Actress Rachael Stirling has revealed she eats some of her late mother's ashes before going on stage for every press night performance. The 49-year-old, whose mother was Game of Thrones star Dame Diana Rigg, first disclosed the practice in her memoir All About My Mother.
Career and family background
Stirling has appeared in television series including The Detectorists, The Bletchley Circle and The Game, and has performed on stage alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor. She received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for her portrayal of Lady Chiltern in An Ideal Husband.
She is the daughter of Dame Diana Rigg, known for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and theatre producer Archibald Stirling. Diana Rigg died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 82.
The ritual's origin
In her memoir, Stirling wrote: “I eat her ashes before going on stage. It shocks people when I tell them. It feels absolutely natural to me. I am cloaked in her, shielded and shrouded by her. My mother is my superpower.”
The revelation prompted her to explain what happened on the opening night of Scandaltown in 2022. She had brought the tube containing her mother's ashes into the dressing room but could not find a way to take it on stage.
On that opening night, the first since her mother's death, she opened the tube the wrong way and spilled some ashes onto the table. Startled by the call to the stage, she licked her finger, picked up the spilt cinders and placed them on her tongue.
She wrote in the Guardian: “In a panic…I licked my finger, picked up the few spilt cinders, and popped her on my tongue. Grainy, in case you were wondering, but it didn’t feel wrong, it felt completely right. I laughed out loud at myself and the ludicrous situation. And then, just like that, my nerves disappeared.”
Shared experience
Stirling later told a widow at a party what she had done, expecting shock and horror. The woman whispered that she had done the same thing but had never told anyone.
Since the 2022 incident, eating some of her mother's ashes has become a ritual before every press night, when the public address system sounds the five-minute warning.
