Beautiful English actress Polly Walker has a growing fan base in the United States, who delight in her weekly performance in the HBO series "Rome" as Atia, the most cunning and conniving female lead to grace the screen in a long time.
Atia -played by Polly Walker
courtesy of HBO
Americans first took note of the gorgeous redhead back in "Patriot Games" with Harrison Ford. She played Annette, a sultry, cold blooded IRA terrorist who used seduction as part of her arsenal of weapons.
Now as Atia, audiences are riveted by her spot on performance as a Roman patrician woman who uses men as bargaining chips and bestows sexual charms as favors for services rendered.
Whether it is Timon, her Jewish horseman who dotes on her as a quasi-house husband and overseer of her domecile, or the lusty and common Mark Antony, played brilliantly by James Purefoy, another up and comer actor for American audiences, she spits out lines with a veracity and humorously catty sneer. "Perfume, advice..whatever else can I expect?" Atia says to Timon after giving him a sniff.
The latest season of "Rome" is darker and full of dramatic turns. Atia is a cat, and her son (played brilliantly by Max Pirkis) is bequeathed the power of Rome but her lover Anthony has his eye on that title too. Then there is the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra thrown in the mix. The season will definitely go out with a bang.
"Her situation is much more complex this time, definitely, and I was able to be much more subtle with her, and she had much more grown-up issues to deal with," says Walker, reported by the Buffalo News. Walker received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in the first season.
"She is a survivor and she's definitely trying to work out where the power lies, but through it all she is a good Roman mother. As much as she is in love with Marc Antony, the survival of her child is paramount, I think, the survival of her family."
"I was kind of nervous to go back to her, actually, because I thought I had forgotten how to act or something," she says. "I was intimidated. But it's such a strong role, so it's like riding a bike, really, and Atia became much more multifaceted this time."
The first season of "Rome" has been popular, but not everywhere. While the show has been a hit in the US and Latin markets, the United Kingdom is lagging in fans, perhaps audiences there like their Roman History more in the vein of "I, Claudius" with classic actors Siān Phillips and Derek Jacobi.
"Rome" goes into this second and final season, and will hopefully prove to be a dramatic finale to a series that introduced a slew of British talent to audiences hungry for much more Roman fare with a British accent.
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