MOTHER KNOWS BEST

How does Suranne Jones shake off those crushingly intense roles, from Gemma Foster to her new part as the mother of a missing child in television drama Save Me?

Suranne Jones on how she copes with being a working mum, and why she couldn’t turn down her harrowing new role in Save Me

cathartic and helped her with grief. ‘It was a really difficult time for me,’ she says. ‘Going to work and telling stories like this is therapeutic in a bizarre way because you can find a connection to share. I came out of it feeling like something had shifted, something had happened. Healing.’

Meanwhile, the successful return of Doctor Foster was something she’d hoped for – but was never certain of. ‘You watch amazing shows like Sherlock and Broadchurch go stellar, with people really getting behind them, and I never expected it would happen to me,’ she says. ‘The second series of Doctor Foster was like a contemporary western with all its showdowns. When I watch it, I have to admit it does make me laugh because it’s so outrageous.’ She tried to keep things balanced while making that series, insisting it wasn’t all angst and vows of revenge. ‘Me and the girls on the show did an exercise challenge for charity,’ she says. ‘We’d go off for “plank squad” meetings – we were meant to hold our bodies in a plank position for five minutes a day – but really it was an excuse to gossip. The older I get, the more I feel the need to lighten things up.’

To shake off her traumatic roles, she listens to pop music. ‘I like dancing to Britney Spears or Little Mix. And a baby relaxing in your arms brings you down to earth. I’m too tired to think about my roles when I get home.’

She finally had her time off at the end of last year but even then spent five weeks in Los Angeles meeting Hollywood movers and shakers – she hopes to work there as a producer.

She has long wanted to get behind the camera and has been mentored by one of the best in the business, Nicola Shindler, who is behind hits like Last Tango In Halifax, Happy Valley and Trust Me. After working together on Scott & Bailey, the detective show that Suranne helped create and starred in, she realised she wanted to produce, partly to tell female stories in a world still dominated by men. ‘I had lots of dinners with studio people and writers in LA,’ she says. ‘I’m really interested in developing some shows and I might Suranne as Claire with Lennie

James as Nelly in Save Me take time off to do it. I’ve already worked on a few things that haven’t made it onto the screen yet. I’ve been writing with my husband too and that’s been interesting, it’s been fun. It’s great to still be learning at 39.’

At the recent National Television Awards, where she won Best Drama Performance for Doctor Foster – adding to her Bafta and NTA for the first series – she wore a 50/50 badge calling for equality for women in pay and representation on screen. ‘It’s about better roles, three-dimensional characters – showing women in a full and inspiring way,’ she says. Suranne is currently starring in Frozen in the West End, as another mother of a missing child, and is due to start filming BBC1 costume drama Gentleman Jack, playing Yorkshire landowner Anne Lister. The role will reunite her with award-winning writer Sally Wainwright, who she worked with on Scott & Bailey, Unforgiven and Dead Clever. It tells the real story of Anne, an heiress and lesbian who in 1832, after years of travel, returns to her Halifax ancestral home, Shibden Hall. Refusing to abide by conventions, she does business, climbs mountains, and becomes determined to marry another woman. This flood of work is a far cry from Suranne’s early days when, after a casting director called her ‘a bit fat and a bit nothing’, she fretted about ever making it as an actress before landing the role of Karen McDonald in Coronation Street in 2004. ‘I’m touching as much wood as I can,’ she tells me, laughing. And what about the future? ‘I want to be doing interesting work that makes me happy,’ she says. ‘But I also want to go to singalongs with my son. I’ve realised it’s important to take time out as well as work really hard.’

‘The older I get, the more I feel the need to lighten things up’

Save Me, 28 February, Sky Atlantic.