Bangor Mail

Return of the mac

Keeping Faith star Eve Myles talks to LARA KILNER and PAM FRANCIS about learning a new language for the role, being voted Wales sexiest woman and that infamous raincoat

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NEVER has a show been as successful by the means of good old fashioned word-ofmouth as Keeping Faith, the Welsh drama featuring Eve Myles as a solicitor whose husband goes missing.

The first series had 11 million views on iPlayer, making it the most downloaded non-network show ever, having only been shown on S4C and BBC Wales until the Beeb cottoned on to what a huge hit they had under their noses and showed it on BBC1 last year.

Even as Faith, in the yellow mac that has become as famous as Vera’s fishing hat or Sara Lund’s jumpers, mascara running down her face (she says she has pinch marks on her legs from making herself cry), Eve – who has also starred in the likes of Broadchurc­h, Torchwood and Cold Feet, is captivatin­g.

But in real life the 40-year-old is simply stunning, with her tousled blonde hair.

“Oh, this is Faith. I have dark hair. I’ve never been blonde in my life,” she laughs. She’s also dressed in full black. “I like morbid and this outfit was in the sales. I look in my wardrobe and there is black.”

She is the sort of girl who makes you feel like you go way back even though you’ve only just met.

Despite being born and bred in Wales, hailing from Ystradgynl­ais in the Valleys, fans of the show may be surprised to learn, Eve has never been a Welsh speaker. So for four months she worked day and night to learn the language in order to film each scene of Keeping Faith in Welsh and then English – they make two entirely different versions.

It’s a good job Keeping Faith is a family affair, then – Eve’s husband Bradley Freegard plays her onscreen husband Evan, who returned at the end of the last series and the pair spend their evenings learning their lines (twice) at home in a village outside Cardiff with their daughters Matilda, nine, and Siena, five.

Here Eve talks about the unsexiness of sex scenes and how she almost gave it all up to become a midwife.

You are a very successful actor, but you nearly gave it all up a couple of years ago, didn’t you?

I HAD a wobble. Absolutely I did. I needed something to set me alight again. You get those moments where you think, ‘Maybe I’ll go and study medicine, or go into law’.

Midwifery was something that appealed greatly and I was on the brink of signing up, and then this juggernaut came along where I was going to be learning another language and taking on Faith Howell’s story.

It’s impressive enough you film Keeping Faith in both English and Welsh, but it’s even more impressive now we know you couldn’t actually speak Welsh when you first got the part…

I DIDN’T know there was a different alphabet [for speaking Welsh], so I started with that. Every day I would drop the kids off at school and then learn the script, word for word and sound for sound.

I had to be more discipline­d than I’ve ever been in my life. It was blood, sweat and tears. But what a reward! At one time people would ask me to say something in Welsh, and I couldn’t. Now I don’t have to say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak it’. Instead I say, bear with me, I am learning.

Faith’s yellow mac is so iconic, it even has its own Twitter page…

I WENT into a shop in Carmarthen where they sell the coat and I felt like I’d done something awful to the lady who worked there, she started screaming for the manager.

I’d only gone in there to buy a scarf. But isn’t it funny how something like that has taken off? It’s just an identity thing. Viewers see the coat and Faith in a crisis and how it gives her strength.

We call it the crisis coat. When she’s got it on, she’s on a mission. If men and women are getting these coats and it gives them a feeling of some sort of armour, then I say brilliant!

How was it working with your husband a lot more in the new series?

WE SET aside 20 minutes every night at home and run our lines. We need to know them inside out and back to front in two languages. They are really complicate­d. Nothing like I’ve ever done on television, really. I love working with my husband. I’m very proud of the scenes Brad and I have together.

It’s very rare I get to leave the house in the morning and come back in the evening. I always get back in time for bath, bed and stories. It makes such a difference. It’s lovely, to be in your own bed and not live out of a suitcase.

You lived in LA for a while on Torchwood. Not tempted to do the Hollywood thing then?

I DIDN’T want to be one of these mums that moves the kids around all the time with work and they never get any sort of foundation.

My friends are the girls I went to school with. My best friend is a dog groomer. We’ve known each other since we were two, and she refuses to watch anything I do.

I’ll call my mother and my friend’s there having her dinner!

When I got the first call I was seven months pregnant, sitting with my husband’s rugby socks on, eating banana cake and carrot cake at the same time. I looked like Waynetta Slob... I spat out the cake in shock.

On being twice voted Wales’ sexiest woman

What do you love most about Faith?

HER compassion, and her empathy. Her glass is always half full. She sees the good in people. I also love that she’s got an unbelievab­le amount of strength.

I love that she laughs in the darkest of moments and is so nurturing. And the best thing about her is that she’s got loads of imperfecti­ons. She’s the first to kick off her heels and put her feet up on the table. That’s what I do at home.

So you’re quite similar?

I’M NOT a city girl at all. You wouldn’t catch me in a month of Sundays in a suit like Faith. I don’t really give a hoot about how I look on screen.

But you are the Sexiest Woman in Wales – it’s official, you have been voted so, more than once...

IT’S just the weirdest thing. When I got the first call I was seven months pregnant, sitting with my husband’s rugby socks on, eating banana cake and carrot cake at the same time, with crazy hair. I looked like Waynetta Slob. I spat out the cake in shock.

Does your husband get jealous when you do intimate stuff with other actors?

HE DOESN’T get jealous and I’m quite disturbed by it. Sometimes I’ve got to put a mirror under his nose to make sure he’s still breathing, he’s so laid-back. I even remember the morning of the bed scene I did in Broadchurc­h, I was nervous, and before I left the house he turned to me and said, ‘It’s the scene today, isn’t it? Well make it look good. I don’t want my wife looking rubbish!’

How do you feel about sex scenes?

THEY are the unsexiest, most practical scenes you can do because they’re choreograp­hed within an inch of their lives. In the sex scene in Broadchurc­h, I did a mental shopping list of toiletries for a holiday. I was taking my kids to Greece and, by the end, I nailed every single item I needed.

And then I was thinking about fish and chips… because it was a Friday. ■ THE second series of Keeping Faith continues on BBC1, Tuesdays at 9pm.

 ??  ?? Language barrier: Eve Myles learned Welsh to play the role of Faith Howells in surprise hit drama Keeping Faith
Language barrier: Eve Myles learned Welsh to play the role of Faith Howells in surprise hit drama Keeping Faith
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 ??  ?? Left to right: With Mekhi Phifer and John Barrowman in Torchwood and with James Darcy in Broadchurc­h
Left to right: With Mekhi Phifer and John Barrowman in Torchwood and with James Darcy in Broadchurc­h
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