Keeley Hawes
OF ‘HONOUR’ ON BRITBOX
In “Honour,” you play a real-life London detective investigating the honor-based 2006 murder of young British-Iraqi woman Banaz Mahmod. How prevalent is honor-based violence there?
It is, unfortunately, in the news and it certainly became one of the reasons why I became very passionate about it and wanted to be involved . ... It is one of those things where I think, because people feel, ‘Oh, it’s a cultural thing; it’s not my business; it doesn’t involve me,’ which is precisely part of the problem with Banaz’s case in the first place.
The police weren’t trained. They felt that it wasn’t their business. They felt it was something that they couldn’t get involved with and they weren’t equipped to deal with it. And at that time, I believe they weren’t. It was looked at as a cultural thing and something that wasn’t something for them to get involved with. And so now, if there’s only one good thing that has come out of this, it’s that there is now training in place so that the police can recognize the signs and know what they’re dealing with and have a much better understanding.
How did viewers respond after it aired in the U.K.?
It’s interesting the response here . ... It was a very brave decision for ITV to take this show on because it isn’t mainstream. It is something that people tend to think doesn’t involve them and so I think it was a very brave decision for ITV. I think we got seven million (viewers) for the first episode all in and I think everyone was hugely surprised by the amount of people who watched, because they are interested. People did want to know and hopefully if we did nothing else, we did educate people like I’ve been educated myself through this process.
You know, it’s the same with domestic abuse of any kind. If you see something, if you think there’s something wrong, maybe there is. Maybe you can make a difference and help someone and speak up and speak out and help. And certainly calls to the charities that were involved went through the roof after the show (aired) and so many positive things came out of it.