'Emma always had this plan... but not me'

Brenda Blethyn on new role

- BY NICOLA METHVEN

VERA star Brenda Blethyn swaps an old mac and windswept cliffs for smart corridors of power in her new role.

After 14 years as detective Vera Stanhope, Brenda is playing rags-to-riches Emma Harte in A Woman of Substance. But she is a world apart from Barbara Taylor Bradford’s revenge-driven character, who rises from penniless Yorkshire maid in the early 1900s to powerful New York businesswoman in the 1970s.

Brenda, 80, says: “Emma Harte always had this plan with a capital P. I've never had a plan. I’m devoid of ambition, always have been.”