Harriet Walter Believes She Was Not Cut Out to Have Children

Harriet Walter DBE is one of the most successful British actresses.

She has been on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she won an Olivier Award and was nominated for a Tony, five Emmys, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In recognition of her contributions to drama, Walter was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2011.

Like her professional life, she has been content with her personal one as well. She has been married to her husband, Guy Paul, since 2011.

However, she does not have any children — and she has no regrets about it.

Harriet Walter on not having children

Walter has talked about not having any children multiple times. For instance, in April 2023, she wrote to the Sunday Times about choosing not to have kids.

She considered if her lack of experience as a mother should hinder her from portraying one on TV. She said this about her portraying Lady Caroline Collingwood in the HBO series Succession.

At the same time, she also noted that she never felt like she was meant to be a mother. “I never had children – does that mean I can’t play Lady Caroline? I sometimes wonder if I could bring something else to the part if I had. The fact is I never felt cut out for it,” she wrote.

She noted how there are no rules for happiness, saying that some individuals might be childless and blissfully happy, while others who are married with children can be sad.

She said, “I have friends with children who have been in long marriages and they’re unhappy. I have friends with no children, no partner and they’re blissfully happy. There are no rules.”

She also talked about not having any children with British Vogue (via The Standard) in October 2023. She pointed out that she sometimes wonders if she was being selfish for not having any children.

“I punish myself and think, ‘Gosh, am I very selfish because I’ve traveled light-footedly through life?” she said. “I do feel weird sometimes that I haven’t actually done that thing of giving birth.

She added, “Here I am, at the end of my life, and I never did that? That’s gonna make you feel very old and grey.”

Regardless of the worries and concerns she sometimes gets, Walter is happy with the fact that she does not have any kids. In fact, she and her husband have a happy marriage despite them not having any children.

Harriet Walter and her husband, Guy Paul, do not have any children. (Source: )

Talking about her husband, Walter wrote in the Sunday Times that she fell in love with her husband, Guy Paul, when she was in her late 50s. 

Like Walter, Paul is also an actor. He was born September 12, 1949, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. He is best recognized for his roles in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), and The Fifth Estate (2013). 

Before Paul, she was engaged to actor Peter Blythe. Walter and Blythe were in a relationship from 1996 until his death from lung cancer in 2004.

The actress revealed that she wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to love again after Blythe’s death. However, she finally fell for Paul while performing in a play, and their romance blossomed backstage. 

Walter met Paul five years after Blythe’s death, and she has been married to Paul since 2011. At the time of their marriage, she was 60 years old.

As of 2023, the two have been happily married for 13 years, despite having no children.

Harriet Walter’s career

Walter was born in London, England on September 24, 1950. She is Sir Christopher Lee’s niece and the daughter of his older sister, Xandra Lee.

On her father’s side, Walter is a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, the founder of The Times. As a child, she attended Cranborne Chase School. 

After declining a university degree, she was turned down by five acting schools before being accepted into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Following her studies, she obtained early experience with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, Paines Plough Touring, and the Duke’s Playhouse in Lancaster.

Walter began her career in the entertainment industry with Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) productions, where he worked on projects like Nicholas Nickleby, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Castle, A Question of Geography, Twelfth Night, Three Sisters, The Duchess of Malfi, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and Death of a Salesman (2015).

She made her Broadway debut in a production of William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well in 1983. She returned to Broadway with Mary Stuart, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play.

She repeated her roles as Brutus in Julius Caesar, the title character in Henry IV, and Prospero in The Tempest as part of an all-female Shakespeare trilogy in 2016.

Walter was appointed a Royal Society of Chemistry associate artist in 1987. Other theatrical credits include Three Birds Alighting in a Field, Arcadia, Hedda Gabler, Ivanov, and Mary Stuart.

Walter’s filmography includes Sense and Sensibility, Bedrooms and Hallways, The Governess, Onegin, Villa des Roses, and Bright Young Things. She played Harriet Vane in three episodes of the BBC’s A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery in 1987, and Detective Inspector Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK from 2009 to 2012. 

Other television credits include Waking the Dead, Little Dorrit, A Short Stay in Switzerland, and Lady Shackleton in four episodes of Downton Abbey. Walter portrayed Clementine Churchill in the Netflix series The Crown in 2016, and two episodes of Call the Midwife in 2017.

She portrayed Lady Caroline Collingwood, a recurrent character in the HBO series Succession. Walter appeared on the television series Killing Eve in 2020.

She has received Primetime Emmy nods for her appearances in Succession and Ted Lasso. Her most recent project is the TV series, Archie.