HOTSEAT Part of the joy is the ‘will they, won’t they’

I HADN’T at first because I felt such a personal connection with Robin, I felt like she was me.

It was only when I went to a wedding after we had been filming for a few months and so many women were coming up to me, telling me how much they loved the books and Robin and how much they engaged with her and felt like there was lots of themselves in her, that I realised how loved she is.

So then there was pressure to come across as likeable as she comes across in the books. ROBIN has been through some life experiences that are very different from my life experiences and to do justice to that was important, so I wanted to do quite a bit of research to put myself in the mindset about certain issues and areas of life that I haven’t experienced. JK Rowling’s crime series Strike based around gruff detective Cormoran Strike makes its debut on BBC1 this weekend. Holliday Grainger, who plays his tough assistant Robin Ellacott, tells about the pleasure and pressure of taking on a Rowling character and ridding herself of a corset and I was always desperate to get out of the corset. If I am choosing a job or reading a story, it doesn’t matter the period, it’s more whether the world speaks to you or if you find the character engaging. But there is something a lot more freeing doing something contemporary – you can ad lib and use “OK” and “It’s fine” and the kind of slang bits that you can’t in period pieces. It definitely feels a lot more true to your life and so there is more a spontaneity there. I ALWAYS really liked Ginny Weasley in the books, but, having said that, if I was going to go back and be cast in a Harry Potter film, I would definitely have to be a baddie. It’s far more fun.

To be a JK Rowling baddie in a Harry Potter world would be amazing. After playing parts in so many period dramas, Holliday Grainger is glad to have taken on a role which doesn’t require a corset