I was terrified in court.. and I was only acting
Actress Charlene Boyd, who plays Ronna Ricardo in the hit BBC series, said she developed a deep respect for her character and was appalled at the way the Scot was treated by the authorities.
The mum of two, from Cumbernauld, admitted filming the court scenes where Ronna was ripped apart by the judge was so terrifying she didn’t need to feign fear.
Charlene, 33, who has starred in Taggart, Scots Squad and River City, said: “I have so much respect for Ronna. How she had the courage to stand in that courtroom and admit she had lied in her original statement, I will never know. She had so much to lose but she still told the truth.
“The police had threatened to take away her child and, as a mother of two young children, I know just how scared she must have been and the inner turmoil she must have been going through.
“I was terrified in that courtroom and I was only acting so I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Ronna all those years ago, aged just 23, and being treated so harshly by the judge.”
The RSAMD graduate added: “I had never heard of Ronna before my first audition so I did lots of research online about the Profumo Affair and Ricardo’s role.
“I felt sorry for Ronna as she was not as pretty as Christine Keeler or Mandy Rice-Davies and she did what she did to feed her family and was dragged into the whole scandal.”
Charlene, who would love a part in Shetland, Line of Duty or Outlander, says the end of her sex scene with Louis Hilyer, who plays corrupt Chief Inspector Samuel Herbert, was edited out.
She said: “Ronna was a dominatrix who supposedly carried a small whip in her handbag. At the end of the scene I filmed with Herbert, I had to clear away a whip and some other sex toys. It never made the final cut but it made me realise just how adventurous she was back then.
“No one quite knows where in Scotland Ronna was from. All I had to go on was that a Met officer mentioned her having a Scottish accent, so I just went with my own.”
Charlene added: “Although the Profumo affair happened nearly 60 years ago, it is just as relevant today, maybe even more so in the light of the #MeToo campaign.
“I came away with empathy for
Stephen Ward, Christine, Mandy and Ronna.”