I Wish I’d Been A Doctor Emilia Fox
Playing a forensic pathologist on TV for 14 years has made Emilia Fox feel she may have chosen the wrong profession
It’s a gloriously hot, sunny day in Brighton and uniformed police and their vehicles have arrived to seal off a street while some people in protective clothing rummage through large public waste-bins.
At first glance it looks authentic, but there are TV cameras and a crew here. And the “bin rummagers” look familiar. On closer inspection it’s actors Emilia Fox and David Caves. An episode of the new series of Silent Witness is being filmed and during a break we are invited to speak to the cast.
In this particular storyline, the team of forensic pathologists have left the Lyell Centre to spend the day at a sunny seaside resort. But this is no time for flip-flops and a choc-ice. Instead they have the gruesome task of looking for dismembered body parts to see if a serial killer is on the loose!
Emilia Fox, who plays Nikki Alexander, says that being involved in the series has given her a keen interest in the human body and medicine and that she would like to study it further.
“It has certainly given me the appetite to want to do something in that area in the long term,” she says.
“It’s never too late. There are Open University courses, things like that. Psychology would interest me but I also love the medical side of things.
“I would definitely be a doctor if I had my time again. But to be honest, I don’t have the brain to do it.
“When we’re filming Silent Witness I always think, ‘Oh, I don’t know anything about what we are talking about’. But I think all of the main cast have more
“The show has really made me think about the nature of life and death”
medical knowledge than we realise. I’ve found myself talking to experts in the field and been pleasantly relieved that I can keep up a little bit with what they are saying.”
The show has had a deeper effect, too, about the nature of life and death.
“It has made me acknowledge how incredible the human body is. It’s strong in so many ways and yet utterly fragile in others. A random stabbing and that’s someone’s life over,” says Emilia, 44, daughter of actors Edward Fox and Joanna David.
“This really hit home for me when I sat in to watch my first autopsy for research purposes – just how quickly life can end and how enormously lucky we are to have health, as well as the importance of looking after it and appreciating life, because it just disappears in an instant.”
The long-running show, now in its twenty-second year, has also been responsible for generating an interest in medicine around the world, according to Emilia, who lives with actor Jeremy Gilley and their eight-yearold daughter Rose.
“It’s so lovely when you go to different parts of the world and people come up to you and say things like, ‘Oh we’ve seen your show and we love it.’ That happens a lot in airports. I’ve had quite a few young students tell me that they want to get into forensic science after watching Silent Witness. That’s amazing. I love that.
“It’s a fictional show with fictional characters but if makes someone think, ‘Oh, I think I might explore that’, then that’s great.
“Silent Witness doesn’t always get the attention it deser vess but it is hugely popular and that’s why it’s been going so long. It has a great mix and you have to keep evolving a show that has been running for twenty-two series.
“I always look for ward to doing a new series because the scripts are so good and there is plenty more to explore.”