The Secrets She Keeps
DRAMA BBC1 HD, 9pm
Laura Carmichael stars in this Australian thriller based on Michael Robotham’s novel. Continues tomorrow. All six eps will be on BBC iplayer after the first ep airs.
SHE’S BEST KNOWN for playing Lady Edith Crawley in Downton Abbey, but Laura Carmichael swaps aristocratic glamour for greasy hair and jeans this week to play a troubled mother-to-be in BBC1’S new Sydney-set thriller The Secrets She Keeps.
Inspired by a real-life hospital-kidnap incident, the six-parter sees Carmichael take on the role of divorced and lonely Agatha. Pregnant and making ends meet the best she can, Agatha also develops a dark obsession with glamorous Instagram influencer Meghan Shaughnessy (Jessica De Gouw), who is also pregnant.
But far from being the perfect wife and mother, Meghan has skeletons in her closet, too – and when Agatha engineers a ‘chance’ meeting, the story takes a menacing turn as secrets are revealed and their lives fall apart thanks to one horrifying act.
Tv & satellite Week chatted to The Spanish Princess and Marcella star Carmichael, 33, to find out more…
WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THE ROLE OF AGATHA?
Funnily enough, I’d just been in LA and I was chatting to producers over there and they asked, ‘What do you want to do next?’ I said, ‘I think I’d like to play a psychopath!’ And then by the time I got off the plane in London, the script for The Secrets She Keeps had arrived! In lots of ways Agatha is a dark character, but over the course of the series you learn more about the trauma she’s had at various points in her childhood and what leads her to do what she does. It’s an intense story.
HOW DID YOU FIND PLAYING SOMEONE WITH SUCH OBSESSIVE, CONFLICTING EMOTIONS?
It was an interesting and satisfying role to play – there’s a lot to Agatha. I had to go into tunnel vision of being in her shoes and trying to make sense of everything she does. There’s definitely a real sadness that leads to her darkness and I felt like I really cared for her as a character in a weird way.
AGATHA COMPARES HERSELF TO MEGHAN’S SEEMINGLY PERFECT LIFE. CAN YOU RELATE TO THAT?
I can relate to that Instagram world 100%. I’m terrible at Instagram. Some people can do it really well and are very authentically themselves, but it doesn’t come naturally to me.
I just worry about the wording and the caption – I’m that sort of person. I don’t want to offend anybody or get anything wrong.
THE DRAMA IS INSPIRED BY A REAL HOSPITAL KIDNAP. DID YOU DO SOME RESEARCH INTO THAT?
Hospital kidnaps have happened quite a lot, so I did look into it. All of the stories were so sad. It’s a very selfish thing to do but it comes from trauma.
HOW DID YOU FIND FILMING IN AUSTRALIA? WERE YOU RECOGNISED? I was in a yoga class and an Australian girl halfrecognised me and asked if we had gone to school together!
I was filming there for four months and it felt liberating – it’s such a world away from Downton. It was amazing to go somewhere where you don’t really know anyone and to do something so challenging and different. But I was living on my own, so it was also quite intense.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS
NOW? I really don’t know. It’s a very slow edging out of lockdown for the TV industry. But it was such a joy to do something so different for this series that I’m fantasising about doing something different again.
‘There’s definitely a real sadness that leads to Agatha’s darkness’
LAURA CARMICHAEL