Katherine Parkinson has recalled how she was once “knocked out cold” in a random attack by a man while walking home from a play.
The Rivals star, 48, spoke about the shocking incident for the first time on Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast, confessing that she felt “shame” over it.
Parkinson recalled that she’d been acting in a play in “a town outside of London” and had booked the cheapest accommodation she could find, in an attempt to save money from the job.
The It Crowd actor said she was walking home from the theatre one night with a colleague when they were approached by a man with “previous form”, who got into a disagreement with her co-worker.
“I said, ‘Leave her alone,’ and he knocked me out cold, broke my nose and everything else,” Parkinson said, telling Day that the man was arrested and sentenced for Actual Bodily Harm.
She became emotional as she spoke about overhearing a nurse in the hospital that night commenting on her being “a nice girl” – and being asked what she had been doing before the attack.
“The sense of shame I felt…there was a sense that I’d brought it on myself,” she said, pointing out the disparity in the treatment from friends who would let her walk home on her own.
“I felt like I was a cheaper commodity when I was just as vulnerable,” she said, “so I think it’s good with hindsight to acknowledge it, and to acknowledge the legacy of something like that.”
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Parkinson said she was, as a result, “really neurotic” about her daughters walking anywhere, but only made the connection when a fellow parent asked her about it at the school gates.
“I think my generation, there was a sense of ‘getting on with it’,” she said, “and I think there’s a lot to be said for getting on with things. But I also think, although I haven’t had therapy, the wisdom of therapy has bled into our in a way I find very helpful.”
She praised Michaela Coel’s groundbreaking, critically adored drama I May Destroy You, about a woman who confronts the man who sexually assaulted her: “That helped me, actually. I need to acknowledge that I had quite a serious assault that had repercussions… Basically, I’m not going to be cross with myself for being a really neurotic mum.”
She added: “I’m giving myself a bit more licence to realise that your experience informs who you are. Unfortunately, a literal smack in the face… it changes you.”
Parkinson currently stars in the second season of Disney’s hit series Rivals, in which she reprises her Bafta-nominated role as Lizzie Vereker opposite co-stars Danny Dyer, Alex Hassell, David Tennant, Nafessa Williams and Emily Atack.