People can completely convince themselves of something if they want it to be true
JILL HALFPENNY STARS AS A SCHEMING LODGER WHO OUTSTAYS HER WELCOME IN NEW THRILLER, THE CUCKOO. JANE HAASE FINDS OUT MORE
ANOTHER week, another gripping four-part drama heads our way courtesy of Channel 5.
In The Cuckoo, Jill Halfpenny plays lodger Sian, who moves into the home of married couple Jessica and Nick (Casualty’s Claire Goose and The Long Shadow’s Lee Ingleby).
They have relocated to the countryside with their daughter Alice (Freya Hannan-Mills), and the house of their dreams, a grand doerupper.
The family has been struggling financially and hope getting a lodger will help them get back on an even keel.
Sian quickly bonds with Jessica and Alice, making Nick suspicious.
It turns out his fears may be wellfounded when ghosts from the interloper’s past threaten to rear their ugly head...
Jill, 48, who has already appeared in Channel 5 thrillers The Drowning and The Holiday, is certainly a fan of the genre.
“That’s the fun of watching a thriller,” she says. “Nobody wants to be with the person who’s like, ‘I know exactly what happens’.
“The fun of it is, ‘It’s them. Oh, it’s her’. I think that’s why, as a nation, we’ve really – certainly in the last 10 years – become obsessed with thrillers.”
She says she was attracted to The Cuckoo because of the idea it would be “a bit of a nod to those old 1990s movies like Single White Female, which I thought was cool, and then we had this idea of a story about a woman who infiltrates a family”.
Initially, it was thought she would play Jessica, but Jill reveals: “It was me who said, ‘Actually, can I play Sian? Can I be the person doing all this stuff, because that seems like more fun!’
“I was attracted to playing somebody who was doing these things, rather than having them happening to her.”
Jill took some inspiration for the role from true crime dramas.
“It was easy for me to find empathy with her, because I know that people can completely convince themselves of something if they want it to be true, they just doggedly follow that idea to the end,” she says.
“You see these people on Netflix documentaries all the time, and look how far they go.
“Whether it’s Doctor Death or the Tinder Swindler, the thing that always strikes me about these kinds of real-life stories is the confidence.
“When the victims retell their stories, they always talk about how easy it was to believe these people, because they just seemed so assured, and it made sense what they were saying to them.
“You have to own that confidence for it to work, and usually people like Sian would prey on somebody who wasn’t feeling quite so confident, which is exactly what she does with this family.
“She sees they’re in a bit of a sticky situation, she finds their Achilles heel, and she just twists the knife.”
The star, who first came to the nation’s attention as a teenager in Byker Grove before appearing in
EastEnders and Coronation Street and winning the second series of Strictly Come Dancing, in 2004, loves acting in thrillers, although she admits they have their drawbacks.
“It’s always nice to play something that is a bit more psychologically dark. But while thrillers are fun, they’re also quite exhausting because the characters that you’re playing are usually consistently tense. You come home and you’re like, ‘Why are my shoulders by my ears?’
“You’re always holding something in energetically, trying to keep a lid on things, and that’s really, really fun to play – but it’s quite exhausting to have that lid on for 11 hours a day!”
Jill did enjoy filming on location, though.
“We were in a huge farmhouse for most of the shoot, which was so big, you only see a tiny bit of it on screen, and it’s in County Wicklow, which is a gorgeous part of Ireland. It was stunning and a great place to film.” Co-star Lee Ingleby (who has also appeared in the likes of Line of Duty and Screw), is someone she admires.
“I worked with Lee recently for The Long Shadow, but we actually first worked together when we did George Gently way back, and he’s somebody that I’ve known over the years through friends of friends.
“I love him, I think he’s a great actor, so I was really pleased when he got on board. “I didn’t know Claire [Goose] at all, but I’d admired her work from afar, and it turns out the three of us work very similarly.
“We’re all about the same age, so we’ve all come out of drama school in the same way – we’re the generation of being quite industrious and just getting on with it!
“Freya, who plays Alice, was really lovely and great in the role too.”
So, what does Jill think viewers will make of the show, and her character Sian?
“They will know quite quickly what she wants, but I think the show then becomes about whether she manages to succeed, that’s the thrill of it,” she says.
“It’s harking back to that Nineties style – I re-watched Fatal Attraction the other day and it’s so obvious this woman is behaving erratically and isn’t going to be great news, but once you’ve let her in that’s it.
“It’s the same with The Cuckoo – Nick and Jessica have already made their worst move in letting Sian into the house – of course she is going to find ways to stay now.
“The minute she is in she can start messing with their heads.”
She adds: “People will shout at the telly! You’ll have moments where you’re in complete disbelief watching people behave in a certain way.”
It was me who said, “Actually, can I play Sian? Can I be the person doing all this stuff, because that seems like more fun!”
Jill Halfpenny on her role