STILL WATERS
Sophie Rundle on ‘After the Flood’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’ movie
SHE’S going from criminal to cop. “Peaky Blinders” star Sophie Rundle, 36, takes a step onto the other side of the law with her new BritBox series, “After the Flood.” “I think she’s a really great protagonist… I watched ‘Mare of Easttown’ and I loved what Kate Winslet did in that, so she was kind of my North Star,” Rundle, 36, told The Post.
“But Clarice Starling, or any of these iconic female detectives in the canon of this genre…those were the references I had on my Pinterest mood board.”
Premiering Monday, May 13 on Britbox, the British crime drama is set in the fictional town of Waterside, England. It follows Joanna Marshall (Rundle), a police officer investigating an unidentified man who was found dead in a parking garage after a flood.
At first, it’s assumed that the natural disaster killed him, until it’s revealed that he was dead for three days before the event.
“I don’t often get a lot of content like that. I get a lot of period dramas and more constrained stuff – which I love doing,” said Rundle, who’s also known for HBO’s “Gentleman Jack.”
“But it was so exciting to get the scripts, I kept having to double check that it was definitely my character doing all the heroics! I thought she was interesting, I liked that she had this uncomfortable relationship to her pregnancy, and she’s a little bit reckless and very determined.”
Joanna is married to a fellow detective, Pat (played by Rundle’s real-life husband Matt Stokoe), and because she’s seven months pregnant, he’s not enthusiastic about her being out in the field.
“It was a bit of a fluke,” Rundle said, about how she ended up working with Stokoe, with whom she has a three-year-old son (she’s currently pregnant with their second child).
“He was maybe going to be doing a show for the same production company, and that got changed around. They said ‘This is a bit crazy, but how do you guys feel about playing husband and wife in this?’ Inevitably, then people are quite curious about your personal life, and you can’t be annoyed at that, obviously. We said, ‘Do we want to do this?’”
Rundle added, “We just thought it’s quite fun to go to work together. We had worked together before we were a couple, and we honestly thought it would make childcare easier if we were in the same place for once. Each couple is different, whether you can work with your partner or not. But, we kind of just leave it all at the door.”
Rundle is best known for starring on the hit gangster drama “Peaky Blinders” as Ada Shelby, Tommy’s (Cillian Murphy) sister.
Regarding Murphy’s rise to global fame amid his Oscar win for “Oppenheimer,” she said, “It’s kind of wild, but amazing to see, and so justly deserved. He is exceptional, and was exceptional in that film. It was lovely to watch him very calmly go through world domination in that very Cillian style of his.”
A “Peaky Blinders” movie is in the works, to wrap up the story after a six season run.
“Everybody asks [about] that, including my own family,” said Rundle.
“Even my mom is like, ‘Well, surely you can tell me!’ But I know nothing. I know there are conversations happening, but getting any film made is a logistical nightmare. I’m leaving the conversations to the grownups.”