Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
ON THE TRAIL OF A SCAMMER
Sallylindsaytellswhyshehad to play a woman who takes revenge on a cold-call fraudster
With the dramatic rise in banking scams, gripping new psychological thriller Cold Call is sure to resonate with viewers who have been, or know, a victim of fraud. And even the star of the show, Sally Lindsay, was the target of a phone scam just a week before she signed up to appear in the drama – playing a mother, June Clarke, who’s conned out of the cash from the sale of her house.
June sells up to give her pregnant daughter Hana the financial start she never had herself. But she’s then scammed by a cold-call fraudster, pretending to be from her bank, who tricks her out of the cash by telling her that her account has been compromised and she must move the money to a new account.
Penniless, June attends a support group for victims of fraud where she meets old schoolmate Des Grigsby, who has a vigilante obsession with fraudsters and gives her the tools she needs to take revenge on the people who have destroyed her life.
‘I felt the rage of injustice when I was playing June, at how normal law-abiding citizens get ripped off every day,’ says Sally. ‘It’s a case of, “Why me? What have I done wrong?” It’s become a plague because it’s everywhere now. I didn’t even need to do any research because it’s all around me. My nextdoor neighbour was scammed.’
And of course Sally, who lives in London with her musician husband Steve White and nine-year-old twins Victor and Louie, had just had that brush with a scammer herself. ‘This man said he was from our gas supplier and that I hadn’t paid my bill. But even though I know my husband always pays the bills in full when they come, I was still convinced by this bloke on the phone saying, “You’ll be cut off and we’ll have to sue.”
‘I was distracted as I had to pick the kids up from school. Even though I knew the bill had been paid, I was still taken in by the threat of a county court judgement against me because I once had this terrible accountant who hadn’t reminded me to pay my tax bill, so I did actually get a county court judgement.
‘Luckily I said to the man, “I’m going to have to ring them”, and the phone just went dead. But if it had been my job to pay the gas bill, I’d have given him my bank details. That is the victim we see in June, and that is what I wanted to portray.’
The four-part drama, which also stars Daniel Ryan (from
Sky One comedy-drama Mount Pleasant) as Des and Paul Higgins (crooked police chief Derek Hilton in Line Of Duty) as fraudster Kirk Wylie, explores how far a woman can be stretched when her family is in danger. ‘June has done everything right all her life. She’s a great mother and a great daughter to her mother, who she cares for,’ says Sally.
‘But it’s a complex role because she changes. There’s the isolation you feel after being scammed, because you have a lack of faith in the institutions around you. You can’t go to the police because they don’t know where the money’s gone and the fraudsters are so clever at covering their tracks. But the money
can be traced if you have the time. June does it, and manages to infiltrate a whole other section of society. But how far will she go? Her anger grows when she finds out how the fraudster has affected other people. She thinks, “If I don’t put a stop to this, he’ll just carry on.” There’s a point where June’s child is threatened, and that was easy to play because I’d die for my children. So I wanted to get this right for all those who have been scammed.’
Sally, 46, first found fame as barmaid Shelley Unwin in Coronation Street. ‘My dad was a pub landlord and I’d been a barmaid so it was second nature,’ she says. ‘But the fame thing shocked me, and it still does.’ Other starring credits have included ITV detective series Scott & Bailey, BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours and Mount Pleasant. ‘When my dad died I went through his stuff. He wasn’t a very emotional man, but I wanted to think he’d kept cuttings of the things I’ve done. But the only article I found was a piece about me winning Celebrity Mastermind in 2008. That was my career highlight for him,’ she laughs. n