A LAW UNTO HERSELF
CAREY MULLIGAN REVEALS WHY SHE WORRIED NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE HER AS A DETECTIVE…
This new four-part series bucks the usual whodunnit trend by revealing its killer halfway into the first episode. The mystery here isn’t about who killed a pizza delivery man – a case that appears to be linked to a vicar and a local MP for reasons yet to be revealed – but about why it happened and the effects the killing has on the wider community. Star Carey Mulligan, who plays DI Kip Glaspie, reveals more about what’s in store…
What made you sign up to play this part?
I wanted to do something about now. I like not doing the same thing, and I’ve done a lot of period things so I was interested to do something contemporary. And I was interested to play this woman, who is a professional but not a dogsbody – someone who has a real backbone and is in control of herself.
There are a lot of great female detectives on TV right now – did you worry about joining their ranks?
I worry about most things, but I didn’t specifically worry about that! My tendency is to see someone doing something brilliant, like Olivia Colman in The Night Manager, and then go, “Ooh, I’ll do it a bit like that!”. And that would be rubbish, because I wouldn’t be as good. So we just focused in on who Kip was and tried to make that interesting – she didn’t come out of the womb as a police officer, she’s a person first and then that became her job.
You were pregnant during filming – how did that affect things?
Being pregnant was something that suddenly had to become part of the story, and that was a really nice discussion, figuring out how to do that. What I loved was that there was no, “Goodness me, he kicked!” – no pregnant acting was required! She’s simply a working woman, and she’s getting through it.
What was the biggest challenge of the role?
I was like, “No one is going to believe I’m a police officer”, because they have authority and I’m scared of them! So it was about convincing myself that I’m grown-up enough, because I still think I’m 21 and the ingénue. I’m like, “Oh, I am a grownup. Maybe I could have a proper job!”.