I’m nothing like my characters ...I’m a pussycat!
WHEN Cold Feet last aired, it did so to a very different world.
In March 2003, then Prime Minister Tony Blair was leading Britain into war with the invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, at home, 10 million shed a tear as the final episode of the hit ITV show featured the heartbreaking funeral of much-loved Rachel.
Like the rest of the series that had gripped the nation for the previous five years, it was a huge talking point in offices and factories, shops and schools the next day.
And that’s just one of the massive changes in the intervening 13 years.
It was pre-social media, the days before Twitter storms could make – or destroy – a show’s reputation in a few tweet-mad minutes.
So when Cold Feet returns this week, everyone involved knows a verdict will have been reached well before the end credits even roll. And that includes star Hermione Norris.
“Oh, my goodness!” she sighs, as she settles down to speak to iN10.
“Do you know what, I try to not think about it. It just makes me nervous. Really, I don’t think about it.
“I feel I’ve done my bit. We’ve all done out best and I just really hope people are entertained and comforted by it. But I won’t be looking at Twitter to see the response.
“In some ways it’s really not that long ago, but the world has changed such a lot. Technology and especially social media is what’s changed it so much, I suppose. There’s so much TV now and people watch it in a very different way.
“Back in the day, everyone sat down at a certain time and it’s all very different.”
It sounds to us as if Hermione, who plays Karen in the series, isn’t a big fan of Twitter.
“I’m afraid I’m not,” she admits.
“I wish I was actually but it’s not something I’ve engaged with. I feel overwhelmed with email and texts and phone calls, let alone social media.
“I think I’ll have to because I have children and I’m going to have to get up and running with it.
“But it’s
something I’ve managed to avoid so far.”
All of the original cast, with the exception of Helen Baxendale – Rachel who died in a car crash – are back.
Robert Bathurst is Karen’s buttoned-up husband David, Fay Ripley and John Thomson are outspoken Jenny and hapless Pete, and James Nesbitt is loveable charmer Adam.
They were the 30-somethings we felt we knew so well. Now they’re heading towards 50.
And while she’s been open about her concerns, Hermione admits she was soon won over by original writer Mike Bullen’s plans.
“I definitely had reservations,” she confides. “I just felt it was such a show of its time, that it was very well-loved, and that some things are best left.
“But Mike rang me and said that it wasn’t really a remake, it was revisiting these characters in this particular chapter of their lives.
“He said that it’d be great to have our generation represented on TV through those particular characters.
“I still hope it is as good as it once was, and, you know, I’m glad I did it.”
The sassy six felt so natural, so real, that we all felt we knew them. It’s similar with Hermione. Karen, glass in hand or not, wasn’t someone to trifle with.
As DCI Carol Jordan in Wire In The Blood, she was the hard-nosed copper not fazed by the grisliest of murders.
And Ros Myers was the steely-eyed Spooks spy who made other secret agents look like wimps.
Even in recent parenthood drama In The Club, she was one tough cookie.
So, it’s a small surprise – but a very pleasant one indeed – to find that Hermione’s a world removed from most of her screen incarnations.
She’s full of smiles and giggles, easy and enjoyable company. “Oh definitely!” she laughs, thankfully taking no offence when I suggest she’s seen as a bit of an ice maiden. “But I’m not anything like those characters. I suppose what people would know me from is maybe Cold Feet and Spooks.
“Karen’s strong in her own way and so was Ros, but I’m NOTHING like that. “I’d say I was pussycat! “I do think that if people see you in something big – because I do long-running series – they project quite a strong image of the character on to you as a person.
“You have to be given the chance to do something different
to undo those perceptions.”
Over the next eight weeks we’ll see how the remaining Cold Feet five have changed and what life will throw at them.
What’s changed for Hermione in the near decade-and-a-half since it ended is that she’s now, very happily indeed, a mum-of-two.
Just before Cold Feet finished she wed Wire In The Blood writer Simon Wheeler and they now have two kids, Wilf, 12, and Hero, nine.
“Everything changed when I had children,” she says.
“A week is my absolute max without seeing them. Monday to Friday is definitely enough for me to be away from them.
“Even that’s tough but I’m lucky that I’m married to somebody who’s able to be very present.
“We take it in turns. Simon is a brilliant dad and I’m so lucky he’s incredibly supportive.
“I know my children are OK. If I didn’t feel that I just wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Like the rest of the Cold Feet cast, Hermione seems to have hardly been off our screens since the series ended. A week is my absolute max without seeing the kids and even that’s tough
In The Club was on BBC1 only a few weeks ago and she has just signed up for a new four-part ITV drama called Innocent, alongside Inspector George Gently star Lee Ingleby.
But she’s adamant it’s far from a case of telly bosses beating a path to her door with one juicy role after another.
“If only that really did happen,” she sighs. “People think actors have got a lot more power than they do.”
What we’ll hopefully get though, is to see more of Karen, the role she concedes has undoubtedly brought her a lot of work over the years.
Having got back together with her old buddies, she’s keeping her fingers crossed that viewers don’t get cold feet and decide you should never go back.
“They’ve optioned us for two series but, honestly, you’ll probably know before me,” she adds.
“I think ITV will wait for the viewing figures and then make their decision accordingly.
“Having agreed to do it I really enjoyed it, loved working with that group of people again and speaking Mike’s words.
“So wherever that journey goes to, I’ll be on it.”
Cold Feet, ITV, September 5.