Olivia Colman: Tyrannosaur made me face the true brutality of domestic violence

The knowledge I gained from survivors enabled me to turn up and say my lines. It also lead me to become a patron of a domestic violence charity· Domestic violence: how services come together to support high risk victims
· Women’s Aid will not stop until domestic violence is beaten

All actors love scripts like the one I received for Paddy Considine’s 2011 film Tyrannosaur. It was complete – it contained everything I needed to know about my character and the story. It did my work for me. I just needed to turn up and say the lines. But I couldn’t. The suffering my character, Hannah, went through had a real world analogue that couldn’t be ignored.

Tyrannosaur is not an ”issues” film. It is not about domestic violence, or poverty, or alcoholism. It is the blistering, heart-rending story of two people finding each other and trying to heal themselves through love. I don’t think I will ever be prouder of any job. But it is not always possible, or responsible, to separate fact from fiction, and Hannah’s story is rooted horribly in a real-world nightmare: that of domestic violence.

Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 21 hours ago.