Actress Charlotte Rampling reveals her trick for getting ‘me time’

Seventies sex symbol Charlotte Rampling’s life hasn’t slowed down at the age of 71, but she’s got a little fib she tells to get some ‘me time.’

The British actress, who’s starred in more than 100 films, alongside other greats such as Kirk Bogarde, Richard Burton (pictured below in 1974) and Sean Connery,  remains as busy as ever. She’s recently been a hit in the British crime drama Broadchurch and is currently filming a Russian spy thriller Red Sparrow with Hollywood favourite Jennifer Lawrence, leading her grandchildren to call her “Go-Go” because she’s always on move.

But she reveals to The Weekend Australian Magazine that it’s all a bit of a charade.

“I don’t know why I give this impression to everyone of being busy all the time,” Rampling says. “Perhaps because I’m quite clever, and I say, ‘Sorry, I can’t do that. I’m off there, I’m off there,’ but … actually, I’m sitting here.”

She says, though, that she hopes the film offers that keep her occupied don’t dry up as she gets older.

“They put actors out into the paddock,” the actress, pictured in 2015 when she won the European Actress Award, acknowledges. “But if you’re a bit feisty, like me, you say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not yet!”

Rampling is also in the headlines for a less happy reason than her unusual career longevity.

She has just published a book, Who I Am,  that explores the suicide of her sister when Rampling was 20 and her sister Sarah was 23. Sarah shot herself shortly after giving birth to her son, Carlos, in Argentina. Rampling’s father told the actress’s mother than Sarah had died of a brain haemorrhage, making Rampling promise never to tell her mother the truth – a promise she kept until her mother’s death in 2001, The Weekend Australian reports.

Rampling was reunited with Carols when he was 18 but she says she has never visited Argentina to see her sister’s grave.

“I’m just not ready to,” she tells The Weekend Australian.

Do you like any of Charlotte Rampling’s films? Which is your favourite?