The award-winning Irish actress talks about taking her performance in People, Places and Things to the States, being bullied in the theatre, and who writes the best roles for women

Three years ago, Denise Gough nearly gave up the stage. This extraordinarily gifted chameleon actress was not getting enough work to keep herself. Then in 2015 she shot to electrifying prominence playing an actress in rehab in Jeremy Herrin’s National Theatre/Headlong production of Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things. She is now, as she says “shiny”: reprising that role, to acclaim, in New York. Where, in the New Year, she opens in Marianne Elliott’s National Theatre staging of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.

You said you didn’t want to go to New York until you were in an off-Broadway play. How is it?

To do the lead in a massive show and then be part of one of the most beautiful ensembles – this is what dreams are made of. I was photographed by the New Yorker last week and I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s entirely overwhelming. But it’s a bit strange. I’m so tired that I can’t do the New York sights. I sleep for about 10 hours, and during the day I stay around Brooklyn – and order food in. Luckily everything in New York is designed for people who don’t want to do anything for themselves.

I was constantly undermined and humiliated and people were allowed to say quite disgusting things

Has the reaction to People Places and Things been the same as in London?

It’s been more intense here. Last Monday we had this really fancy night which Anna Wintour threw for us – everyone was dressed up to the nines, there were lots of famous people – and on the same day I got a letter from a man who had come to the show with his wife two days before the anniversary of their son’s death from a heroin overdose. He sent me an essay he had written pointing out that the only rock bottom for an addict such as his son is death. I was completely humbled by it. It’s on my wall to remind me of the responsibility I have. In London I met people who were in recovery. People here are sharing stories about people who have died.

How do you feel about the opening of Angels in America?

I am just really glad we’re taking the play home. If we hadn’t taken it to New York it would have been almost shameful – for the Brits to have such a success at their theatre with a play which is basically the American national theatrical anthem.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Denise Gough with Andrew Garfield in Angels in America at the National Theatre earlier this year. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

You’ve been a vocal supporter of equal representation for women on stage. Are things changing?

The biggest thing that has happened over the past few weeks is Weinstein. It just feels that women are empowered by speaking up about something so horrific – and that has an effect on how we present ourselves and look after each other in the industry. This is not women against men. It’s about recognising that when you are in a place of power you have a responsibility to behave in a way that is conducive to people being creative.

Have you been abused by a man – or a woman – in the theatre?

Both – but not sexually. I remember a director coming up really close after a show and whispering: “That was such a sexy performance”, and I thought: I’m going to stay away from you. But it was never really a sexual thing with me. I was this weird little angry young one. I had a bald head: I didn’t seem to appeal in that way. What I did get was: “Don’t fuck with me, missee.”

I was terribly badly bullied by a director. The room he created was deeply misogynistic. I was constantly undermined and humiliated and people were allowed to say quite disgusting things. I did speak up, and the people around him told me: shut up, be careful, he’s just behaving like a child, don’t worry about it. I’d love to bump into him again and see how scared he is at the moment. I feel like sending out emails saying “tick-tock, tick-tock: the time is coming”. I was bullied by a female too. Bullying doesn’t have to be sexual.

Who writes the best parts?

Shakespeare’s women are quite tricky. A lot of the time we are virgins or whores – the people who are going to destroy the men. The Greeks are where I find my women. And Seán O’Casey saw women as the backbone of society. His women are fierce and they speak the truth.

Is there a role you want to play?

Electra. I like to play women who are raging against injustice rather than raging against heartbreak.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘This is a possession of my soul’: Denise Gough, with Nari Blair-Mangat, in People Places and Things at Wyndhams theatre in 2016. Photograph: John Snelling/Getty Images

Didn’t you train as a singer?

I trained as a soprano from about the age of 10 to 15 – and I hated it. You have to be so perfect. On stage I can fall over, have a coughing fit, forget a chunk of a speech – but you can work through that with your team: it can become part of a beautiful performance. If you’re singing in front of loads of people and you have your little hands all clasped and you’re in a velvet dress and you belt out that last note and you don’t hit it – that’s disaster. It makes me too nervous.

How do you get into the character of Emma in People, Places and Things?

I do very little. It’s my job to get fit and healthy – then on stage the thing comes through. But it’s weird what happens. I never had a problem with my voice playing this part. It never had a rasp. But in this version Emma has a croaky voice. When she’s really fucked you can hear the years of using. As soon as she’s clean my voice comes in: she’s not croaky any more. This is a possession of my soul, this fucking job. The other night we had to cut a line about cars driving into crowds of people – because a car had driven into a crowd of people in Manhattan. This play is living and breathing itself.

You’ve been making movies?

I’m doing a children’s film called The Kid Who Would Be King, written by Joe Cornish. It’s like a modern-day Sword in the Stone. And in Colette, with Keira Knightley and Dominic West, I play Mathilde de Morny, who was one of the first women to identify publicly as being a man.

Why do you prefer to be called an actress not an actor?

We fought to be on the stage. We should reclaim that word: I don’t know where it came from, this fucking notion that putting “ess” on the end makes us weak. I would be no less afraid of a lioness than a lion.

• People, Places and Things is at St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, NY, until 3 December. Angels in America is at the Neil Simon theatre, New York, 23 February to 1 July