Joanna Lumley has revealed that she had no problems playing a character with such a "ghastly look" in the new ITV period drama The Making Of A Lady. The Ab Fab star plays the glacial Lady Maria Byrne in the show, the snobbish aunt of wealthy widower Lord James Walderhurst (Linus Roache) - and the character's unpleasant side comes to the fore when her nephew becomes engaged to her maid. "The most sympathetic thing that you could say about Lady Maria Byrne is that she probably wasn't loved as a child," said Joanna. "That might explain why she has absolutely no affection for anybody else and never has had." The actress added that she was happy to forego her usual glamorous look to play the role, which involved having her face powdered with a flour-like substance to achieve the acquired look. "Lady Byrne has grey hair and indistinguishable features. She's at that age where a little bit of rouge and lipstick and mascara would help her enormously," Joanna explained. "But, in those days, if you even touched make up you were considered a trollop. "So, what you might have done is used a swan's down puff, dabbed it in something pretty akin to flour and dabbed it on your face. It's a really ghastly look and one we totally embraced for Lady Byrne." Joanna revealed she had never had a problem with what she described as "ugly roles" - saying that as an acress she could not afford to be self-conscious if she wanted to win decent parts. "And, anyway, " she added, "after playing someone like Delilah Stagg with her woolly hat, buck teeth and glasses in Jam And Jerusalem or Aunt Spiker from James And The Giant Peach, terrible teeth again and the kind of Halloween face that would frighten children, Lady Maria Byrne seems positively beautiful." The series kicks off on ITV1 on Sunday night at 8pm.
