Nicola Walker talks to Janet Christie about the return of acclaimed police drama Unforgotten

Just as divorce drama The Split finishes, fans of Nicola Walker can see her reprise her role as cold case detective Cassie Stuart in a new season of Unforgotten. The actor talks to Janet Christie about the police procedural and why she can’t get enough of the day job. Portrait by Ruth Crafer

Nicola Walker is unemployed. Not something you hear very often from a woman with an industrial work ethic who is currently one of the most employed actors on our screens and airwaves, having just wrapped the third series of ITV’S hit crime drama Unforgotten just as her hit BBC divorce drama The Split is recommissioned.

Yet “as of Friday afternoon last week, I’m unemployed,” confirms the Olivier award winning, Bafta nominated actor when we talk. “So I’ll be doing the school run and putting the correct sports gear in my son’s rucksack for a bit.”

When she says ‘unemployed’, it’s more of a between jobs kind of thing, what the less industrious among us might regard as a well-deserved break. And Walker is pleased about the immediate work life balance for the next few weeks with her 11-yearold son Harry to look after while her actor husband Barnaby Kay appears in Home, I’m Darling, with Catherine Parkinson at The National Theatre in London.

“It’s worked out very nicely. I finished and Barnaby’s got this play. If I had been still working we would have to juggle the basics, who’s going to pick our child up and things… So I’m happy doing that, but also looking forward to the next thing.”

Walker talks quickly, then halts, then talks quickly again and in between you can almost hear the quick flash of her blinding smile down the phone as she modestly ascribes her success to “being lucky.” In fact she has worked consistently for the past two decades and her CV is prodigious. Versatile, she’s worked in theatre, radio, film and TV, breaking out as an annoying folk singer in Four Weddings and a Funeral, then making her mark in spy drama Spooks from 2003-11. She carried off her Olivier for Best Supporting Actress in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time in 2013, and has taken on a whole squad of police officer roles in Prisoners’ Wives, Babylon ,and River. She’s been Bafta nominated twice as best support in Last Tango In Halifax and last year played Broadway in A View from The Bridge .Aswellas the more recent Unforgotten and The Split, where she’s the lead as Hannah, scion of the Defoe divorce lawyer dynasty, this year she’s played a lesbian vicar in Collateral, the BBC/ Netflix crime drama with Carey Mulligan, John Simm and Billie Piper. Throw in her Norwegian detective Annika Stranded in the eponymous Radio 4 comedy drama, and the 48-year-old Walker has the aura of an actor who has really hit her stride.

“I’m very grateful for the last couple of years and I really like the work that I’m involved with, really proud of Unforgotten and The Split .But nothing has really changed for me,” she says. “I have been doing this since I was 21. I was always about working. I like working. I don’t like being unemployed. I love acting.

“There’s not been a plan,” she says. “It’s just being an actor, and I’m really grateful that in the last few years the parts have got really interesting. I love that it’s since I hit my forties. I’m getting involving parts because there are people out there that want to tell more complex stories about women and men. I’ve benefited from the fact that women I worked with years ago are now in positions of power where they can put forward work that involves women my age.”

With the next six part series of The Split filming in the spring Walker could be forgiven for taking the time to put her feet up tomorrow night and watch Unforgotten as she and Sanjeev Bhaskar bring back detective duo DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunil “Sunny” Khan to solve another decades old murder. Digging up long buried bodies and secrets, the pair work to unravel historical crimes and find justice for the victims and their families.

This time round fresh suspects fall under their forensic eye in the shape of Alex Jennings (Victoria and The Crown), Neil Morrissey (The Good Karma Hospital), Kevin R Mcnally (Pirates of the Caribbean) and James Fleet (The Vicar Of Dibley). The quartet of old friends are under suspicion after the body of a teenage girl, who went missing nearly 20 years ago, is found at a building site.

Unforgotten fans will know Cassie and Sunny have secrets of their own after series two saw them shelve a case when the suspects turned out to be victims of child sex abuse who murdered their abusers. Walker is confident however, that viewers new to the series won’t be at a disadvantage if they’re not up to speed with the legacy of the cliffhanger end to the last series.

“I think you could watch this series never having seen any of it and understand and enjoy it as a piece of drama. But what you get by having seen them all is the cumulative effect in the development of the characters, and that’s a real narrative pull that’s interesting.”

Where Unforgotten scores is with its reflection of the development of forensics in criminal investigation. As science catches up with crime, evidence can be studied anew and complex cold cases opened up once more.

“We’ve had to wait for forensics to get to this point of advancement,” says Walker. “In this series we’re looking at one of those unsolved murders that has had a national impact. The investigation is different this time round and there are specific complexities in that my character has to meet with the media for the first time. There’s also a storyline with someone online commenting about the police and how the case is being investigated, and whether that has an effect. It’s very up to date and very relevant.”