I had to kill Keeley
Writer on Bodyguard’s shock plot twist
BODYGUARD creator Jed Mercurio has revealed why he killed off one of the main characters in his hit drama just halfway through the series. An audience of 7.2million were shocked on Sunday night when the prime minister said Home Secretary Julia Montague, played by Keeley Hawes, was dead following a bombing. That meant she appeared in only three episodes of the six-part series.
Writer Mercurio told Radio Times: “I think there’s a certain expectation with series TV that it will always orbit around an equilibrium, in which nothing much changes for the main stars, and there are no drastic changes to the set-up.
“But, with my work, I like to try to do things that move the story on, and with Bodyguard I wanted to have this event mid-series that would completely alter the dynamic.”
Asked if Hawes commented on being killed off early for a second time by Mercurio, who did the same with her character Lindsey Denton in his other drama Line of Duty, he said: “Yes, she did. But she did it, as she usually does, with good humour. I think – hope – she’d take the view that it’s better to do a few episodes of something meaty than lots of episodes of something thin.”
Mercurio also said it could be tricky to book Scot Richard Madden for a second series as bodyguard David Budd.
He added: “He’s… a real leading man. And I think this role has put him very much in the spotlight for bigger things.”