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Bodyguard’s Keeley Hawes lifts the lid on the secrets of last year’s top BBC drama
The actress, 43, also thinks Bodyguard was such a success because it was distraction for people 'sick of talking about Brexit'
IT could have been the racy sex scenes, intriguing plot twists and gripping action sequences that made Bodyguard such a hit, but its star Keeley Hawes has another theory . . .
She reckons the blockbuster thriller provided a welcome distraction from people who were “sick of talking about Brexit”.
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In a fascinating interview Keeley, 43, lifts the lid on the secrets of last year’s top BBC drama, which was watched by an incredible 17million viewers a week.
She reveals how filming the heart-stopping opening train sequence was thrown into “disarray” at the last minute.
And she tells how she was complimented in person by actual Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who believed she had based the fictional minister Julia Montague on her.
Talking about why Bodyguard became must-see TV, mum-of-three Keeley says: “It was a little bit of everything — the timing, the writing.
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“It just fired people’s imaginations. Maybe they were sick of talking about Brexit and wanted something else to talk about.
“When we were making it we were quietly confident, but you often feel that confidence and things don’t work out.
“Lots of things went wrong during the shoot. It wasn’t the easiest, it was hugely ambitious. We lost Waterloo — we were meant to be filming the train sequence there and suddenly it wasn’t available, so there was disarray.
“It was just a case of getting through it.”
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Keeley is back on our screens tonight in ITV1’s homely, feelgood The Durrells, based on naturalist Gerald Durrell’s memoirs.
As the matriarch she gives another glowing performance that she puts down to having lots of beauty sleep, saying: “If I’m not in bed by 9.30pm I panic, but then I’m often up at 5am to be on set.”
It is the final run for the comedy drama set in Corfu, which is very different to the other darker roles which have made her a household name.
These include playing wretched cop Lindsay Denton in Line Of Duty and counter-terrorism MI5 agent Zoe Reynolds in Spooks.
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On the latter she met her husband, Ripper Street star Matthew Macfadyen, 44.
They have been married for 15 years and live in Teddington, South West London with their children Maggie, 14, and Ralph, 12, and Keeley’s 18-year-old son Myles from her first marriage to Spencer McCallum.
But it was playing embattled home secretary Julia in Bodyguard that cemented her place as one of our finest actors — even though the character met an untimely end as early as episode three.
The show was written by Jed Mercurio, who is also behind huge hit Line Of Duty, and was the most watched drama on the BBC’s iPlayer service last year.
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Yet before the part came up, Keeley had spent five months out of work. She says: “You only need to go two days without work to start thinking you’ll never work again.
“But I was never thinking about changing career.
“Five months out of work is sort of great because you spend time with family, but it’s not great because you are at the mercy of other people — it’s open-ended.
“Now, I’m finally at a point where I’m learning to try to enjoy the time off I have. It takes a while and it takes confidence.”
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Filming Bodyguard meant shooting steamy sex scenes with co-star Richard Madden, 32, — the bodyguard of the title — but she says their 11-year age gap “was not ever mentioned”.
She also reveals how Home Secretary Amber Rudd approached her while she was having dinner at London’s Wolseley “and was very supportive of my interpretation”.
It is six months since the pulsating drama ended, but she still gets people asking whether her character really did die in the bomb blast.
Keeley says: “It’s the most flattering thing ever, that people won’t hear I’m dead, because they could have been quite relieved I’m gone. So many people come up to me and go, ‘I lost a bet because of you! I said you’d come back and you didn’t.”
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So Julia Montague is dead?
“Yes!”
Being married to a fellow actor has its advantages and disadvantages — one of the latter is feeling lonely when either she or Matthew are away filming.
Keeley says: “It’s just quite difficult. Every job Matthew gets seems to be away for some reason, and it’s really hard. Really hard. We say we’ll make it work and most of the time we do.
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“We try to do it so one of us is always there for the children, so I’ll do a job and then he’ll do a job, without too many crossover periods.
“But it’s lonely. Matthew’s the cook, so when he was away I got quite thin. I’d just stand at the fridge and eat a bit of cheese.
“Now he’s back you can hear the pans coming out every night again. It’s not even something we think about.
“We have been married for 15 years so we’re finely tuned. It just works.”
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Given that she is often cast as tough, powerful women, it is a surprise when Keeley says she suffered from anxiety as a teenager and often “worried” about life.
But now she feels comfortable in her own skin.
It helps that these days there are plenty of meaty roles for actresses in their forties.
She says: “I still feel like I’m one of the youngest but people are looking at you for advice.
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“It’s not bad, it’s a great feeling, though inside I still think I’m 18.
“Historically, you’re not supposed to be getting to my age and having the time of your life, but the parts are getting much more interesting.
“Until a couple of years ago I felt apologetic for being as busy as I am, which is very odd.
“So I have had to have a word with myself. I’m no longer apologetic. It doesn’t all end in your forties. There are lots of us [40-plus actresses] now and great parts are being written for us. Times are changing.”
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But when it comes to getting the same pay packet as her male co-stars, Keeley said she is only just getting on an equal footing.
In the candid interview with The Times magazine, she says: “I’ve only just asked to be paid the same to do exactly the same work as someone else.
“In the past it was a case of take it, no questions asked, because if you don’t someone else will.
“You need a big profile to be able to stand up for yourself. Generally, the statistics for women’s pay are still horrific compared with men’s, but it’s all moving in the right direction.”
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It is something she discusses with her children.
“It’s part of that generation’s culture to talk about feminism, the environment, the big issues of our lives. They are politicised in a way that I certainly wasn’t. My 18-year-old is incredibly upset by Brexit.
“He was 16 when the referendum happened and there was that frustration that he couldn’t vote.”
Ah, back to Brexit. We need Bodyguard 2, and fast.
- The Durrells, tonight, ITV, 8pm
Bodyguard's Keeley Hawes squirms as she confirms her character is 'dead' and is shocked people still think her character is alive
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