Call the Midwife Star Spills On Next Season And Why She's 'Never The Lead'

Some actors chase the spotlight. Georgie Glen is the one quietly holding the whole thing together. Speaking over Zoom from her home in Suffolk, she is exactly the sort of wry, grounded pro you hope she would be — and yes, she really does prefer being the glue rather than the headliner.

"I am never the lead. I think I am a good supporting actor and there is a real place for that."

The squeamish pathologist on Ridley (and the mannequin audition)

Glen is currently on Ridley (ITVX) as forensic pathologist Dr Wendy Newstone — a fun twist, given she admits she is squeamish. To build the character, she did not trawl crime-scene videos; she read Richard Shepherd's memoir Unnatural Causes. Shepherd, one of the first pathologists to arrive after the Hungerford shooting, writes with a clinical calm that helped her find Wendy's professional switch.

This is not her first brush with TV forensics. She once turned up on Silent Witness — as a victim. She laughs about being murdered almost immediately, but if your idea of a perfect work day is lying in an orchard, that gig delivered.

Her Ridley audition story is gloriously inside baseball: she taped herself examining a mannequin on a table. It worked. She got the job, then had to learn how to act in scrubs, a hairnet and a hood. Costume designer Claire Lynch gave her some stylish lifelines for non-lab scenes — think sleek clothes, glasses and ankle boots — so Wendy did not live entirely in surgical teal.

From Blue Peter badges to book design to the stage

Glen grew up in Helensburgh on the Clyde, where she would make things and send them to Blue Peter. Thanks to editor Biddy Baxter, she collected four Blue Peter badges and some prized reply letters — kid catnip, basically.

After Glasgow School of Art, she took her portfolio to London and landed a graphic design job at Thames & Hudson. At the interview she mentioned she could play alto sax and tap dance, which they presumably filed under 'unexpected bonus'. Five years later, she traded the layout pad for a stage.

The Alan Rickman shove

The push came from Alan Rickman. Glen was helping out behind the scenes at the Questors Theatre when he turned up to critique a play. He had also been a graphic designer before acting, and told her — kindly but firmly — to give it a go. The very next day she applied to drama school and got into Bristol Old Vic, just in time to lean into the character roles she was born to play.

The long game of a character actor

Much of her career has been built one day at a time — a guest spot here, a scene-stealing moment there. She admits to occasionally envying the actors who leave with a next-day call sheet. Waterloo Road was the first job that felt properly regular. The Crown was the opposite of calm: she calls her first day, playing Diana Spencer's grandmother, terrifying.

Call the Midwife, costumes, and the joy of getting it made for you

Call the Midwife keeps her busy through November as Miss Higgins. Period shows, she says, do half the work for you — if the clothes click, the character does too. Angels in London made her a set of suits that fit 'like a glove', which is a game-changer for any actor. In a detail only costume nerds talk about, when a piece is made for you, your name is sewn inside. So when those suits get rented in years to come, they will always read Miss Higgins.

She gives huge credit to writer Heidi Thomas for making these characters stick, and she is frank about visibility: women of a certain age are usually the token oldie. The on-screen friendship between Miss Higgins and Linda Bassett's Nurse Crane works, she thinks, because the characters come from different worlds and meet in the middle like real people do.

Comedy first, then everywhere

Surprise: her first TV work was in sketch shows with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. More recently, she has popped up with Julia Davis and Daisy May Cooper. Off the clock, she is hooked on Slow Horses and 'Dept Q'.

She also loves Radio 4, has done stints with Radio Rep as a voice actor, and talks about radio like it is a secret garden most of us forget to visit.

The team sport of it all

Glen is almost allergic to self-mythologizing. She describes acting as one tiny piece of a huge machine that has been grinding away for months before you walk on set. Your job, as she puts it, is to honour the work already done. Current and notable:

• Dr Wendy Newstone on Ridley (ITVX);
• Miss Higgins on Call the Midwife (filming through November);
• Diana Spencer's grandmother on The Crown;
• Waterloo Road;
• an early-victim turn on Silent Witness;
• sketch work with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse;
• later collaborations with Julia Davis and Daisy May Cooper.

She says she is not a lead. Fine. But when Georgie Glen shows up, the scene relaxes. The show gets better. The world feels lived in. That is a star, even if the billing pretends otherwise.