Jason Watkins and Clara Francis look back: ‘In a moment of madness, I rented a flat just so I could stand at the window and see if he walked by’

Born in Albrighton, Shropshire, in 1962, Jason Watkins is a Bafta-award-winning actor best known for his comic and dramatic roles in TV hits such as W1A, Line of Duty and The Crown. He met fellow actor Clara Francis in 1991, backstage at a production of Timon of Athens. The pair married in 2014, and in 2023 made In Memory of Maudie, a documentary about their two-year-old daughter, Maude, who died of sepsis in 2011. Francis is the co-founder of the fashion label O Pioneers. Watkins stars in Coma, available on My5 now.

Jason

This photo was taken in the living room of Clara’s parents’ house. It was her 20th birthday and I was meeting her family for the first time. I look slightly stunned. My family is quiet and fractured while Clara is from a bustling, talkative, north London Jewish home. At Clara’s it’s a fight to get heard: you’ve got to go in on a headline, something interesting straight away, otherwise nobody’s listening. That day I stayed pretty silent.

It was completely out of character for me to wear a foliage-and-banana print shirt. It was like nothing I’d ever worn. I wasn’t in a tribe at drama school; I liked Thompson Twins and Everything But the Girl, whereas this implied Simply Red. I remember looking down at the shirt and thinking, “I’ve got this so wrong.”

Clara and I were just friends at the time, but we had feelings for each other. She was my dresser at the Young Vic when I was in Timon of Athens. But I also had feelings for Caroline [Harding], whom I later went on to marry and have a family with. We have two, now grown-up boys: we split up when they were young. But Clara, Caroline and Chris, her new husband, and their daughter Belle, are close. We are a happy extended family, which in itself, is an amazing gift.

Ten years after Clara and I first met, we arranged to see each other outside the Aldwych theatre in the West End. I felt her energy arrive before I saw her, then there she was – it was familiar and right. We moved straight in and started all over again.

It’s amazing to think of all that’s happened to us since that photo was taken. Clara has become a self-made success and formed an incredible network of friends. I’ve had a lot of luck and variety in my acting career. We had three children, but suffered the death of a beautiful daughter.

Losing Maude has been the main event of our lives. Straight away, Clara didn’t want pity; she didn’t want people to point at her and say: “There’s that woman who lost her child.” Instead, she would cross the road, metaphorically speaking, and say: “Yes, it’s me. I’ve lost my child. Let’s talk about it.”

We have both developed new superpowers. Clara has become a facilitator for groups of parents who have lost children. To help others emotionally, to reassure them that it’s going to be OK, is an incredible skill. Meanwhile, I’ve used my anger and my fate to push things through medically, to campaign for better awareness of the clinical response to sepsis. All the things I wasn’t at Clara’s 20th birthday party – incisive, confident – I am now, because of Maude.

Clara and I have always had a deep-seated love, but my admiration for her continues to grow. She was an incredibly attractive woman when I met her, but she is more so now because she has flourished into this incredible person, in many ways, because of our loss. Clara has an inner light that she is able to bring out in other people. She’s the best friend you’ve ever had. She can be quiet, too, and likes to watch crap telly while doing intense bead work. She reads voraciously and is far more interesting than me. Clara illuminates any room. Every year, her light becomes brighter.

Clara

My face is flushed with youthful, giddy joy. I was absolutely besotted with Jason. We’d met at the theatre where I was pretending to be this woman of the world. Suddenly, he was inside my childhood home. I was nervous and embarrassed he’d discover I was just a suburban girl from Hendon.

In my house, everybody talks over everybody. You’ve got to be quick and funny otherwise nobody will listen. Yesterday, we had the family over. Jason took ages to tell a story, so mum cut him off and said: “Does anyone want ice-cream?” Jason said: “Fine, I won’t tell my story.” I said: “No, no, Jason, we’re all listening.” He replied: “It doesn’t matter.” This dynamic has been going on for decades.

When we first met, I thought Jason was funny, sweet, talented and glamorous. He was nine years older and an actor, which was what I wanted to do. I was still living at home, and he had a place in Islington. In a moment of infatuated madness, I rented out a cold, horrible flat that overlooked Angel tube station, so I could stand at the window and see if he walked by. If he did, I’d rush to get my makeup on, run into Marks & Spencer or wherever he was going and feign nonchalance: “Oh, hi, Jason! What a coincidence!” Sometimes, he’d say he would call me, but he never rang when he said he would. This was pre-mobile phone, so I wouldn’t leave the house for days for fear of missing his call, until finally I got an answering machine. I was free.

I was still living in that horrible flat when he picked Caroline. While I was broken, I bounced back and within six months I’d met someone else. Over the next decade, I knew Jason was happily married with kids, so it was never the case of: “Oh, Jason! The one that got away!” Still, if I overheard anyone in the business talking about him, I’d be like: “What’s that? Where was he? Oh, he’s working there!”

Everything felt natural the second time we met. Because he broke my heart, all of my family and friends were worried – they’d seen the wreckage left before. But this time it was easy. I remember thinking: “It’s all about timing. It wasn’t meant to be then – it’s meant to be now.”

Jason and I always said we’d get married when the girls were old enough to be bridesmaids. Then Maude died. How could we possibly get married after losing her? How could we celebrate anything? We had our boy, Gilbert, almost a year after Maude died, and Bessie, our eldest daughter, was like: “So now are you going to get married?”

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Rupert, the celebrant for Maude’s funeral, married us. Our wedding was so much a part of having lost Maude. She was so present throughout the day; all of the guests did a turn and mentioned her in their speeches. The event became a celebration of the fact that we could all smile again; of this incredible bond that Jason and I have.

Our first dance was to The Long and Winding Road, a song that sums up the mad life he and I have had together. We were together, then we weren’t. He got married to someone else and had a family, and now we are all a family together. When Maude died, Caroline rented a flat around the corner so she could be with us. She was there, she was amazing, and I love her so much for that.

Mine and Jason’s relationship could have gone so wrong at every turn. Yet somehow we’ve survived it all, and are intrinsically connected, for ever.