This Whelan’s on fire… in police drama The Tower
Game Of Thrones and Upstart Crow star Gemma on why she loves playing a cop but could never be one, moving from stage to screen, and the story behind her character DS Sarah Collins’ ugly orange duffle coat
RESEARCHING her latest role as tough-as-nails Detective Sergeant Sarah Collins in TV drama The Tower, Gemma Whelan sought advice from former cops on one of the hardest parts of their job: the so-called “death message”. “A death message is when you go to the home of the immediate next of kin, and inform them of a death,” Whelan explains. “The ex-police officers I spoke to were very clear that when you are doing that kind of message there has to be no ambiguity. Nothing like, ‘They’ve gone to a better place’. You simply say that they are dead. It’s very important to not be ambiguous.”
She pauses, then admits: “Although I’m fascinated by it all and have read books about true crimes since I was young, it’s not a job I would like to do in real life, whereas Sarah thrives on the challenges.”
The advice the actress and comedian received has tied into the latest, second series of The Tower – the police procedural based on Kate London’s Metropolitan trilogy.The first, in late 2021, followed the aftermath of the deaths of a veteran officer and a young Libyan girl who fell from the roof of a London tower block together.
Critics and fans alike have dubbed it the natural successor to Line Of Duty and the latest series is due across four nights on ITV1 later this month.
It is likely to prove a nerve-racking ride. As in series one,Whelan – who found fame from playing Yara Greyjoy in Game Of Thrones and Kate in Upstart Crow – plays the calm, dogged and forensic DS Collins, and, in the process, joins the ranks of Helen Mirren’s Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect and Brenda Blethyn’s DC Vera Stanhope as a top TV female cop.
Amid television schedules groaning with police dramas and true crime, The Tower captures the collective imagination and is so authentically tense, well-written and sublimely acted, it will have us on the edge of our sofas.
“It’s an honour to be keeping such good company,” Whelan, 42, smiles. “It’s nice to be part of that. I’ve always loved detective and police dramas – as a child I enjoyed watching Murder, She Wrote and Columbo.
“I’m fascinated and in awe of the people who do it for a real job.A lot of the supporting artists on The Tower are ex-police officers and detectives, so they are a rich field to plough during downtime on set. I chewed the ear off them.
“A few of them shared some desperate situations they found themselves in and what they had to do in the circumstances.”
This second series is subtitled “Death Message”, suggesting the decidedly morbid addendum is central to the story arc of the production.
WHILE Whelan won’t give away any plot spoilers, the drama opens with two cases of violence against women, one past, one present.
But a depressingly ordinary incident of domestic violence involving a young couple and their daughter turns out to be anything but.
The story in the past involves the disappearance of a schoolgirl a quarter of a century ago. It’s a case that has long gone cold. On the basis of
a new lead – which the police believe is just a cynical ploy by a prisoner trying to impress at his parole hearing – this case is reopened and given to DS Collins. “Sarah’s moved on from where she was with her former set of misogynistic colleagues,” says Whelan. “She’s optimistic about this fresh start she’s engineered for herself but is immediately given the historic case. “It’s a thankless task which everyone, especially her new boss, expects her to fail. But she rises to the challenge. “She thinks outside the box and fairly quickly – just by looking at people and thinking about people in a different way – develops a vital new lead.” It’s with a dogged determination that DS Collins sets out to solve the case – much like DI Stanhope in Vera.
However, this tenacity isn’t all Whelan’s character has in common with Brenda Blethyn’s. Both seem partial to a particularly ugly item of clothing.
For Vera’s horrible bucket hat, see Sarah’s dodgy orange duffle coat. Will the said garment be making a cameo appearance in Series Two?
Whelan laughs: “We have given the duffle a moment but it ends up being left in the back of Sarah’s car. It was quite difficult last season because I was pregnant so they had to try their best to cover up a woman who clearly would not have children at this juncture in her life.
“This year everything our costume designer Darren brought along felt like Sarah. It was great to be able to move on without doing anything drastically different.
She’s looking smart and the clothes aren’t getting in the way.
“But... there is no more orange duffle.” A look back at Gemma’s career is an exercise in awe.What a body of work! In addition to The Tower, she’s starred in DI Ray, Gentleman Jack, White House Farm, Killing Eve and, what was her first big break, Game Of Thrones.
And who can forget her mesmerising performance in 2017’s The Moorside playing Karen Matthews, the real-life mother who abducted her own daughter Shannon, in 2008? And that’s just the straight drama stuff.
This sublimely talented actor is also a comedy queen. We loved her as good-natured Kate in Ben Elton’s hilarious Shakespearethemed sit-com Upstart Crow, which she played for four years on screen before performing it live on stage in 2022.Was she anxious about the prospect of transferring this very successful TV show to theatre?
“I felt it stood a good chance of being successful because we’d always filmed the TV show in front of a live audience,” she says.
“People used to fall about laughing at all the stuff we did so I felt like it had the best chance to fly. It had a huge fanbase as well.
“Having read the script and having Sean Foley as director who directed the TV series, I wasn’t worried. However, I knew we’d have to adapt. You’re doing theatre so the volume on everything has to be turned up, not just the audio. Theatre is a different skill set to learn and was an interesting transition for all of us.”
It takes a very special kind of talent to excel at both comedy and drama.
Whelan cites Olivia Coleman as an inspiration, saying of the multi-Oscar winning actress: “She’s got funny bones but a very brilliant dramatic streak.”
Self-effacing, she could easily be talking about herself and actually trumps Coleman on one score – she started out doing standup and in 2010 won The Funny Women Variety Award as a result. “I always loved making my friends laugh at school. I loved being the cheeky one or the clown. I used to watch I Love Lucy a lot. I devoured comedy. It was my mode of communication, I think – being funny and light.”
THE STAR and her husband, comedian and actor Gerry Howell, and their two small children live in south London. Not one for a long maternity leave, Whelan was back at work within weeks of giving birth to both youngsters.
“I was very lucky and able to take the children with me on set as newborns. During the filming of The Tower II: Death Message, for instance, I was, quite wonderfully, provided with an amazing Winnebago facility so we could feel safe and comfortable every day where we were.
“I was a bit moved by how kind they were to me as a working mother. It is an extra thing to have a breastfeeding mother on set. Obviously, you should be welcome as you are in every other workplace, but it requires more thought.
“There was so much thought and attention and kindness and checking in. I was of course happy to meet them more than halfway. ‘I’ll bring the nanny, I’ll bring the milk’. You can really make it work.”
For now, it’s filming a third season of The Tower that’s dominating her work life – and she’s loving it.
It sounds like she regards being on set as something of a second home.
“You are being told what to say, what to do, what to wear and you are fed and watered and driven everywhere,” she chuckles.
“You are kind of like a little baby yourself. I love it and never take it for granted.”
● The Tower II: Death Message starts on ITV1 on August 29 and will also stream on ITVX