Dame Joanna Lumley, 78, stuns fans with shock political confession as she reflects on being typecast in 'villainous' roles

She’s a Bollinger-guzzling fashionista who rubs shoulders with Britain’s elite.

But glamour icon Dame Joanna Lumley has now revealed a political twist no one saw coming – she’s actually a communist.

The 78-year-old screen legend dropped the bombshell during a Q&A with Amanda Holden at the exclusive Covent Garden premiere of Amandaland, the highly anticipated spin-off of the BAFTA-winning sitcom Motherland.

The series sees the beloved star slip back into the stilettos of the upper-crust matriarch Felicity.

‘A lot of people find how I speak pretty off-putting. They always think Tory. But if you scratch the surface, I’m actually a Communist,’ the Dame revealed

Considered a national treasure, the Ab Fab star also discussed her typecasting in villainous, icy roles – often as sharp-edged matriarchs.

Glamour icon Dame Joanna Lumley has now revealed a political twist no one saw coming – she’s actually a communist (pictured in 2009)

‘I’m always cast as horrid savage old grannies and mothers, I don’t know what it is because I’m a sunny character! It’s written into my contract, I must be mean,’ she revealed, with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Of her Amandaland alter-ego Felicity, the cultural powerhouse declared: ‘She’s so selfish and so self-regarding, I just adore her.’

The role marks yet another mother-daughter character collaboration with her co-star Lucy Punch.

The pair first co-starred in the 2004 jukebox musical fantasy comedy, Ella Enchanted, where Dame Joanna played the wicked stepmother Dame Olga, while Lucy, 47, starred as one of the ‘ugly sisters.’

‘Lucy and I met years and years ago when Anne Hathaway was but a babe doing Ella Enchanted,’ she reminisced.

But this wasn’t only foray into wicked stepmother territory.

In 2020, she again donned the crown as the wicked stepmother in an innuendo-laden pantomime on This Morning.

She joined Holly Willoughby, 43, Phillip Schofield, 62, Eamonn Holmes, 65, Ruth Langsford, 64, Alison Hammond, 49, and Shane Richie, 60, in a socially distanced pantomime.

The series sees the beloved star slip back into the stilettos of the upper-crust matriarch Felicity (pictured with Lucy Punch middle and Philippa Dunne lefft)

The role marks yet another mother-daughter character collaboration with her co-star Lucy Punch

The pair first co-starred in the 2004 jukebox musical fantasy comedy, Ella Enchanted, where Dame Joanna played the wicked stepmother Dame Olga, while Lucy, 47, starred as one of the ‘ugly sisters.

Her most recent turn as Michelle Keegan’s cold, calculating mother-in-law Judith Burkett in Harlen Coben’s 2024 Netflix thriller Fool Me Once, further cemented her as an icon of frosty matriarchs

Her most recent turn as Michelle Keegan’s cold, calculating mother-in-law Judith Burkett in Harlen Coben’s 2024 Netflix thriller Fool Me Once, further cemented her as an icon of frosty matriarchs.

Ms Keegan, 37, previously claimed the veteran performer encouraged her to be ‘more feisty’ in their scenes together.

Despite this, she said she still couldn’t bring herself to ‘swear in Joanna’s face’ during rehearsals, and she confessed: ‘They were so much fun. I mean it’s not every day that you tell Joanna Lumley to F-off! That was quite nerve racking.’

And yet while she has typecast in villainous roles, in politics, the iconic talent has long maintained somewhat of an elusive stance.

In 2019 she was among 24 public figures who declared their refusal to vote for Labour because of its association with anti-Semitism.

The group, which included veteran actor Simon Callow, 75, and Spider-Man star Tom Holland, 28, said a truly tolerant society ‘must encompass Britain’s Jews with unwavering solidarity,’ criticising then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, 75, for his ‘long record of embracing anti-Semites as comrades’.

‘We refuse to vote Labour,’ the figures penned in a letter to The Guardian.