The actor and co-creator of Doll & Em, who starred alongside Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, talks about becoming a director
The writer, actor and now director Dolly Wells moved to
New York in the summer of 2014, leaving
London, where she was born. It was for family reasons – her husband, who is half-American, missed home – but it coincided with a new phase of her career. That same year, the first season of the much-missed
comedy Doll & Em aired on HBO. She wrote and starred in it with her best friend, Emily Mortimer, and after years as a largely comedy actor, it established her as a writer worthy of serious attention.
Brooklyn gave her the material she needed to make her big-screen directorial debut, Good Posture. “I felt in quite a bit of pain, moving to America, leaving my brothers and sisters, my mum, whatever my identity was,” she says. “Trying to work out if I would be a different person in this country.”