Keeping it fresh

IN 2006, Joyce Vincent’s body was discovered in a bedsit above a bustling shopping centre in north London. She had died three years earlier while wrapping Christmas presents. Nobody had noticed that the 38-year-old was missing until the council came calling for rent arrears.

The strange, sad tale of how a popular, well-liked, urban professional fell through the cracks is recounted in Carol Morley's haunting new documentary, Dreams of a Life. The director's four-year investigation into the bizarre, tragic circumstances of Vincent's death has turned up friends, lovers and colleagues, all of whom recall a bright, bubbly girl with plenty of potential suitors and a flair for looking good.

Their testimonies are made all the more moving by Zawe Ashton’s deft and highly praised performance as Joyce in the film’s re-dramatised vignettes.

“I still don’t know how Carol did it,” says Ashton. “She must have been so deep into the material by the time I came along. But all the direction I was given was completely fresh and inventive and in the moment.”

Ashton’s biographical portrait appears to be studied yet the 27-year-old had not seen footage of the interviews before the shoot; instead Morley provided photographs and a basic biography. It was more than enough for the savvy young actor and playwright to work with. “Carol showed me some photographs and the same timeline of Joyce’s life you see in the film,” recalls Ashton. “It was just an outline – she lived here at such a date and she was working here that year – and some details stood out immediately. The sheer number of different addresses was bizarre.

“The fact that she listed her bank manager as next of kin in a hospital was distressing. There was a sense of dislocation straight away just from scant details.” That same sense of dislocation colours the finished film.

Director Morley untangles a great many biographical threads and explores a fascinating cross section of Joyce's personal relationships. There are dark hints at childhood loss and domestic abuse. There's a history of intense, short-lived involvements. But the more Dreams of a Lifereveals of its protagonist, the more inexplicable her fate becomes. That, says Ashton, is just as it should be.

“What made this freaky sometimes for me was how normal it was. I’m a woman and I’m an actress. I couldn’t be those things if I didn’t know how to compartmentalise things. That’s what Joyce did. Everybody does.

“Everybody puts a brave face on things. And I understand what it’s like when everybody expects you to be a fun girl at parties. Being fun girl isn’t always fun. You can come away from it all feeling very drained and empty. And I can totally see how her friends never spotted that something might be wrong. It’s easy to not talk to someone for a year.

“It’s easy to keep putting a phone call or email off. And when you don’t see someone for a while your first thought isn’t that they’re dead; it’s that they’re probably off having a better time somewhere else.”

Dreams of a Lifewas, she says, the role of a lifetime: "A part that complex just doesn't come along often, or ever, especially not for women. People come up sometimes after screenings and they say something nice and then they say 'yeah, but how does she die really?' They want you to say fallen woman or depressed woman or broken woman. But as you see in the film she didn't drink or smoke. She didn't fit a profile. No matter how many times I've seen the film every time I think I have a fix on her, I'll note something that completely contradicts it, and it all wriggles away. The power of the film for me is that there are things left unanswered."

She feels protective toward her subject, a warmth that hasn’t been lost on Vincent’s friends; “Hearing the words ‘that was my Joyce’ for me, was better than any award, any role, anything you could give me,” says Ashton. “You’ve spent weeks creating this world but it’s their world. When I’ve met her friends at screenings I feel such a strange connection between me and them, who I only knew from photographs before. And there is a connection. It was a really hard film for my parents to watch.”

Is it eerie viewing for her? “Yes. No. And there’s lots of freaky little similarities and synchronicities around me playing Joyce. But this is the first role I’ve had and when I watch it, it’s not like watching me on the screen. It’s at a remove.”

Dreams of a Lifewas a fitting close to 2011, a year when Ashton has been on something of a roll. Last summer, she was a recovering drug addicted WPC working for guv'nors Jason Statham and Paddy Considine in Blitz. BBC's Case Historiesand Laplandhave since beamed her into most homes in western Europe. And then there is Vod, the wildly popular, addled, flunking student heroine of Channel 4's Fresh Meat. "I've had to stop wearing my leather jacket out," says Ashton. "It was too like Vod; I was getting looks on the street. It's really funny — me having the most rebellious character on the show.

“One day I tried to stop the rest of the guys from buying sandwiches because we only had 10 minutes to get back. I wish I was more of a rebel. I’m too nice a girl. I’m just not a lawbreaker at all. I’m not Vod. I’m a law abider.”

Born in Hackney to a Ugandan mother and English dad the former child star of The Demon Headmasterhas already entered her second decade in the "biz". Aged five-and-a-half, she talked her schoolteacher mother into funding drama lessons and soon after hit the CBeebies big time with a role on Jackanory.

A precocious and formidable writing talent, Ashton became the London Poetry Slam champ in her teens. She’s currently writer-in-residence at the Contact Theatre in Manchester and works with Clean Break, a charity that encourages women prisoners to write for theatre.

“The writing came after the acting,” says Ashton. “I wasn’t exactly thinking about writing when I was six. But now the two are inextricably linked. I can’t imagine taking on something now and not having some creative input.” Hollywood has been quick to come courting for the tall, striking Londoner. Ashton will fly over next month for meetings “just to get the ball rolling thing I suppose”.

She admits, though, that under her plainly sunny exterior – you should hear her infectious, booming laugh – lurks an actor who is probably happier probing mental illness and the prison system.

“If I’m going to put in the time and do the work then I really want to put in the time. It’s no fun if you aren’t pushing yourself and picking away at things.”