Doctoring her CV
A TV diet helped the former Broadchurch star prepare to impersonate a doctor, discovers James Croot.
There were no boot camps or surgical visits required for Jodie Whittaker in order to prepare for starring in the new BBC medical thriller Trust Me. Instead, writer Dan Sefton helpfully suggested she simply watch television – 24 Hours in A&E to be precise. ‘‘He described it as the perfect show to watch,’’ Whittaker recalls.
‘‘The monotony of it, the stress of it. He’s actually a working consultant in an A&E and even now still does two-to-three days a week while he’s writing. He wanted this show to represent the world he was very familiar with, not one of those fake, manic hospital dramas that involve people running about a lot. He said that if an emergency comes in they just have to deal with it, rather than jumping on patients doing CPR. Sure people panic, but they [accident and emergency departments] are actually quite well-oiled machines.’’
The 35-year-old admits she had an advantage over some of her Trust Me colleagues, her character wasn’t supposed to know what she was doing in the surgical scenes. Whittaker plays Cath Hardacre, a Sheffield nurse facing financial hardship after losing her job after raising concerns about patient neglect. Desperate to keep her and her daughter afloat, she steals the identity of her best friend and successfully applies to be an A&E doctor in Edinburgh.
‘‘So I was supposed to be nervous, while everyone else was supposed to know exactly what they were doing,’’ she laughs.
Whittaker had also played a nurse once before, in 2011 cult scifi hit Attack the Block. She said a Trust Me scene involving bandaging a leg brought back memories of that role. ‘‘I was thinking ‘I haven’t done this in a while’. It took me a lot more takes on Attack the Block, so I must have got better with age.’’
The West Yorkshire-born actress admits she was also delighted that she succeeded in inserting a cannula into a fake body first-time and that she enjoyed the choreographed surgical scenes. The medical vocabulary was another matter though. ‘‘I was rubbish at learning that,’’ she says.
But for Whittaker, the toughest challenge was getting to grips with her character’s choices.
‘‘There were moments where she’d be in a position where she could have been honest and she wasn’t.
‘‘As an actor, you have to try to not judge the person you’re playing. It was not for me to question her but for me just to play her and let everyone else ask the questions. You want to be as open and malleable as you can be, when inside you’re thinking ‘what are you doing? Get out of there – you don’t know what you’re doing and you’ve got a scalpel in the side of someone’s neck!’.’’
She was she was drawn to the project because of the narrative’s unexpected twists and turns.
‘‘You start with this single parent in a situation where she’s got this young child and is uncomfortable with the environment she’s been put in at work and the care of her parents. You think it’s going to be a whistleblowing drama and then obviously it takes you in a completely different direction.
‘‘I also liked the fact that everything isn’t black-and-white. Yes, there are some morally dubious and questionable choices and they’re ones I’d hope I wouldn’t make. But even though you get kind of frustrated with her decisions and kind of scared for the choices she makes, ultimately the reasons she’s doing it are for good, which is really complicated and, as an actor, that’s fascinating to play.’’
One thing that was a little different to her last high-profile role, playing Beth Latimer on Broadchurch, was that Whittaker was aware of the entire story before shooting began. ‘‘Dan was very open about the direction we were headed, unlike Broadchurch where it couldn’t be that open.’’
Does she have a preference in knowing or not knowing?
‘‘I really loved Chris Chibnall’s way of working on Broadchurch [the pair will be teaming up again when Whittaker takes over the keys to the Tardis on Doctor Who from this year’s Christmas Special]. I think not knowing has pros and cons. It worked perfectly for that kind of series, but other things might not benefit from being shrouded in secrecy. ‘‘
When asked what her abiding memories were of working on the hit series, she instantly cites the friendships it helped foster. ‘‘We spent five-and-a-half years connecting with one another. It was hard work, but it was the best kind of hard work. It was the kind of job where you throw everything into it. We were lucky enough that everyone wanted to see it – it’s not everytime that happens. You can put just as much effort into something else and maybe four people see it. It [ Broadchurch] became part of a dialogue all over the world, which I think is unusual. I think that’s why we all came back for all three seasons and why we were all really close.’’
Now with new and renewed medical knowledge and a date with destiny as one of world’s foremost and much-loved physicians, does Whittaker feel more confident about sharing her skills, if called upon?
‘‘I’ve been asked a few times if I would know what to do now in a medical emergency, the answer is I absolutely wouldn’t. There’s no way I’m putting my hand up if anyone asks if there’s a doctor. I’ll be hiding in the corner.’’
‘ There’s no way I’m putting my hand up if anyone asks if there’s a doctor. I’ll be hiding in the corner.’ JODIE WHITTAKER
● Trust Me 8.45pm, Sundays, TVNZ1 and available at TVNZ OnDemand.