TO LOSE A CHILD IS AN ALL-CONSUMING GRIEF
JULIE GRAHAM doesn’t pull any punches when asked about the appeal of her latest TV show. Julie
“Apart from the fact that it was a big stonking lead in my 50s?” quips the 54-yearold Scot, laughing loudly.
Penance – a three-part thriller, which will air on Channel 5 over consecutive nights – is inspired by the novel of the same name by Kate O’Riordan (who also wrote the script).
It follows Rosalie (Julie) and her husband Luke (Neil Morrissey), who are struggling to cope following the sudden death of their teenage son.
When their surviving daughter, Maddie (Tallulah Greive), attends a bereavement counselling session with Rosalie, they meet Jed (Nico Mirallegro), who has also suffered great loss.
A mysterious figure, he and Maddie grow close – and by the end of the first episode you’ll be hooked, as you start to question Jed’s intentions...
Julie Graham plays a grieving mum in new thriller, Penance. talks to the star about how she prepared for her leading role
“I just loved the themes, fraud and I felt like I didn’t unusual, “because the fact that it was about want to do that because I she is a woman grief and passion and loss,” didn’t want to then go and of faith”. says Julie. be a voyeur. It just didn’t “You don’t really
“I loved the fact that it feel appropriate. see that – a was dark, and it was tense “So, I went to another just professional and taut and psychological, general bereavement woman who also and there were lots of twists counselling session, because has this very and turns in it.” I am bereaved, and so I felt strong religious The actress has her own like I was there legitimately. faith.” experiences of grief; “There were a couple of She also loved the she has spoken people there who’d lost relationship Rosalie has publicly before children... with her priest, Father Tom, about the death of “It was a very particular, who is played by Art Malik. her husband, all-consuming grief in the “My mother was a
Joseph Bennett – same way that a lot of other dyed-in-the-wool atheist but also the father of grief isn’t, and that was very one of her really close her two daughters – useful because it just felt friends was a priest, and in 2015. But, she notes like it was singular and they used to wind each that “losing a child is a very palpable in some ways. It other up. unique grief”. She went to a was visible.” “She used to say, ‘Oh, grief counselling session as For Julie – who has there’s no such thing as research for the role. starred in hit shows such as God’, and he’d get all kind of
“I did look up a group that The Bletchley Circle, William upset and say, ‘Well, you dealt specifically with child And Mary, and Shetland – won’t be saying that when bereavement, but I felt like a the character of Rosalie was you’re in Hell!’”
From left: Tallulah Greive as Maddie, Neil Morrissey as Luke, Julie Graham as Rosalie, Nico Mirallegro as Jed and Art Malik as Father Tom
Not that the show made her think differently about her own beliefs... “I don’t have a faith!” she declares. “I respect anybody who does have faith, and I’m sure it brings you a great comfort – I mean sometimes I wish I did! But I’m not a religious person at all.”
Back to the topic of under-representation in TV and film, and Julie is mulling over what can be done to change things.
“The solution is casting directors and writers and commissioning editors saying, ‘We want to cast this 50:50’. We’re not asking for
anything more, we’re asking for equal representation on screen, and not just in male/ female, but across the ages as well.”
Of her own recent experiences with casting, she recalls: “In the last year, I’ve been up for two jobs where it was a multi-sex part; it was a psychiatrist and they saw men and women for the part.
“It just so happens that the part went to a man, but that’s because it went to the better actor, and I don’t mind that – they just have to go, ‘Why couldn’t that part be played by a woman?’”