She was born in Sunderland but raised just down the coast in Peterlee where she was educated at Peterlee Comprehensive. At 14 she joined the local drama group which led to a part in the children’s tv series ‘Quest of Eagles’ and appeared in some television commercials including one as a shop assistant in a ‘Mates’ condom ad and one for Carlsberg Lager. At 17 she auditioned for 3 drama schools and was turned down by all of them but she didn’t mention to them that she was a member of the National Youth Theatre or that she had been on TV. She moved to London at 18 intending to go to art college but a year later still wanting to act she paid for acting lessons to learn the techniques she felt she needed. Only twice she says that she was affected by nerves, the first was when she was taking her driving test, the other was when she was up for a BAFTA Award She’s directed a short film ‘Speed’, about car thieves for Tyne Tees Television.
Gina McKee
Movies
Taj Mahal
One evening, while her parents go out for dinner, 18-year-old Louise, alone in her hotel room at Taj Mahal Mumbai, hears strange noises out in the corridor. Within minutes, she realises that a terrorist attack is underway. Her only connection to the outside world is her cell phone, which allows…
Bodyguard
Bodyguard tells the fictional story of David Budd, a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics stand…
Fun Facts
She was honoured to be asked to narrate the documentary series Premier Passions (1998) as she has supported Sunderland AFC, the team followed in the show, all her life.
Grew up in Peterlee, County Durham.
One of the few performers to have appeared in both Inspector Morse (1987) (Inspector Morse: Service of All the Dead (1987)) and its spin-off series Inspector Lewis (2006) (Inspector Lewis: Old School Ties (2007)).
Quotes
The National Youth Theatre did one very simple but incredible thing for me: it made me realise I had choices.
My instinct is probably one of the strongest assets I've got, workwise.
I was one of those kids who found it difficult to eat anything that looked like an animal.
I think it's nice to be able to make a product, put it out there and let other people decide what they think.
I think I'm very open and friendly and warm.
There's a way of negotiating how you portray your private life publicly that I've never had the skill to do.
There are different definitions of love, and one of the most wonderful definitions of love is to allow somebody to be.
Where I grew up in the North-east, the community there, and the way people relate to one another, goes very deep. But I don't define myself as a Northerner in that I don't live in the North.
Usually I can go for three or four weeks and then I start to bake cakes or make jewellery and I think, 'hang on a minute, I'm obviously bored rigid. I need to get back out there.'
The first time I came to London on my own, I was 15. I was absolutely oblivious to so many things. I had no expectations, no fears. I just came to do a National Youth Theatre season one summer. It was just brilliant.
I've had two instances when I've met journalists face to face and we've had good interviews and I've said, 'We don't have children, by the way,' and then they've written it. I'm not sure what that's about. As misleading facts go, it's not a terrible one but it isn't true - we don't have kids.
I'm extremely self-critical. Although I try not to be ridiculous about it, wearing horsehair shirts and all that. It's a private exercise I don't necessarily share with other people.
I love that, even after jumping through hoops forever, I can still get that buzz, that hook. That's very healthy, but it's bittersweet, too, because if you don't get the part, you have to deal with the disappointment. I don't think I'll ever negotiate those peaks and troughs wholly healthily.
I don't feel comfortable talking about my private life, and some people in my private life don't feel comfortable about me talking about it. So I don't.
Being an actor somehow can be a perverse extension of that feeling we generally all have as children, that feeling of wanting to please. Of course you're looking for affirmation, encouragement.
A distant cousin sent me some genealogy report on my father's side, and it's sort of what I suspected. Coal miners for generations... four or maybe five generations.
(On Our Friends in the North (1996)) We shot the miners' strike scenes around Easington Colliery. It was my first home and my dad's family lived and worked there. The unit base was stationed alongside the high perimeter wall of the pit. Our day started early and as the sun came up I remember standing on the makeup truck and looking over the wall. You could see the recently flattened colliery and out to sea.