They represent two generations of what is arguably Britain’s finest acting dynasty.
But the casual observer would be forgiven for their failure to recognise Dame Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson as they braced themselves against the country’s insufferable cold on Tuesday.
Mother and daughter were seen muttering complaints about the bitter chill currently sweeping the UK in an Instagram video shared by Richardson, 60, as an unvarnished glimpse at their relationship away from red carpets and sound stages.
Captioning the post, she admitted to frequently butting heads with her 88-year old mother, a legendary actress and activist who still attends demonstrations despite being confined to a wheelchair.
She wrote: ‘Instagram vs Reality. A little moment taken over holidays. People have told me that they enjoy our communications – reminds them of their relationships.
‘It’s not always roses, we have huge fights and clash. We approach things differently . We’ve spent an inordinate amount of time together over these past years.
Joely Richardson has drawn attention to the reality of mother-daughter relationships in a video shared with Instagram followers on Tuesday
Redgrave and Richardson (pictured at the BAFTA Awards in 2010) represent two generations of what is arguably Britain’s finest acting dynasty
‘My ma lived with me during covid – often still does. So to intimacy: the good the bad the ugly – the preposterous poignant and hilarious.
‘To you reading this – reality over Instagram?’
Richardson earned critical acclaim playing Lady Chatterley opposite Sean Bean in the 1993 BBC adaptation of D H Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and woman-on-the-verge Julia, who flushes her daughter’s gerbil down the loo in the first episode of Nip/Tuck (in its day, the most watched cable TV show in the US).
She welcomed a daughter, actress Daisy Bevan in 1992 with then-husband, producer Tim Bevan, yet behind-the-scenes suffered with multiple miscarriages as the couple tried to expand their family. They divorced in 2001.
In 2009, Richardson lost her beloved sister Natasha in a skiing accident, which prompted her to cut down on her acting to spend time supporting her nephews Micheál and Daniel, Natasha’s children by her husband Liam Neeson, in New York.
This prompted a shift to theatre work over television, with Richardson later admitting: ‘It wasn’t a wise choice career-wise to go from mainstream television to doing sort of off-off-Broadway theatre, but that was the stuff I most wanted to do then.’
Reflecting on her fertility struggles and the loss of her sibling, she previously told The Daily Mail: ‘Weirdly, about ten years before Natasha died I had my own personal collapse and then ten years later I was so much stronger.
‘It is ironic, in the age of “me me me”, that the best way out of our own problems is to help someone else with theirs. It just gets you out of bed, it gets you doing the next thing.
Richardson and her actress mother Dame Vanessa Redgrave seen are muttering complaints about the bitter chill currently sweeping the UK in her latest post
Captioning her latest social media post, Richardson admitted to frequently butting heads with her 88-year old mother
Redgrave, a keen activist, still attends demonstrations despite being confined to a wheelchair
‘People say to me, “Do you act for your sister?” Of course I don’t do things like that. No. But have I tried to be there for my mother and for Natasha’s boys? Yes, I have.’
Redgrave’s career stretches back to the 1950s, with the actress famed for her starring roles in Murder On The Orient Express, The Charge Of The Light Brigade and Mary, Queen Of Scots.
Both Richardson and her late sister are her children with film and theatre director Tony Richardson, her first husband and a central figure in British New Wave cinema in the 1950s and ’60s.
They divorced in 1967 after it emerged he had been having an affair with the French actress Jeanne Moreau.
Both Richardson (right) and her late sister Natasha (left) are Dame Vanessa’s children with film and theatre director Tony Richardson, her first husband
Richardson earned critical acclaim playing Lady Chatterley opposite Sean Bean in the 1993 BBC adaptation of D H Lawrence’s novel
British actress Dame Vanessa Redgrave and her husband, the Italian actor Franco Nero
The on-off couple welcomed son Carlo Gabriel Redgrave Sparanero out of wedlock in 1969
Redgrave was also romantically involved with former James Bond star Timothy Dalton, so, before marrying legendary Italian actor Franco Nero – arguably the great love of her life – in 2006.
She and Nero met in the 1960s when they were co-stars in the big screen adaptation of the musical Camelot, with Redgrave as Guinevere alongside Richard Harris’s King Arthur. Nero played Sir Lancelot.
The on-off couple welcomed son Carlo Gabriel Redgrave Sparanero out of wedlock in 1969.
Dame Vanessa was one of Britain’s biggest stars at the time and her decision to have a baby with her Italian film star lover was considered a scandal that provoked widespread debate about the nation’s morals.
