Suranne Doc shock will help halt affairs
TV star says her raunchy show will stop flings
She has shocked the nation’s viewing public in scenes which get sexier – and darker – every passing week.
The vicious battle between Suranne Jones’s Gemma and ex-husband Simon reached new heights in Series 2 of BBC’s hit show Doctor Foster.
But actress Suranne hopes the disturbing roles played out by her character Gemma might have a different kind of an impact too.
Speaking ahead of the drama’s penultimate episode, Suranne says if Doctor Foster leaves a legacy, she hopes it would be about how couples approach the thought of splitting up.
She said: “We’re not trying to give out social messages. But hopefully it will make people think twice about divorce or having an affair in the first place.
“I certainly hope it makes people think about how they conduct themselves if they do split with somebody.”
But ultimately she just hopes people “have enjoyed the ride of watching two people who really f***ing hate each other having to breathe the same air”.
She added that being a mum this time round gave her a different perspective to when she was filming the first series.
Suranne said: “Being in a marriage and being a mother obviously helps with the devastation of someone betraying that.
“Also, with the enormity of when you have a child, if you do separate, that something will always bind you and actually you made that someone when you were totally in love.
“And then when you – like in our story – really hate each other, you still have that person to take into adulthood.
“And you have to do it really carefully. Otherwise, as much as you’re going to damage each other, you’re going to damage the child.
“So, yeah, it gave me a gravitas and an enormity of the situation.”
Suranne, 39, returned to work for the filming of Series 2 just six months after the birth of her son in March last year with her husband, magazine editor Laurence Akers.
She said: “I was still really tired and full of hormones. I was all over the place – it helped.”
After gruelling days in which she spent 14 hours on set, she is now taking time out to enjoy being a mum.
She said: “I’m down the play park in my Converse and my Zara stuff. I’m normally covered in snot and that kind of thing.”
She also insists her days of posing for magazines like FHM are also strictly over.
Suranne admitted: “I’ve grown a lot in how I want to live my life and I’m so happy down the play park being private.”
For this reason, she has also been slow to catch up with the social media trend.
Unl ike most celebrities, she doesn’t do Twitter and only recently joined Instagram. She added: “I’m quite enjoying it. You get to nosey at people and post silly things. “I went through a time where I just wanted to be private but I think I’m starting to lighten up again. I don’t put my son on there, though.” Suranne has come a long way from her troubled schooldays when she was bullied “for being different”. Recalling those memories, she said: “I don’t think it’s the same now as back then, when I was younger. I hope not. “Now I think there are more opportunities and recognition within education systems for children who aren’t academically brilliant. “Now you can be creative in different ways – visually, filmically or through music – which I think is important. “Onc e you f i nd something that you absolutely love, you get a confidence. “And God, who could say that the 10-year-old girl who liked acting was
going to be sat here and win a Bafta? It’s brilliant. It’s amazing.”
Born Sarah Jones in Chadderton, Oldham, she took Suranne as a stage name. She stepped on stage for the first time aged eight and landed herself an agent aged 15, getting her first, albeit very small, role on Corrie in 1997 as Mandy Phillips.
The soap came calling again in 2000 when she was cast as Karen McDonald, making her a household name.
Suranne describes her days at Corrie as like her “university time”.
She said: “I had the most amazing four years. We went to loads of parties, the opening of everything, I did lads’ mags, I was in every magazine.
“It was just fun and I’ve got a lot of great mates from then, like Antony Cotton, Jenny McAlpine and Sally Lindsay.
“I just have happy memories of that time. And it was in Manchester, which is my home town.”
Since leaving the cobbles, Suranne has forged an even more successful career, starring in shows such as 2009’s Unforgiven, the detective series Scott & Bailey and then, of course, Doctor Foster.
And playing scorned GP Gemma is a role she has loved.
She said: “It’s like playing the baddie but dressed up in a middle-class Marks & Spencer outfit.
“Mike [Bartlett] is quite a dark writer, he then throws in all the things that we all have bad thoughts about, that we would never even tell people.
“He writes them and makes Gemma do them, which I think is brilliant.”
As to whether there will be a third series, Suranne is sitting on the fence.
She added: “If Mike comes up with another story, then we’ ll al l talk about it. But I think, for now, like the first one, it’s just got a really good, solid ending to it.”
It’s like playing a baddie but dressed up in a middleclass M&S outfit