Gina McKee admits she's still exploring all the riches contained in Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables which opened on September 10 as Chichester Festival Theatre's final production of Festival 09.
But certainly her first response to the piece was 'incredibly positive', says Gina, who is enjoying her first show at the CFT.
"Nothing is wasted in it," says Gina. "Rattigan is brilliant at bringing together all the elements.
"Every single sentence or conversation propels the character development or the plot.
"His craftsmanship as a writer is excellent, and I think also he can be incredibly entertaining.
"There is a huge amount of wit and humour in the piece as well – and that comes about because he is very true to his characters.
"And he gives each character their own journey and each journey is as important as the others."
Rattigan's exploration of human emotion, set in the dining room of the apparently-genteel Beauregard Private Hotel, near Bournemouth, is made up of two separate stories in two acts, Table By The Window and Table Number Seven, which reveal an undercurrent of guilt and repressed passions.
Gina plays Anne Shankland in the first and Sybil Railton-Bell in the second.
"Anne Shankland is a model.
"She is dealing with many things, but primarily she is dealing with the fact she is getting older and she is finding that incredibly difficult.
"In the second half I am playing the daughter of the character played by Stephanie Cole – Sybil, a very timid, quiet creature who is very much influenced by her mother."
Gina's theatre credits include Ivanov, part of the Donmar at Wyndham's Theatre season and Aristocrats at the National Theatre.
Her film work includes Notting Hill and Atonement, The Lost Prince and Our Friends In The North.
It's a mixing of the media which is fairly common among actors, these days – though she admits she is unusual insofar as she came to the theatre only after success on the screen.
"I am very, very fortunate in that I have been involved in some really brilliant productions.
"I can't plan it. Only very few people can plan their career and even then it is still not absolute. But I have been very lucky.
"The different mediums require different disciplines and give you different rewards…"
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