Keeley Hawes: My husband would divorce me if I had Botox

Keeley Hawes has joked that she would never turn to Botox to keep herself looking young — because husband Matthew Macfadyen has threatened to divorce her if she did.

The actress, 42, has become one of the most recognisable faces on television thanks to her starring roles in Ashes To Ashes, Line Of Duty and The Durrells.

In the latter, based on the late Gerald Durrell’s My Family And Other Animals, she plays Louisa Durrell, who moves her children to Corfu in the Thirties.

Hawes told Red magazine: “I’d hate to have Botox. People can see it. I couldn’t have my lips done and play Mrs Durrell because suddenly you wouldn’t believe in Mrs Durrell, and that would be awful!” She joked that Macfadyen, 43, would divorce her.

The actress was born in Marylebone and is the daughter of a cab driver. She said she had always faced the assumptions that she was posh but her accent in fact came from elocution lessons. “It’s the best acting I do!” she said.

Hawes has one son, Myles, with her first husband Spencer McCallum, who she divorced in 2004. She has two more children — daughter Maggie and son Ralph — with Macfadyen, her former Spooks co-star, but said she was still on very good terms with her ex.

She said the decision to end her first marriage “was just horrible. It was awful. But it was a long time ago now. And we have this wonderful son and my ex-husband is still one of my best friends in the world.”

She said McCallum and his girlfriend live nearby and often babysit, adding: “They are just really wonderful, generous human beings who, ultimately, have always put my son and my other children first. And I can’t thank them enough, really.

“Divorce doesn’t have to be messy. I think as long as people concentrate on the children above themselves — which is difficult, I know — maybe that’s the way to make it work.”

Read the full interview in the April issue of Red magazine, out tomorrow