Vicky McClure has my complete support for the way she handled the motherhood question

By Nina Steele 

I have to confess that I didn’t know Vicky McClure until the much acclaimed BBC drama ‘The Replacement’, and as the many reviews and comments have pointed out, she is a very talented actress. No one does the evil look as well as she does. My goodness, the woman can be terrifying! Some people have joked that some scenes in the final episode were so frightening they nearly hid behind their sofas. I have to admit that I was debating until the last minute, whether or not I was going to watch it, for the simple reason that I found the whole storyline a bit over the top. But of course I did watch it and as expected, it didn’t disappoint.

As one of the stars of the show (the other one being Morven Christie), Vicky McClure has become a household name. And as strange as this may sound, just because she played a child obsessed woman in the show, she is facing questions about her private life and whether or not she is planning on having children. Here we go again, was my reaction. Indeed, if past examples are anything to go by, it is always women who have to put up with this type of intrusion.

Here we have a highly talented actress having to defend herself for not being a mother, when male actors far older than she is (she is 33) are never asked that question. No wonder she was so blunt in her reply. She is quoted as saying: “If this was a bloke that would never happen. It’s none of your bloody business”.

Now that her career has taken off in a big way, there will inevitably be an increased interest in her private life, and even though I am absolutely thrilled at the way she has handled the situation this time around, I won’t hold my breath that it won’t happen again.

It is a fact that pregnant celebrities have become big news stories, and as I have written before, no day goes by these days, without stories of celebrity pregnancies in tabloid newspapers. The recent announcements by a few very high profile celebrities that they were expecting twins, has been manna from heaven for the tabloids. Goodness knows what will be next. So long as there remains an appetite for such stories, actresses and female celebrities in general, will continue to be asked about motherhood at every opportunity.