A Towering Talent

Miranda lolloped into most of our lives six years ago as television’s deliciously eccentric Miranda in her eponymous sitcom.

Standing 6ft 1in tall in her stockinged feet, she fell through doorways, galloped on imaginary horses and hissed hilarious asides to the camera. Her joyously unabashed goofiness won our hearts. Since then, she has written a couple of books – the semi-autobiographical Is It Just Me? and The Best Of Miranda, featuring a collection of scripts from the show. She has also displayed her serious acting chops as the aristocratic Chummy in Call The Midwife. And now she is on a big screen near you playing a CIA agent in Spy, the riotous new comedy from Paul Feig, the director of the comedy classic Bridesmaids.

Feig first spotted her in Miranda and cast her as the upper-class British best friend of roly-poly Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy, also playing a CIA agent.

‘There’s definitely a bit of my Miranda character in Nancy,’ Miranda says. ‘She’s trying to get by with life and social conventions, but she goes wrong at every turn. I had a lot of fun playing her, and I loved working with Melissa. She and I didn’t actually meet until we were on set, but I knew from the minute that we shook hands that it was going to work out, and luckily it did. We clicked on the screen and off, and genuinely became friends, which is lovely.’

You’d never confuse Miranda with her TV namesake on this bright morning in Beverly Hills, where we’ve met. Yes, she’s endlessly tall, with a longjawed face and a very nice line in humorous self-deprecatory asides. But she’s also strikingly attractive, dressed today in a flattering olive green top over casual blue jeans, with her sitcom alter ego’s lank mop of hair transformed into a glossy chestnutcoloured bob, big brown eyes and a lovely warm smile that lights her face. And she’s not really in the habit of falling over coat racks.

‘Some people do want me to fall over in the street and be that total idiot in real life,’ she sighs. ‘Particularly the teenagers, because I think they do identify with that character who’s always just feeling like a fish out of water and not really able to cope with life. And it’s lovely that they do, because in many ways that character was the 20-something me, and it’s really nice that they saw that. But then I did grow up and become less like that character, and in the end I did have Miranda grow into herself and get married, which definitely has felt like the end to the sitcom. But she might come back one day, maybe in a film in a few years’ time… Hmm, you’ve got me thinking now!’

She was born in Torquay and raised in Hampshire, the elder daughter of Royal Navy officer Captain David Hart Dyke, CBE, LVO, ADC, and his wife Diana, the daughter of Sir William Tucker Luce, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Aden from 1956 to 1960. Her uncle is Lord Luce, formerly an MP and now a life peer, and her family can trace their ancestry back to the 12th century.


Although her father was badly burnt in the Falklands War – which she has admitted barely registered on her nine-year-old consciousness – she says, happily, that otherwise her childhood was secure and normal.

‘Because Dad was in the Navy he was away a lot, but Mum was always there, we had two cats and I have a lovely sister who is still my best friend. Just a very average middle-class family, and it was lovely.’

When she was about six, she tried to entertain her mother by imitating the headmaster at her primary school. Her mother burst out laughing and Miranda was hooked – she has been making people laugh ever since.

‘And that was very useful when I was at school,’ she says, recalling her gawky teenage years at Downe House, Berkshire, which she attended with her good friend Clare Balding, who was head girl. ‘I was very clumsy at that time; I suddenly became as tall as I am now, but I didn’t realise how far my arms had stretched, so I’d do that’ – she sweeps an elegant arm into space – ‘and bottles would go flying. But because I always wanted to go into comedy I was able to channel it, and use it, in some ways, quite cathartically. It is difficult if you’re tall when you’re growing up – you feel different and that you don’t fit in. But as I get older I realise that I can’t change it, I am who I am and I’ve got to love myself. So now I put my shoulders back and try to be a bit more confident about it. Although I have yet to wear high heels – I haven’t quite braved that yet!’

Although she certainly carries her height with great style, she admits that she is still conscious of it. ‘You can reach things on high shelves, that’s a pro…’ she offers a little uncertainly. ‘But yes, there are also lots of cons – mainly that men are smaller than me, which is irritating, and which they don’t seem to like. And I don’t like it either!’

Single – although she says she would like to be married some day – she lives alone in west London, and says she very much enjoys her solitary time. ‘Although that sounds like I’m sitting doing tapestry from five in the evening, which I hate and which is not the case. What’s great about my job is that it’s incredibly social, and to a great extent you have your family on the set and you have your social life on the set, too. And I do work very hard – I sometimes leave home at five in the morning and get back at nine at night – so believe me, there isn’t much tapestry that gets done! But, yes, I do like being alone – I am an introvert at heart, and since I tend to be “on” from the moment I open the door in the morning, I really like the times when I close the door and catch up with telly and really relax. I need those quiet times.’

She admits, cheerfully, that she is not domestic – ‘Life is about experiences, not things’ – and while she can certainly scrub up with the best of them, neither is she especially interested in clothes. ‘My dress style is comfort before fashion,’ she laughs. ‘I like the kind of smart-casual look that Jennifer Saunders does; jeans and a jacket, I suppose. As far as high fashion goes, I actually know nothing about it at all. I mean, I could sit here and pretend to talk labels with you, but I really wouldn’t know what I’m talking about!’

Diet and exercise? ‘I don’t really think about it. I love my food and I don’t really refuse it much. And I hate the gym! I do a bit of Pilates because I have a bad back, but my main exercise is walking my dog, Peggy, who is a cross between a shih-tzu and a bichon frise – she’s basically just a ball of fluff and is a totally wonderful thing in my life. So I make sure I walk her every day, and that’s about it.’ She stops and thinks. ‘I sound really old, don’t I?’ she concludes, laughing. Not in the least, Miranda; not in the least.

Spy is on general release