JESSICA RAINE: ‘I was mostly interested in food on this job’

Former Call The Midwife star Jessica Raine, 37, joins the anticipated spin-off series of The Missing from episode two – and filmed stunts while she was pregnant… You play Genevieve; who heads up a team trying to nail a European sex gang?

She’s an officer who works at [Government agency] Europol. She’s pretty ruthless and rubs people up the wrong way constantly; which is what attracted me to her! She’s incredibly focused and dogmatic to the point of being psychotic – but she was great fun to play.

You were pregnant when filming this series? [Jessica is expecting her first child in the next couple of months with her husband of three years, fellow actor Tom Goodman-hill]

I neglected to tell them I was pregnant when I took the job… I was a bit tired but the worrying thing for production was that there was a car race and stunt that my character was involved in. I broke the news and everyone was amazing. We just had to work out how to do the scene without me being in any massive danger, but it was fine. Tchéky [Karyo – Baptiste] did most of the driving, and he’s a good driver so it was great.

How did you disguise your growing bump?

My shirts definitely get bigger as the series goes on. Mostly, I was interested in food on this job – where the next snack was coming from! I was plaguing the directors for Snickers bars, and any other food that I could get my hands on!

What was it like filming in Amsterdam and Belgium?

I loved it! I had a week in Amsterdam but I didn’t get to see much of it because we were working all the time. Antwerp [in Belgium] I became really familiar with and I just absolutely adored it, to be honest; the people, the shops and the art – as well as the food! I want to go back. I can understand why people go to live there. It was just amazing.

What was it like working with Tom [Hollander] and Tchéky?

Tchéky is so unbelievably French, and I mean that in a really lovely way. He’s very philosophical about things. Tom is loads of fun to work with. He’d done his research, he knew what he was doing and then he just sort of let rip on a scene…