Georgina Rylance

Kensington-based actress Georgina Rylance on love, life and the perfect place to cosy up in Notting Hill this Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is looming and the pretty actress Georgina Rylance is undecided as to the most romantic restaurant in Notting Hill. ‘Beach Blanket Babylon is unusual in that it spirals around and has fun coloured glass with cosy seats,’ she chirps in her clipped, polished voice, recommending their Bloody Marys.

Just down the road in Kensington is Launceston Place. ‘There is a particularly romantic table there. As you walk in the door, it’s in the corner on the left. You can sit at an angle so you’re not opposite each other. But then there is First Floor [where she is being photographed for Grove’s shoot], which is rustically romantic with chandeliers and masses of candles. It’s very shabby chic and calm, not one of those places that you feel that you have to really dress up and sit up straight. You can go in a pretty frock and heels or you can dress down in jeans.’

Not that the 31-year-old, who was born in Ladbroke Grove, need fret about her appearance. As we catch up, she is having her fine hair tweaked and twirled by Martyn Gayle at lookfantastic on Westbourne Grove. She seems ethereal in grey skinny jeans, H&M white silk top and riding boots from Hobbs; her petite frame drowning under a vast green Uniqlo jumper and suede hat, she looks model-esque.

She must have appeared equally charming when hiding under a floppy maroon bonnet in a pub on Portobello Road when she was 18, it was there a model scout spotted her in the mayhem that was Notting Hill Carnival. ‘I was blowing a whistle that hung around my neck. This woman came up to me and asked if I wanted to model. All my friends started laughing, as did I,’ she grins flashing gleaming, white teeth.

Hers was a short-lived modelling career culminating in a Coca-Cola commercial. ‘I was awful at it. I thought the modelling would be a way into acting. I didn’t have any family or friends in the acting business and didn’t know where to start.’ Instead of pursuing her modelling, she read politics and publishing at Oxford Brookes University and later studied at LAMDA.

For such a sweet-natured and well-spoken girl, it is paradoxical that Georgina’s roles to date, have been mostly tragic and violent. She played Rachel Kelly, Dr David Kelly’s daughter in The Government Inspector for Channel 4 and was the leading role in the Granada TV production of Poirot: The Mystery of the Blue Train.

In 7 Seconds, she gets burned with cigarettes, doused in petrol and beaten up, (‘My mother would rather watch me naked than getting tortured’), and starring opposite Nick Moran in Puritan, she played Ann, a woman who murders her sadistic husband after an ardent love affair with an alcoholic medium. Most recently, the actress starred as a covert operative reporter in Conspiracy Theory, however, Georgina is hoping for more light-hearted roles in the future. ‘I actually write comedy but I just seem to get these dramatic roles.’

When not learning her lines, Georgina can usually be found at The Electric. She is effusive about the grand classics when prominent actors, directors, musicians and fashion designers speak about the effect cinema has on them. As a drama student, the Gate Theatre enchanted her. ‘My boyfriend-at-the-time was a director there so I would go to rehearse my speeches for school.’ The Coronet Cinema, put on the map by a scene in Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant’s film Notting Hill, is her Tuesday hotspot when tickets are half price.

‘Obviously I like Portobello Market, doesn’t everybody? But I’ll avoid it on Saturdays.’ A wisened local, she’ll dart past the crowds flocking around the antique shops and hotfoot it further down to the more bohemian end of Westbourne Park Road where she feasts on ‘takeaway food from the holes in the walls’. She has just snaffled a fur jacket from a market stall (‘It’s terribly un-PC but a classic with bracelet sleeves, I love it.’) Georgina trails the vintage rails in Rellik and fills her make-up bag at Screenface Professional Cosmetics just off Westbourne Park Road. It is a shop for the film industry selling film and stage make-up for make-up artists. ‘They have fantastic brushes that are reasonable and a great concealer palette,’ she divulges.

Like many Hillbillies, Georgina is infuriated by the congestion charge and saddened by the changing face of Portobello. ‘Why would you want to shop in a congestion zone if to get there, it costs £8 and then £4 to park. That is enough for lunch with a girlfriend.’
Childhood memories of Portobello as a quaint little village with its cornucopia of boutiques are being eradicated. Goliath-size chains are taking over due to the borough’s steeply rising commercial rents. Gone is her ‘lovely little grocery store’ after being usurped by a mini Tesco. ‘It’s a shame; I would definitely go back to a shop or restaurant if they were like, “hi, how are you?” rather than going to a chain and seeing a stranger every time.’
A friendly face can be found in The Travel Bookshop, which Georgina loves. In fact, she loves travel and travel books. ‘I am like my father [a circuit judge] and go around everywhere with a guidebook. I’m like, “ok, we’re going to this church, this museum and this restaurant.” I don’t wing it,’ she teases.

Last year, she spent a month in the Antarctic; next on her agenda are Toronto, Marrakech and Vietnam. By her side on these jaunts is her Canadian doctor boyfriend of a year and a half, Greg Bailey. At the mention of his name, she blushes coquettishly. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she gushes, ‘I met Greg at a party in Los Angeles. I had just broken up with someone who was not very nice and I was not looking for a relationship.’ She flew home to London; he chased her across the Atlantic. They currently live in Knightsbridge but plan to return to Notting Hill.

So, in between auditions, she has been nesting. ‘I’ve been cooking like crazy on our Aga.’ Their Halloween dinner saw the house covered in cobwebs and bloody footprints. For days, she was baking – making bread, peppermint creams and chocolate truffles from scratch. ‘My friends all say, either I need to get another job or I need kids.’ She laughs and brazenly admits her broodiness and inclination to settle down.

This month, while builders work on their flat, Greg and Georgina have decamped to the comically picturesque village of Burford in the Cotswolds. ‘The house is so cool, it’s got oak panels.’ We joke that it is a desperately romantic part of the world where she could star in her own longed-for Richard Curtis rom-com. With a high-pitched giggle, her eyes light up and she squeals, ‘We’ll just have to wait and see what happens this Valentine’s Day.’
By Annie Deakin

Credits:
Georgina Rylance photographed by Victoria Dawe at First Floor Private Dining Rooms (186 Portobello Road, W11); Hair and make-up by Martyn Gayle at lookfantastic (102 Westbourne Grove, W11); dress by 0ne (30 Ledbury Road, W11)