Emily Mortimer, star of the upcoming Good Posture, took Grazia on a guided tour of her wardrobe, talking about feeling frumpy, painful shoes and how she'd happily stand for five hours if it meant she could wear another Valentino dress.
Talking about the emerald Yves Saint Laurent dress she wore to a production of Puccini's Madame Butterfly at the Met Opera, she says: 'I can’t remember whether I just had my second kid or my first kid. I remember thinking how fat I was and now I’m looking at it thinking, Oh my God, I was so not fat, I wish I was that fat now! I’m so much fatter. It’s so funny, you look at yourself, you think I was really quite pretty and at the time I just felt hideous.'
Like pretty much every other woman in the UK, Mortimer remembers an evening blighted by a pair of beautiful but deeply uncomfortable shoes, saying: 'Those were the shoes that just made me cry. This is at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. I mean I was in terrible, terrible pain - I mean they were beautiful shoes but they were miserable to wear so I ended up taking them off and I was much happier then.'
Opening up about the difference between her expectations and the reality of fancy parties, Mortimer says: 'If you’re told when you were a little girl, you’re going to one day go to the Vanity Fair Oscar party and walk down the red carpet and you’ll be given a dress with diamonds and driven there by a chauffeur or whatever, you would think, Oh my God, I mean this is the best night of my entire life by many miles. And then of course you get there and it just so isn’t.'
Sounds like she might share her feelings about smart parties with the character she plays in Good Posture, who is a high-profile recluse.
Good Posture opens 4 October.