Natascha McElhone Embraces Change in ‘Hotel Portofino’

“That’s where it begins and ends,” the British actress says. Both were shot in the same year – the period piece “Portofino” in the summer and the sci-fi drama “Halo” in the other nine months – but the commitments were quite different.

For “Portofino,” in which she plays a hotel owner in the 1920s, McElhone was in Italy for six weeks, working six days a week. For the futuristic “Halo,” she’d be called in once or so a month for nine months.

“It sounds like a long year but, actually, it wasn’t very arduous,” she says. McElhone’s youngest son came with to Italy, and they had a great time enjoying the sights and staying in a place that was “pretty special.”

The only problem: Bella’s wig. Because it was fitted in London, designers didn’t consider how it might adapt to humidity.

“There was an awful lot of moisture in the air,” McElhone says. That meant the wig “had a life of her own.” While the actress suggested cutting her own hair and dispensing with the wig, “you couldn’t swim, and you had to pin curls to remain in the period.” Flyaway wig hair was a small price to pay to play a character rich in change.

Before the third season, creator Matt Baker asked the actors to share their impressions and suggest what might happen to the characters.

“What’s the point in doing a period drama if you don’t drill into the history of the time?” McElhone says. “So, we looked at the social history and the fashion of the times.” In the new season, Bella shows up in trousers, much to her husband’s dismay. “It was interesting getting into marital law, divorce law, property ownership and how it differed between countries. I thought it was quite good to look at my grandmother’s generation and see what might have happened.”