{"id":20259,"date":"2022-08-14T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1693554"},"modified":"2022-08-14T10:36:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T08:36:27","slug":"nicola-walker-on-bbc-ones-marriage-unforgotten-exit-and-future-roles","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/nicola-walker-on-bbc-ones-marriage-unforgotten-exit-and-future-roles\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicola Walker on BBC One\u2019s Marriage, Unforgotten exit and future roles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Mark Lawson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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This article was originally published in\u00a0Radio Times magazine<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eight years ago, something happened that changed Nicola Walker\u2019s attitude to acting. She was rehearsing A View from the Bridge, a revival of Arthur Miller\u2019s classic of betrayal in an Italian-American family, which would become one of her career highs, transferring from the Young Vic to the West End and then Broadway.<\/p>\n

During an early run-through of one scene, the play\u2019s director, Ivo van Hove, stopped her and suggested, gently, that she was overacting. \u201cI was sobbing, saying, \u2018You don\u2019t want me to act. You want me to do what I would do in my kitchen!\u2019 And Ivo said, \u2018Yeah, do what you do in your kitchen with your partner\u2019. It was a great wake- up call for me: \u2018Just shut up and say the words. Don\u2019t get in the way with your stupid acting.\u2019 I\u2019ve never forgotten that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possibly no coincidence that, the following year, 2015, Walker made her debut as DCI Cassie Stuart in ITV\u2019s Unforgotten<\/a>, creating one of television\u2019s most understated but overwhelming characters. Further evidence of her low-key but high-impact style can be seen in BBC One\u2019s Last Tango in Halifax<\/a>, River and The Split<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s in Marriage<\/a>, a new four-part drama written and directed by Stefan Golaszewski, that van Hove\u2019s note about naturalistic acting proves most useful. For, as Emma, wife of Sean Bean\u2019s Ian, Walker has long scenes actually in a kitchen. \u201cStefan had to really calm me down early on, because he said he did a lot of takes and suspected I wasn\u2019t used to that. In all the telly I\u2019ve done, if you\u2019re not hitting the scene within three takes, you know you\u2019re doing it wrong and wasting time. With Stefan, 12, 13, 14, 16 takes is not unusual. So, I spent the first week getting used to that. I was caught in that thing of gotta get it right, whereas Stefan is into you\u2019ve gotta get it real, which takes longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A consequence of so frequently repeating action was revealed to Walker in a scene where Emma chews a chocolate bar. To reduce nausea or weight gain, actors doing eating sequences are offered the chance to spit out the food when the camera cuts. \u201cThe crew, lots of whom have worked on Stefan\u2019s stuff, asked if I wanted a spit bucket. And I said, \u2018No, no, I\u2019ll just eat it\u2019. But after 18 takes, you really need the bucket. Apparently, on [Golaszewski\u2019s BBC Three sitcom] Him & Her, Russell Tovey once ate 24 chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Nicola Walker and Sean Bean as Emma and Ian in Marriage<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC \/ The Forge \/ Rory Mulvey<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

The illusion of naturalism is carefully orchestrated. So meticulous is Golaszewski that 52-year-old Walker was provided with Emma\u2019s laptop computer and mobile phone a few weeks before shooting started so that using them would become second nature for her. Walker and Bean were also given rehearsal time to become familiar with Emma and Ian\u2019s house. \u201cIt had to look like we knew where the recycling bin was and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Marriage, Walker says her most difficult task on screen had been driving a 1970s tractor in Last Tango in Halifax. Then Golaszewski asked her to load a dishwasher. \u201cThis sounds ridiculous, but making it look like it really is your dishwasher is very hard. Emma would know where everything went, so I had to, too. You suddenly realise how easy it is to tell a lie on camera and you have to eradicate that, whether it\u2019s pushing for a big dramatic moment or not quite remembering which shelf in the fridge the milk is on. But the number of takes helps you get there.\u201d<\/p> <\/div>\n

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The most affecting aspect of Marriage is that, through the inevitable troughs of a long relationship, Emma and Ian are bonded by a terrible event that happened long ago, yet they almost never refer to it. \u201cTheir daughter keeps saying, \u2018We need to talk\u2019, and they just won\u2019t. Because most people don\u2019t. We don\u2019t carry the past blazing around in the present because we couldn\u2019t get up and make our breakfast if it was in the forefront of our mind all the time. Emma can\u2019t talk about this thing that has happened because it\u2019s too big. When she lets even a squeak out of it, it\u2019s followed by a complete emotional breakdown. It\u2019s embedded in their relationship, but they can\u2019t talk about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that about grief. When I lost my mum \u2013a long time ago now \u2013 there was a month or six-week period when I felt that someone had pulled back the curtain in The Wizard of Oz and I really felt I saw the world for what it was: a very frightening place. Then, slowly, the curtain comes across again because you can\u2019t live at the sharp end of grief. And that\u2019s what Ian and Emma have had to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sean Bean and Nicola Walker in Marriage<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC \/ The Forge \/ Rory Mulvey<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If further emotional research were needed, the co-stars have six marriages between them. Walker smiles. \u201cI\u2019ve only got one, so Sean brings up the average!\u201d She considered it impolite to ask Bean what it was like to have been married five times. Walker and her partner, actor Barnaby Kay, have been together for 27 years, a similar span as Emma and Ian, but only married late on. \u201cMe and my husband, because we both lost a parent young, we thought, after we had a child, we ought to get married, in case one of us dies, so that the legalities are clear. Which is not the most romantic reason to get married but is probably the only thing that would have got me to sign a piece of paper. I\u2019m not a great advocate of marriage in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How does Walker decide which parts to play? After all, she must by now be offered so many. \u201cI\u2019m not, actually. I don\u2019t know if you can do anything about that. I started when I was 21 and did a long time in theatre before TV came along, so I\u2019m still convinced that I will never work again. It\u2019s not faux humility; it\u2019s how I\u2019m programmed. I go into next year with nothing on the slate for maybe the first time in 10 years. Part of me is excited and part of me is terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

But having played multiple detectives \u2013 from Touching Evil and Scott & Bailey to Annika<\/a> and Unforgotten \u2013 presumably she would be wary of more cops? \u201cNever too many! I don\u2019t feel like that. If the script was good, I\u2019d play another detective. But I can\u2019t believe I\u2019d ever find one I loved as much as Cassie.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nicola Walker in Unforgotten<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On 29th March 2021, when Cassie Stuart was unexpectedly written out of Unforgotten<\/a> in a startling finale to the fourth series, there was speculation that Walker had become bored with the part or too busy on other shows. Neither, she says, was the case. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with [Unforgotten creator] Chris Lang more than any other writer and we are friends. From the very beginning, we talked about Cassie\u2019s story being finite; Chris was always putting her through a story arc that would damage her emotionally. The buzzword was that she was an empath, and the problem with being an empath is that eventually you break. I felt that to have her keep coming back would make her seem like a superhero. So it was very much a joint and long-planned decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on reflection \u2013 we all feel the same \u2013 if we\u2019d known COVID was coming, we would have given people a less depressing storyline. I feel guilty because, when it came out, I thought, \u2018Crikey, we could have given them something more cheerful. The last thing they need is to be made to feel really sad about this brilliant cop.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Six years as Cassie increased public recognition that began with 57 episodes as Ruth Evershed in the BBC One spy drama Spooks<\/a> from 2003 to 2011. \u201cIn terms of the public, Spooks was the one, and still is, as it\u2019s streamed a lot. But the Spooks audience is so witty. The first time I realised, I was in my local supermarket and someone sidled up and said, \u2018The condor has landed; the geese fly tonight\u2019, and wandered off down frozen foods. It was never just a run-of-the-mill \u2018I love the show\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Marriage, will people come up to her at the fresh fruit and tell her how awful their spouse is? \u201cI hope they do.\u201d She\u2019s sure, though, there won\u2019t be a sequel called Divorce. \u201cIan and Emma would never split up. That\u2019s the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n