From Spring Issue 65
Glass speaks to A Woman of Substance’s star Jessica Reynolds about what her role has to say about class, patriarchy and female resilience
Tale as old as time: a working-class young woman falls for an upper-middle-class man. He proves a complete and utter disappointment. She builds a retail empire in reply. It’s the arc that has powered melodrama for centuries and now forms the latest on-screen challenge for Jessica Reynolds.
Belfast-born Reynolds, who trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, has moved with ease between film and television since her lead turn in The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw in 2020. Now she assumes her highest-profile role yet, playing the young Emma Harte in Channel 4’s A Woman of Substance, a new version of the saga first made famous on the network in the 1980s and drawn from the novel of the same name by Barbara Taylor Bradford.
Her screen presence continues to expand, with recent appearances in Kneecap and The Wolf, the Fox & the Leopard, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and a forthcoming role in the Channel 4 drama, Close to Home.
Photographer: Florence Mann
So what is the story of Emma Harte? In short, the indomitable Harte rose from impoverished maid to mogul. Set largely in the first half of the last century, the novel traces Emma’s journey from rural Yorkshire servant girl to retail magnate, driven by fierce intelligence, ambition and an unshakeable resolve to control her own destiny in a world determined to limit her. Betrayal, heartbreak and hard-won triumph shape her ascent, but it is her steely will and refusal to forgive those who wrong her that define her.
Photographer: Florence Mann
Emma Harte’s story has become shorthand for generational ambition and female self-determination, a woman who builds an empire not simply for wealth but for independence and legacy. As Reynolds steps into the role, she inherits a character who is at once ruthless and romantic, vulnerable and formidable, a towering figure of resilience whose life is as epic as the empire she creates.
Reynolds herself is no stranger to having to strive hard for what she wants. “I wasn’t handed anything, ever,” the 27-year-old begins. “My parents were both teachers, you know, pretty humble beginnings, and so I knew from an early age that you have to work hard and pave your own way in life. And in the same way Emma Harte had no plan B, it was about sticking to it. The reasonings between us were different but the drive and need to create a new life were definitely there. I think Emma’s motives came from deep trauma and survival instincts. Coming from trauma and healing and becoming a stronger version that has hope for the future is one of the most difficult things you can do, but also the most rewarding,” Reynolds reflects.
Photographer: Florence Mann
The drama’s narrative is punctuated by how a woman’s destiny can be shaped by her need for approval from the male gaze. Harte’s first infatuation leads her into self-abandonment, a warped state of reality that many women find themselves in when they first encounter love. But how can you love and not lose yourself in it? “It’s often the first time that that happens because we don’t know any better,” Reynolds points out.
“When you’re young and innocent, you’re taught that it’s okay to lean on someone and that they will never let you down because it’s love. There’s that kind of misunderstanding. And then when that happens to you once, if you’re really betrayed and damaged from that, maybe it goes to the other extreme and you think, ‘I can’t rely on anyone’. That’s what happens to Emma – she becomes avoidant from that. But there’s such a beauty in recognising how much this world creates a need to feel validated, no matter what, by a man.”
Photographer: Florence Mann
It is instructive to juxtapose Emma Harte with Adele Fairley, wife of Adam Fairley and head of the Fairley estate, where Emma works as a maid. Adele is deeply dependent on her husband’s love, to the point of neglecting her own children. Her identity and self-worth are tied entirely to her marriage and, when that reliance becomes unsustainable, she ultimately takes her own life after one too many glasses of wine. The drama highlights two injustices suffered by women, both with the male approval as catalyst, and two ways of dealing with the fallout.
“The drink is just a symptom of abandonment,” Reynolds observes. “And who knows how far back that abandonment goes? In my opinion, from research done, it comes from attachment theory. That’s what psychologists say. It’s about your attachment to your primary caregivers, which means you’re probably going to be more susceptible to being in an anxious attachment. And I think that is what Adele Fairly was experiencing. If you had a shaky relationship with maybe one parent or a primary caregiver, that is enough to then cause a repetition of patterns in future relationships because your brain is going, ‘Okay, how do I resolve that thing with my father when I was five years old?’”
Photographer: Florence Mann
Emma, on the other hand, has the emotional intelligence to metabolise betrayal in a healthier manner. It is transmuted into grit and determination, even if revenge can be read as the underlying motif. Even as she dedicates herself entire life to giving her children a comfortable existence, she is still faced with the ultimate act of betrayal in regard to her inheritance. That is why her story resonates so deeply with women across social classes – in spite of her success, she is treated like a doormat and the cycle of betrayal begins again.
“I think women relate to this a lot,” Reynolds declares. “You have to strive and push and push, but if you start from a position of oppression or being marginalised, whether because of race, gender or something else, you just have to work twice as hard to be loved, to be accepted, to get where you want to be. That is just the way it is. You have to deal with being a doormat or being walked over. You have to somehow swallow pride in ways that men are not expected to do. This is not just a feminist talking point. It is a real, lived experience.
Photographer: Florence Mann
“Seeing someone like Emma Harte get to where she is, transcending class, shedding her accent and becoming wealthy, shows that, even then, her biggest fear is dying alone. She has lost community and a sense of socialism in a way. You gain and then you lose. For me, the fight is about ethics, equality and equity.”
On a roll, she continues, “There is a patriarchal expectation that women have to be superheroes. Mothers are often seen as all-knowing beings, which they are, but there is also a pressure for women to be perfect at every step and to be deeply strong and tough, while at the same time, not being too tough and still remaining feminine and soft.”
Photographer: Florence Mann
In her lived experience, Reynolds has received the same feedback that all successful women have. And like all of us, she is exhausted. “I’m not aggressive, I’m passionate and I’m emotional, and I should be allowed to be. If I have a day where I need to get something out and I don’t, it builds up as resentment. I might become passive aggressive and nothing gets resolved. It needs to flow through me. I kind of throw manners out the way because kindness, love and communication are what matter to me. I’m not perfect but we should just let women be.”
Photographer: Florence Mann
The prevailing question still stands. Under the female experience, the umbrella of success appears to encompass betrayal, jealousy, hatred, heartbreak, hardship, sacrifice and disrespect. Why? “Unfortunately, the system is not made for women to succeed. The system is designed to weaken us and exhaust us so that we stay silent and live a simple life, allowing it to hold up. That is why it is so important to continue fighting and to have solidarity with people who do not have the strength.”
In a world where we’re conditioned to stay small, Emma Harte’s story and Reynolds’s determination to remain loud should serve as incentive for all of us to start screaming until even deaf ears begin to bleed.
by Adina Ilie
Photographer: Florence Mann
Stylist: Esperanza De La Fuente
Hair and Makeup: Wendy Turner using La Beauté LOUIS VUITTON
Manicurist: Ami Rai
Photography assistant: Rosie Feathers and Nicoletta Draper
Styling assistant: Habon
Talent: Jessica Reynolds
All beauty throughout La Beauté LOUIS VUITTON
Look 1: Bags LOUIS VUITTON
Look 2: Top and skirt LOUIS VUITTON
Look 3: Jacket LOUIS VUITTON
Look 4: Top, jeans and shoes LOUIS VUITTON, Rings and necklaces LOUIS VUITTON Fine Jewellery
Look 5: Top LOUIS VUITTON
Look 6: Bags LOUIS VUITTON
Look 7: Jacket and jeans LOUIS VUITTON
Look 8: Vest LOUIS VUITTON, Rings LOUIS VUITTON Fine Jewellery