What drew you to this series initially?

It was the character, the chance to play Delia. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever played before, she’s an incredibly fascinating person and her responses to things are very particular to her. It was really interesting and liberating to play someone like Delia, who is unapologetically herself and gives herself licence to express everything she’s thinking and feeling. That is an amazing quality and very few people are like that. I don’t want to speak for her at all, but I think it absolutely informs just how resilient she is. That was thrilling for me to play.

Then it was about the people attached to the project – that’s usually the first thing I look for, but actually this time it was the character that initially drew me in. You want to be around people who are not just talented, but also really good and decent, you don’t want to have a miserable time on set. Julia Ford is such a lovely, capable, wonderfully kind director, who is very clear about what she wants, which I really like and she understands script and narrative arc. I definitely didn’t want Delia’s story to be sensationalised, and I just knew with Julia at the helm that wouldn’t happen. Then Ken Horn, the producer, was someone I worked with on Line of Duty, so I knew he was a good person.

Did you have conversations with the real Delia before you started filming?

No, I’ve played quite a few real people and I have never met them before. I don’t choose to do that, that’s how I work. Our writer, Nick, filmed a lot of footage of his meetings with Delia, which I had access to. I did meet her very briefly during filming, but only because she wanted to visit the set and of course I was respectful of that. I didn’t do lots of research into abusive relationships either, instead I just focussed on the character, on who she was, how she responded to things, and what I could gauge about how she interacted with people. Then you go from there and you try to be as accurate as you can in terms of how that person would behave and respond.

Had you worked with Shaun Evans before?

No but he’s so lovely, he’s a really super, kind person, I so enjoyed working with both him and Kevin Doyle. I’d worked with Kevin twice before, so he was a definitive choice for all of us, but I hadn’t worked with Shaun.

There were lots of big conversations about who would play Sweeney, because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but I did feel there would be times when I would be quite vulnerable playing Delia. I hate saying things like that because of course what Delia has been through is horrific and it’s just acting for me, but I was aware that there was nudity and violence in the series, and you don’t want to be filming with an egomaniac in the room. You want to be with someone who is kind, funny and calm, which Shaun is. If you cast a collaborator then you’re going to be respectful of the people you’re playing and do a good job, and Shaun really understood that. It was really easy to do the difficult scenes because Shaun was so easy to work with, and he is also incredibly talented – he was frighteningly accurate as Sweeney.

Did you use an intimacy co-ordinator when portraying the abuse Delia endured?

We were offered one, and there was a lovely lady available to us, but we didn’t use one in the end – Shaun and I work in quite a similar way, so we felt we didn’t need an intimacy co-ordinator, but we needed a stunt co-ordinator a lot more.

Was it tough to film such dark scenes?

It's not like doing a 12-hour shift as a nurse, so I get embarrassed to say that. It’s not a nice headspace to be in, but of course I get to step away from it. You have to keep a firm grip on the fact that it is not your reality – very sadly it was someone else’s reality and it was really difficult for her. It’s not nice, and I don’t know how Shaun felt about playing someone like Sweeney. It affects you a little bit in the day, you wouldn’t be doing your job properly if it didn’t, but then you’ve got to get a firm grip on yourself, go home and be very thankful that you’re not actually living any of those things.

You like to ensure there is a positive atmosphere on set, even when filming dark material, don’t you?

That’s the way I work – I couldn’t handle being in character all day long, and even though there were lots of heavy scenes to do I didn’t want a heavy atmosphere on set. That’s where Shaun was really sweet, he just got on that bandwagon with me and I’m very grateful to him for that. Whatever story you’re telling, you must be respectful of the people you’re playing of course, and everyone was very focussed and brilliant in doing that. But you also have to be respectful of the fact that crews work very long hours, it can often be a very frenetic job and sets can get quite tense. I am really aware that everyone is doing long hours, so everyone should be able to have a nice time at work and a good working environment, I think that’s really important.

Was it important to you that the series is told from Delia’s perspective?

Yes, absolutely because we’re also trying to say, “Wow look at this amazing woman” – she didn’t take any crap, she’s so resilient and fiery, such an individual, let’s celebrate that rather than showing more gratuitous violence against females on TV. I think we’re all a bit bored of watching that and following predatory male killers around on TV, I didn’t really want to focus on the abuse. We’re getting inside the mind of a woman who went through a lot of very complex things, not just to do with John Sweeney, and I’m very proud of the drama.

I was also really interested in the brutalising system Delia became a part of – the judicial system, the police system and what happened there.. It was difficult to read what happened to her. Lots of people are missed all the time and Delia was. She is an incredibly strong, capable person and I hope we challenge the idea that victims of violence are wobbling jellies in the corner – they aren’t and it’s important to understand that. Delia always maintained her strength and her view of things and she was very rarely cowed by people, she had incredible resilience.

Do you feel the drama is more powerful because it is based on a true story?

Yes, but also this series wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t a true story. There are aspects of Delia’s character that are quite extreme, so if I had written this character and taken the drama to a broadcaster they would have told me to tone it down or said they don’t believe her as a character. But there was so much freedom when filming this, because Delia is an exceptionally interesting person and this is a true story.

How did you find filming in Swansea?

I love the Welsh people and we had a lovely crew, but this is all set literally around the corner from my house, so when I got it I thought, “Brilliant this is easy with the kids” – we’re a single-parent family so I thought it would be great... and then they said we were going all the way to Swansea! But I was staying in the Mumbles and I had the kids down over Easter, which was heaven – we went swimming along the Gower Peninsula every day and it was gorgeous.

I always feel so lucky to do this job and I’m so grateful to come off a project like this and think, “That was a lovely job”, especially in the past couple of years with what’s happened in my life, I feel exceptionally grateful to still be working. I was surrounded by lovely people on this drama and actually I was quite moved, because it was the first time I’d left my kids to go away to work since my husband died, and I was looked after so well. Everyone was so kind to me all the time, from Julia, our director, to Callum, our runner, they were so sweet. So I do feel so lucky and grateful to be in this industry, doing really good work with good people, every department knocked it out the park.

Have you felt a shift in your career in the past few years, after your high-profile roles in Line of Duty and Motherland?

I’ve had fallow times in my career, when I’ve been trying to turn the tide – after Bleak House all I got offered was costume dramas, so I had to say no a few times, because I thought no-one else wanted to watch me in another costume drama! It’s so easy to get pigeon holed and I’ve only ever wanted to play very different parts all of the time, I don’t have any interest in looking or sounding like myself on screen.

Line of Duty has an exceptionally big audience, and all the gritty dramas I was doing when I was younger probably didn’t have a very big audience. Then the Motherland phenomenon grew during Covid, it wasn’t a massive show and then it became a really big thing in lockdown, which coincided with Line of Duty coming out, and people thought, “How can she do different things? Weird!” Even since then I keep trying to do different things and always do a project that is a new challenge.

People are obsessed with Line of Duty and I loved playing Pat, she was an amazing character. I’d play Pat for the rest of my life, in fact I wish Jed would do the spin-off: “Pat” – not even Pat doing policing, just her doing other things like going to the shops!