Joanna Lumley has opened up on her secrets to a long-lasting marriage, admitting that it’s important to not ‘look down’ on your partner.
The actress, 76, candidly praised her ‘brilliant’ and ‘fantastic’ husband, Stephen Barlow, with whom she’s been married to for over 30 years.
Reflecting back on their relationship, she expressed how ‘lucky’ she feels to still be married to him.
Speaking to The Radio Times, Joanna said: ‘I admire my husband. I admire him because he’s brilliant.
‘I think he’s fantastic. I feel lucky to be married to such a brilliant and amazing person.
Grateful: Joanna Lumley has opened up on her secrets to a long-lasting marriage, admitting that it’s important to not ‘look down’ on your partner. Pictured with husband Stephen Barlow in 2016
‘It’s important that you don’t look down on your partner.’
Joanna and Stephen have been happily married since 1986 and live in London, while they also own a home in Scotland.
The actress is mother to son James, known as Jamie, from her previous relationship with photographer Michael Claydon.
Meanwhile, in her new BBC radio show Conversations from a Long Marriage, Joanna plays wife to Roger Allam.
The hit-comedy explores the relationship of a long-married couple who has endured both ups and downs.
Speaking about their chemistry, Joanna said: ‘Maybe our voices match.
‘I’ve always believed that when you see a couple, somehow they have to look right together. But they also have to sound right together.’
Allam agreed. He added that radio producers have said to him that ‘radio drama is more like cinema than theatre, that a mic is the equivalent of a camera’.
Candid: The actress, 76, candidly praised her ‘brilliant’ and ‘fantastic’ husband, Stephen Barlow, with whom she’s been married to for over 30 years
Brilliant: Speaking to The Radio Times , Joanna said: ‘I admire my husband. I admire him because he’s brilliant’
Joanna spent three years as a model at the beginning of her career before starting off as an actress in 1969 with an uncredited role in Some Girls Do.
She went on to star as a Bond Girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1967 and then landed her big break in the 70s TV series The New Avengers.
Joanna then starred in Sapphire and Steel from 1979 and became a household name as Patsy Stone in beloved series Absolutely Fabulous, which kicked off in 1992.
More recently, Joanna opened up and said that women used to be ‘tougher’ and claimed it is the new ‘fashion’ for people to claim they are a ‘victim’.
Looking back: Reflecting back on her early modelling days, Joanna (pictured in 1970) said women looked after themselves and were ‘tough’ as she spoke about sexism and harassment
The actress candidly voiced her opinions on the #MeToo movement and claimed it is ‘mad’ that people are now calling themselves ‘victims’.
Reflecting back on her early modelling days, she said women looked after themselves and were ‘tough’ back then as she spoke about sexism and harassment.
She told Prospect Magazine: ‘If someone whistled at you in the street, it didn’t matter, if someone was groping, we slapped their hands.
Fame: Joanna became a household name as Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, which kicked off in 1992 (pictured with Jennifer Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous The Movie in 2016)
‘We were quite tough and looked after ourselves… the new fashion is to be a victim, a victim of something. It’s pathetic, we have gone mad.’
Elsewhere, Joanna returned to her guest role in Motherland for a much-anticipated Christmas special.
The BBC2 comedy has earned a legion of fans since it first aired in 2016, taking a comical look at the jealousies, rivalries and insecurities among a group of mothers at primary school.
Read the full Interview with Joanna in the Radio Times out now.
Struggles: But Joanna recently revealed that she was broke even when she became well-known as Purdey in The New Avengers