SOURCE: Downie, Penny. “Queen Margaret in Henry VI and Richard III.” In Players of Shakespeare 3: Further Essays in Shakespearian Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company, edited by Russell Jackson and Robert Smallwood, pp. 114-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

In the following excerpt, actress Downie describes her interpretation of Queen Margaret for Adrian Noble's production of Richard III in 1988.

Queen Margaret was the biggest Shakespearian role I had ever played—the biggest in emotional range and intensity, in spiritual dimension, in the length of the journey from youth to age taken by the character. I suspect it may well be one of the biggest parts in English drama. It became for me very much a single character over three plays, even though the three Henry VI plays, which were reduced to two, were written rather earlier than Richard III. There are differences, of course; the earlier trilogy...