A quickie with...

What’s it like to be back in Marcella?

I still feel like I’m in it! It’s great to come back, and I’m really glad to have had the chance to do it again. There’s always pressure on a second season to make it better than the first. I’ve seen episode one and I think it’s looking pretty good!

Marcella has got a personal connection to this case because her son knows the first victim, doesn’t he?

Yes, that’s how it starts, but it’s not the focus of the whole series. It’s quite dark because, this time, the serial killer is to do with children and, whenever you embark on something so sensitive, it’s a tricky thing to deal with.

What was your reaction when you first saw the script for this series?

I had the first three episodes and thought, “Gosh, she seems really OK considering her husband has run off with another woman half her age and her kids aren’t living with her!” That was my first question, how can she be so OK? I think she’s thought, ‘Well, that’s life, let’s move on.’

One important question after watching the first episode: Where is her coat?

The coat does come back, but because it’s a different season – it’s the height of summer this time – to wear a winter parka would have been a little bit ridiculous. But the coat does come back…

How do you get into the Marcella zone – have you met anyone who suffers from these sort of blackouts?

At the Pride of Britain Awards this year, I met a detective who’d got an award for being the most successful, powerful detective, and solving the most cases. She didn’t have fugues, but I thought, “Wow”. There’s been a lot more research done about fugues since the first season. There’s a lot of people in prison who’ve committed crimes that they have absolutely no recollection of at all, and it’s something that’s being studied more and more.

What’s Marcella’s relationship with [her colleague] Tim like this series?

F**k buddy!

But is anything going to develop?

Yeah, something really big develops.