Becky doesn’t have an identity so it’s easy for her to be someone else
The Crown’s Erin Doherty plays a social-media obsessed loner who goes undercover to investigate her friend’s death in BBC drama Chloe. MARION McMULLEN finds out what to expect from the psychological thriller
FANS of The Crown will know that Erin Doherty is great at stealing scenes.
She became a fan favourite playing Princess Anne in the Netflix drama and is now taking centre stage with a lead role in the BBC’s new six-part thriller Chloe.
She plays a troubled young woman called Becky who lives with her mum in a small flat on the outskirts of Bristol. Her mother suffers from early onset dementia, and Becky balances being her carer with working as temp.
She follows her estranged former friend Chloe Fairbourne on social media, even though it is 15 years since they last spoke. Unlike her, Chloe appears to have it all, including an adoring husband and a circle of high-achieving friends.
Then one morning, after spotting two missed calls on her phone from an unknown number, Becky clicks on Chloe’s profile, only to read comments indicating that she’s suddenly died.
The police contact her to say she was the last person Chloe called and Becky decides to set out to find out the truth about her death by infiltrating her former friend’s inner circle posing as a woman called Sasha.
It may seem like a dangerous game, but Erin says she can understand why her character is willing to play it. “Becky has had a bit of an intense start to her life. Basically, she had a traumatic event happen when she was younger and that’s impacted everything, including the way she sees herself, which then impacts the way she approaches life,” says Erin.
“Becky’s perspective on her own life is pretty bleak. I think she doesn’t really believe her mum is very unwell, but her mum’s illness means she’ll soon forget her, and once this happens, she doesn’t really have any need to be alive because no one will know who she is.”
Erin adds: “She is able to infiltrate Chloe’s friendship group as Sasha, because she’s not concerned with the consequences – if these people find out that she’s not who she says she is, it doesn’t really matter because she doesn’t have anything to lose.
“That perspective was key for me, in terms of the social media comparison and for Becky being able to pretend to be one of these social media perfect people and become Sasha.”
The 29-year-old made her TV debut playing a woman giving birth in Call The Midwife but The Crown was her breakthrough role and led to her taking to the stage at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles with her co-stars in 2020 to accept the prize for best ensemble in a drama series.
Erin said the award was a “lovely exhale” which proved they had done their jobs properly.
“It was really lovely to go up there as a cast of whoever could be there. Meryl Streep was in the room, so that blew my mind. It was nice because you put so much into the show, creating these connections with these people and hoping that it comes off on screen.”
Chloe offers her another challenge, playing a loner who is obsessed with other people’s seemingly Instagram-perfect lives.
The psychological thriller is the brainchild of Alice Seabright, the writer and director on Sex Education, who says: “Becky Green is someone I think we can all relate to. Erin brings her to life in an extraordinary, layered performance. She is yearning for connection. She struggles with social anxiety and intrusive thoughts. She is selfreliant and pushes others away to mask her low self-worth, always anticipating rejection. She is obsessive. She is weird, and surprisingly funny.
“She’s grieving – the emotions conjured up by Chloe’s death echo the loss of their teenage friendship. Becky has loved fiercely and felt huge pain. She has grown a hard shell to protect herself.”
Erin agrees and says of her character: “She doesn’t have an identity, which is why I think it’s so easy for her to think, right, I’m just going to pretend to be this person, because when you don’t feel like you’re shedding anything to fake it you can just slap things on, and it goes on because you’re not fighting against anything, because you don’t really know who you are.”
The series begins tonight and continues on BBC1 tomorrow with Becky stepping into Chloe’s world to try and discover what happened to her. Her former friend’s inner circle includes her widower Elliot (The Serpent’s Billy Howle), and their friends Anish (Akshay Khanna), Richard (Poldark’s Jack Farthing), Livia (Pippa Bennett-Warner) and Phil (Alexander Eliot).
Erin explains why it is so important to Becky to infiltrate the group and try and find out the truth saying: “Before she died, before she went missing, I think Chloe was taking up a lot of the space in Becky’s brain; in terms of, I wonder where she is? I wonder what she’s thinking? I wonder if she even remembers me or what she thinks about me?
“Her motivation comes from this idea that Becky’s just waiting to fall off the face of the Earth – all her actions are informed from that. When you feel like you don’t really exist, the highlight of your day could be passing someone on the street, and they’ll give you eye contact. If that is the headspace you’re in, then suddenly this person that was so pivotal to your wellbeing, whom you’ve been following obsessively on social media, dies without any information, I found it very easy to buy the fact that Becky would become completely determined to find out what happened to Chloe, that’s the purpose of her life at that point.
“I think it’s her emptiness that is the trigger for Becky becoming obsessed with finding out the truth.”
Chloe starts on BBC1, tonight, 9pm
Meryl Streep was in the room, so that blew my mind. Erin Doherty on being at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in LA with her The Crown co-stars to accept the prize for best ensemble in a drama series