Ophelia Lovibond Talks ‘Tommy’s Honour’, Co-Star Jack Lowden [Video Exclusive]

Ophelia Lovibond on ‘Tommy’s Honor,’ Jack Lowden by Uinterview

Behind every strong man there is a stronger woman. Or so goes the old adage. And in Tommy’s Honour, the new film about the creation of professional golf, Ophelia Lovibond says it rings just as true.

Ophelia Lovibond Video: Exclusive Interview

Lovibond plays Meg Drinnen, the wife of the Tommy Morris (Jack Lowden), the first man to pursue, what is now considered, professional golf. The true story takes place in the mid-to-late 1800’s, a time when women were expected to be nothing more than obeying wives and mothers. But Meg chooses, very bravely, to live her life differently.

“Her attitude was just completely different,” Lovibond told uInterview exclusively.

“When I was researching Meg for the role, I found a lot of parish notices from local parishes that said she was really very strident and outspoken. Traditionally, she would have been chided for that but they actually celebrated it. She never really got any kind of retribution for that because she was firm but polite.”

This sort of balance is what attracted the real life Tommy to Meg in the first place, Lovibond believes. Additionally, both characters came from working class families and bonded over their place in the social hierarchy.

“She was never this cowed individual in front of aristocracy or in front of her supposed superiors. She just thought of them as other people and I think that [Tommy] responded to that because he shared that insubordination, as it was seen,” said Lovibond. “It wasn’t common to see that in a woman in that kind of, low, working class, to stand her ground and not be spoken to in a way that she didn’t like.”

While both characters shared a deep connection, Lovibond and Lowden were only meeting for the first time when the film began to shoot. Despite a cursory introduction, the on-screen couple found working together to be quite a joy.

“I actually first met Jack [Lowden] on the first day of filming and the first scene was our wedding,” Lovibond recalled. “So that was quite weird because we literally shook hands and then the scene started to be directed.”

Nonetheless, it worked.

“I think there was a very easy report there that we think made shooting the movie really fun. There was a lot of mucking about and not taking ourselves too seriously.”