Miriam Margolyes can be funny without making a character ridiculous, and warm without turning her soft. We particularly value the practical kindness of her voice work in Babe, where she belongs to an ensemble rather than competing with it.
Fi1m perspective
In Babe (1995), Fly has more to do than supply the farmyard with a funny voice. Margolyes makes the sheepdog mother figure warm and practical, so that we hear someone with responsibilities, not an actress waiting for her next amusing line. We were moved by Fly's kindness because Margolyes makes it sound useful and ordinary, without separating it from the comedy. This is where we value her most: giving a supporting character enough substance to matter without demanding that everything stop for her.
That gift makes sense of a career built across theatre, television, film and voice work. Blackadder brought her notice in the 1980s, while literary adaptations gave her parts such as Flora Finching in Little Dorrit (1988) and Mrs Mingott in Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993). Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) put her comic gifts to work as the Nurse in modern-dress Shakespeare. These parts sit naturally beside her one-woman work with Dickens's characters. She is often cast as the eccentric or the sharp-tongued woman, which makes Fly's plain warmth especially worth noticing.
Her extensive voice work from the mid-1990s includes the Matchmaker in Mulan (1998), but Babe gives us the clearest account of why we rate it. Alongside Hugo Weaving's Rex and Danny Mann's Ferdinand, her Fly helps establish a farmyard of different temperaments without turning the dialogue into a contest. Chris Noonan's film takes those animals seriously, and James Cromwell's quiet Farmer Hoggett supplies a useful restraint. Margolyes works within that company; the warmth depends partly on our believing that these creatures belong together.
There is a useful warning in Babe, too: Nigel Westlake's music occasionally insists on feeling that the performances have already earned. Margolyes's voice needs little of that assistance, and the contrast helps explain what works about her acting. We do not need her to be the loudest or the oddest person in a film; a character worth caring about will do. Start with Babe, and listen to the sheepdog.
Biography
Miriam Margolyes is a British-Australian actress. She was born on 18 May 1941 in Oxford and attended Oxford High School and Newnham College, Cambridge, where she performed with the Footlights. She began her career in theatre and radio before moving into film and television.
She is known for voicing Fly in Babe (1995) and its sequel, the Matchmaker in Mulan (1998), the Nurse in Romeo + Juliet (1996), and Professor Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter films (2002–2011). Other credits include The Age of Innocence (1993), Magnolia (1999) and Happy Feet (2006). She received the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Age of Innocence and was appointed OBE in 2002 for services to drama.
