“If you go through tough times, work is always a tonic”
Julie Graham talks to Georgia Humphreys about the US spin-off of sleuthing drama Bletchley Circle
Julie Graham has learnt some acting jobs are particularly hard to let go.
The Irvine-born actress, 52, says she and pal Martin Clunes are always plotting ways to bring back William And Mary, the muchloved drama they starred in together in the early noughties.
Meanwhile, she jumped at the chance to revive another memorable role – as crimesolver Jean in The Bletchley Circle, which is returning with a Us-set spin-off series.
“We’ve proven that people want to watch women on television and they want to watch female-led shows,” says Graham, who grew up in Ayrshire, but now lives in Brighton.
When The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco starts, many years have passed since we last saw the women, but Jean is working in a library and living her same old life, while former colleague Millie (Rachael Stirling) is flitting around from job to job.
Their adventure across the pond comes because, during their time working as codebreakers at Bletchley Park together, a young girl they both knew was murdered.
“Millie notices in San Francisco there’s been a very similar, almost copy-cat, murder after all these years and she goes to Jean with the idea of investigating it.
“She says, ‘I’ve got a cousin in San Francisco – we could just go and kind of have a look...’ So Jean, eventually, is persuaded.”
Asked if she has anything in common with her character, mum-of-two Graham says: “I suppose we’re both quite ballsy. I mean, she’s ballsy in a different way – in an un-showy way.
“She reminds me of a lot of women that I grew up with; Scottish, Presbyterian, quite staid, quite... unemotional is the wrong word, but people who kept their counsel, were very wise and were people that you could go to.”
She adds: “I had an Aunt Meg, who I based Jean on. She was somebody you could go to with a problem and you just knew that she would solve it. I think Jean has got that kind of reliability.”
The new episodes of The Bletchley Circle were actually filmed in Vancouver, which Graham describes as a beautiful city.
And she loved having her kids – Edie May was born in 2004, and Cyd Betty, two years later – fly out to visit for a month.
“It was hard not being there [at home],” she admits. “The time away filming was a little bit long. But Facetime is a wonderful thing – it’s a game changer.”
Graham points out that, thanks to such a variety of TV channels these days, plus services like Netflix, her kids sometimes stumble across her old work.
“I was mortified the other day,” she says. “I was in this series called Bugs, and it was a, kind of, not very good spy programme; actually, it was terrible, let’s be honest.
“I did one episode playing a car thief,” she continues, before adding sarcastically: “Like most car thieves, I was in a catsuit and a pair of high heels.
“That popped up at 11 ‘o’clock one night and Edie was p*****g herself laughing. She was just going, ‘Oh Mum, it’s so bad! Look at you, what are you wearing?’
“They [her daughters] are really lovely, they’re really supportive. But they’ll also tell you if they think it’s crap!”
One show Graham’s kids do love watching her in is ITV comedy Benidorm.
She joined the cast in 2015 as the head of a new family, Sheron Dawson – a character she loves because she’s just so “outrageous”.
“Also, it was just so refreshing to read,” she recalls of the script. “It was the first time in my whole career that I’ve played a woman that’s my age who’s got young children.”
Graham filmed her first series of Benidorm the same year her husband, actor Joseph Bennett, died.
The pair met while appearing in a play together in 2001, and married a year later.
And the star says she’s always found work to be cathartic, no matter what’s going on in her personal life.
“If you go through tough times, work is always a tonic, I think for most people,” she says.
“I just happen to be able to do something that I really love and so that’s always great. And when you’re in a good place, working is just a bonus.
“I love to work and this working-mum thing, I never feel guilty about it because I want to set an example, especially because I’ve got daughters, to let them see that that’s what the real world is – you have to work.
“I’ve always said to them, ‘I don’t care what you do, just do something you love and do something you can do anywhere in the world’. Those are my only two pieces of advice.”
● The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco starts on STV on Wednesday, 9pm
“The time away filming was a little bit long. But Facetime is a wonderful thing”