Lost souls
CATCHING UP WITH THE STARS OF DRAMA SERIAL SAVE ME TOO…
The BAFTA-nominated first series of Save Me saw South London barfly Nelly (creator and star Lennie James) hunting in vain for the mysteriously missing Jody, his 13-year-old daughter with estranged partner Claire (Suranne Jones). Follow-up Save Me Too finds them – along with fellow estate residents including Stephen Graham’s sex offender and Jason Flemyng’s strip-club bartender – coping with the fallout.
Where do we find Nelly and Claire? Lennie James:
We’re 17 months on, seeing what time has done to Jody’s nearest and dearest while everyone else has moved on. Having that focus of looking for his daughter has made Nelly take responsibility where he wasn’t taking it before. But it’s also made him take risks.
Suranne Jones: Claire’s stuck because she hasn’t got answers about Jody, so she can’t grieve properly. If grieving can be ‘fun’ in any way, Lennie’s given me an interesting take on it!
What are their relationship statuses? SJ:
Claire never belonged in Nelly’s world, either on the estate or [local pub] The Palm Tree – so she’s moved back with her husband Barry [Barry Ward]. They’re aware of each other’s pain but they’re not dealing with what’s happened. Both of us slightly dread going back to their house because it represents a certain type of scene.
LJ: Nelly’s trying to be monogamous, which is a fundamental shift. He talks about “this bird I’m trying to take myself seriously with” – he’s trying to be the man this woman deserves.
Lesley Manville has joined the cast… LJ:
I’m really fucking smug! I wrote Jennifer with Lesley in mind and no one believed we’d get her, but I bumped into her at a function, sent her the script and, after she watched series one, she said yes. Jennifer is blindsided by what she learns about her husband Gideon [Adrian Edmondson’s businessman/sex trafficker] – she questions everything about herself. I needed someone who, when she’s quiet, you can hear what she’s thinking. Lesley does that virtually better than anybody else on the planet. And she’s been a great addition to the WhatsApp group!
SJ: We think she might leave the group at some point… When she agreed to come in she woke up to 40 messages and was like, ‘Fucking hell!’ We do put some shit on there.
How hard, mentally, is this material to write and film?
LJ: It can take a toll. It’s a weird thing to say, but if I’m uncomfortable writing it and you’re uncomfortable watching it, I’m probably doing something right. It’s a story of redemption, the costs of it and what you’ll do to get it. But I want to do justice to the story of a missing child: what it does to marriages, friendships, communities and people.
SJ: I’m in no rush to do anything else about missing children, but I’ve lived in Claire’s world already and in a sense the worst has already happened. Her arc from now is the right arc.
Do people react differently when you walk into pubs now?
LJ: My brother asked me down his local and they gave me a standing ovation. A lot of them had watched the first series in the pub – it was on instead of the football a couple of times!
SJ: I don’t often go to pubs these days. I go to ball pools because I’ve got a three-year-old. My life is soft play and Pizza Express! Gabriel Tate