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Nia Roberts is one of Wales’ most celebrated actors. Her stage and screen work include roles in Fondue, Rhyw a Deinosors, Sunburn, Score and Border Café, and she has also had starring roles in feature films including Lois, for which she won a BAFTA, and Solomon and Gaenor, which was nominated for an Oscar. She is currently preparing for her role in Daniel Evans’ stage production of the Saunders Lewis play, Esther.
Do you dream about clothes sometimes?
Yes, sometimes, although I find myself daydreaming about them more. If I’ve got something special coming up, I often daydream about what I’d like to buy, or how I can wear something I’ve already got a bit differently, or what I would buy if money was no object.
When I was young we had a dressing up closet in the bedroom filled with a lot of my mum’s old clothes from the fifties, and mum would bring things back for us as well, from various different places, so we just used to love dressing up in the house all the time, and I think that’s where it started.
What’s your idea of dressing up now then, what’s your style?
I like to mix the old and the new. I like buying vintage things because there’s a history to them that makes them all the more special to me, just thinking about the life these clothes have had, that fascinates me.
Nia on the red dress...
I won a BAFTA one year – for Lois in 2000 – and I wore this dress. Originally it didn’t have a skirt underneath, but mum found this old fifties skirt.
Nia on the Oscars...
Solomon and Gaenor was nominated for an Oscar in 2000, and I wore this dress to the ceremony. I love this dress. The whole Oscars thing was mad. I had a stylist, and all these people offering me dresses and bags and shoes. In the end I went for this Jenny Packham dress, and wore £40,000 worth of Asprey and Garrard diamonds. It was an experience, let’s put it that way. And Mr Asprey also lent me a Judith Lieber bag worth about £3,000, but on the morning of the Oscars I woke up and saw the bag and thought, ’that bag is horrible, I really don’t like that bag', so I phoned Mr Asprey to let him know, and he couldn’t believe his ears!
- Bob nos Fercher 20:25