relaxed, make people feel good about themselves, and just try and lessen the torture for people a bit.”
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