This script has been lightly edited for clarity

 

This interview was recorded in July of 2023.

 

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

For DCI Jessica James, there could hardly be a less desirable way to begin her first day at her new job. A mere 54 minutes before she’s supposed to start the new position, her husband Steve drops some shattering news.

 

CLIP

Steve: I didn’t mean to tell you like this, Jess.

Jess: You had a plan.

Steve: No, I mean…

Jess: Who?

Steve: Doesn’t matter who.

Jess: No, it does. It does to me.

 

When Jess finds out her husband is having an affair, the emotional distress sends her into a whirlwind. And she can’t help but let it carry over into her first day of work. 

 

CLIP

Sanjeev: Oh, good morning, ma’am.

Jess: Morning. Nice to see you again.

Sanjeev: This is DS—

Jess: Can we take this wall off?

Paul: We’re not taking the breast down.

Jess: Sorry, who are you?

Paul: The man who owns the room you’re standing in.

Jess: Right. Well, sorry but I own this scene now, so. Is there a way of getting the body out and keeping it intact without removing the wall?

Scott: Not guaranteed, no.

Jess: Okay. Better get some macros up then.

Paul: Hang on, can we—

Jess: Where’s the body part?

 

The elephant in the room this season is that DCI James is taking over for the beloved DCI Cassie Stuart, who—big SPOILER WARNING here if you haven’t watched Season 4 of Unforgotten—tragically died at the end of last season. Jessica James has impossibly large shoes to fill, especially given how close Sunny and Cassie became after solving crimes together for four seasons. And it’s something that makes Jess’s nascent working relationships even more fraught and painful. 

 

CLIP

Jess: Do you maybe want to give me a heads up if you’re going to pull stuff like that?

Sanjeev: Like what stuff?

Jess: The photo.

Sanjeev: It was instinctive. You know, like you walking out?

Jess: We might’ve wanted to wait until she was in a less febrile state.

Sanjeev: It told us what we needed.

Jess: Which is what?

Sanjeev: That she was lying.

Jess: Maybe.

Sanjeev: Didn’t believe her initial reaction either.

Jess: In what way?

Sanjeev: I don’t know, it was just off.

Jess: It felt fairly normal to me.

Sanjeev: Have to agree to disagree then.

 

This week, co-star Sinéad Keenan joins the podcast to discuss how she approached playing DCI Jessica James, and how the tensions between Jess and the rest of the detectives might play out over the course of this season.

 

Jace Lacob: This week we are joined by Unforgotten series lead Sinéad Keenan. Welcome.

Sinéad Keenan: Thank you.

Jace Lacob: So, we meet DCI Jessie James 54 minutes before she’s supposed to start her very first day on the job, having just learned that her husband Steve is cheating on her. What did you make of Jess’s introduction as a character?

Sinéad Keenan: I thought it was a brilliant piece of writing on behalf of Chris Lang because it would be very easy for a new character, Jess, to come in, particularly in those circumstances and the audience absolutely from the get go…I mean, he could have written her in and her being as awful as she is and as ill-equipped to deal with the job or so it seems from her colleagues on the first day. But the beauty of that introduction is that we understand before she meets the team why she’s not quite with it.

Because it’s quite a bit of news to get just before you start a really big new job. You know, walking into a team that, not only are you their new boss, you’re their new boss because their old beloved boss was tragically killed. So, there’s a lot of pressure already, all things being equal. And then her husband lands this information on her. But as introductions go to a new character, I thought it was very clever.

Jace Lacob: It gives the viewer information that the other characters don’t have. And as you say, she’s coming into this very difficult situation, replacing Cassie Stewart, and Jess is completely blindsided, her equilibrium is off, and her reaction is messy, we’ll say. She’s a bit of a wreck coming into this. Do you think that it does help to humanize her in the viewer’s eyes, then, as you said, to sort of give the viewer some information knowing that perhaps they might not be ready to handle someone replacing Cassie?

Sinéad Keenan: Absolutely. That’s what I think is the beauty of it. Naturally, whoever was going to come in, whatever detective was going to come into this role for the characters, they were going to find it difficult. Naturally, they’re grieving. For the audience, whatever actor was going to come into this role, they were going to find it difficult because they too were grieving the loss of a character and the loss of a really loved actor.

So maybe despite themselves, initially they might go, oh, I kind of understand where she’s coming from, but still don’t like her. But then hopefully as the series progresses and she eventually manages to get herself together a bit more, hopefully the audience will get behind her a little bit more.

Jace Lacob: You watched series four of Unforgotten when it went out in the UK and, Nicola Walker, as some critics have said, left behind some big, big shoes to fill. Was there any nervousness or trepidation on your part about taking on this role or how audiences might react to Jess or to you?

Sinéad Keenan: Absolutely. Very much so. So much so that I said no initially when my agent rang to say, look, the Unforgotten people would like you to read the script. And I thought that’s really nice and fun. I’m delighted at the thought that that might even work or be a possibility. But I’m afraid no. I’m not going to put my name in the pot for that because whatever actor takes it is going to be up against it from the get-go.

And then my agent persuaded me to read the script before I said no. And then of course, you know, I read one and then I needed to know a little bit more and I kind of sheepishly went back and said, is there anymore? Can I find out more? And then of course I went and met them. They were just giving it to a handful of actors to read and they went with me for whatever reason.

But yeah certainly, there was a whole heap of trepidation and you know, is this a good thing? Is that not a good thing? Because Nicola Walker is Nicola Walker. She’s brilliant, I mean brilliant. But yeah, here we are. I took it and I’ve yet to be fired. I use the word ‘yet’ strongly.

Jace Lacob: Well, I can say, spoiler alert, having seen the entire series, I can see very much why they hired you to do this. Up against it you might have been, you pull it off completely.

Sinéad Keenan: Well, thank you very much.

Jace Lacob: You’re coming into this established crime drama as the new kid. What advice did Chris Lang or Sanjeev Bhaskar offer in terms of making your way into this?

Sinéad Keenan: Sanjeev, you’ll know, he’s an incredibly lovely and generous human being. And he, very kindly, when he found out it was going to be me, he contacted me on Twitter. And because we’d worked together very, very, very briefly on a show a couple of years previously, he sent me a long message and he said, look, it might be a bit weird for you coming into this. As you just said, they’re a very well-established show, do you want to meet up?

Because we were due to go for lunch with the producers and the grownups and the suits and all that—important people. And he said, look, do you want to meet up beforehand and have a chat, just so you’re not going in completely cold to a room full of effectively strangers? And yeah, I think that’s just such a thoughtful, kind gesture just to even think to do that. Had a lovely ol’ chat and said, look, if there’s anything you need, anything you’re worried about, I’m here, let me know.

It is such a very well-oiled machine. And that trickles down right from the top from the exec producers all the way down and a genuinely lovely job to have done, to have been a part of.

Jace Lacob: Episode 1, Jess arrives at the crime scene at 64 Waterman Road. She tries to assert her authority from the jump, “Can we get this wall off?” she says very bluntly, and everyone immediately bristles. It’s awkward. Jess doesn’t help to smooth over the awkwardness either. Had Steve not dumped this on her, do you think her first day, her first interactions with the team would perhaps have gone more smoothly?

Sinéad Keenan: I hope so.

Jace Lacob: They couldn’t have gone worse.

Sinéad Keenan: Oh God. I think it might have been. Because, they’ve been through a couple of interim DCIs, and this is the one they chose. So, you would hope that the powers that be did pick someone who is incredibly competent and good at her job. And I do genuinely think she would have played it much, much better. Just everything is slightly off kilter. When she tries to make a joke, it’s at the wrong time and it doesn’t land, and people get offended. And yeah, she’s having a nightmare of a first day.

Jace Lacob: I think not helping that is the fact that Jess has a very different approach to the mission and to historical crimes than Cassie did. She’s results oriented, she’s budget driven, and she’s looking at cases as using up resources that she believes could be better served elsewhere, as she puts it. This is a big step for her, this DCI-ship she’s been assigned to this division. What does Jess make of the team’s purpose and her place in it?

Sinéad Keenan: I think she’s police, she’s a cop, she wants to solve crime naturally, but yes, as you say, she is results driven and results mean convictions and convictions take time, they take resources. But married to that is also her remit to, and it’s what’s happening, to our police service in the UK; just budget cuts left, right, and center. They’re being asked to do more and more with less and less. So, she’s having to, you know, she comes in trying to establish the fact that that is what she will be doing on her watch. And it is completely different to Cassie who was very empathetic and all about the victim.

Now, that’s not to say that Jessie doesn’t have those qualities either. I believe she very much does. But if you’re going into a new job and you’ve been hired to do a particular part of that job, then that’s going to be her main focus. Which obviously, she makes that very clear to Sunny in the first few minutes when they get into the office, like, look, I’m not going to run the team like she did. I appreciate that this is a cold case unit, but I would much rather put all the limited resources into crimes that are happening now.

Jace Lacob: I think that’s a hard position to be in. I mean, austerity is a big theme this series, and Jess uses a lot of the language that sort of accompanies that. She’s talking about funding, resources, budget. Like, that is her remit, as you said. Her job is to solve the cases they can solve for the least amount of capital. And I think that it puts her in an uncomfortable position from the get-go. She is almost sort of set up to fail in these first two episodes.

Sinéad Keenan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think certainly over here, there’s an awful lot of people higher up in the police who are up against it in the same way. It’s, get us the results, but here’s 50p to do it. Obviously, I’m being facetious, but you know what I mean? It’s almost an impossibility. Unless you fund those services, like police, health, social services, if you don’t fund them correctly, things are going to go wrong.

People are going to fall through the net. And when they fall through the net, you let that happen for a while, through austerity cuts, you get even bigger problems. It’s that kind of ripple effect all the way through. But yeah, you’re right, she’s got an impossible task, essentially.

Jace Lacob: She’s dismissive of Sunny and the team initially,

 

CLIP

Jessie: So, if this body does turn out to be…your sweep…or 30 years old, maybe even 20, I’m afraid I’d give it minimal time. I’d rather we spend our always limited resources on murders that happened today.

Sunny: Obviously, I would advocate that we can do both—that two opposing ideas can coexist in the same world.

Jessie: In the same ideal world, yet, maybe, but we don’t live in an ideal world, do we?

 

Jace Lacob: How much of this is coming from her feelings about Steve’s infidelity and the breakdown of her marriage? What is the amount of spillover that’s happening here?

Sinéad Keenan: God, that’s an interesting question. I suspect that she will have seen a lot of that in her job. Hats off to anyone who works in the police, they must see, you know, police, social services, frontline workers, essentially, they see some stuff that most of us thankfully don’t ever have to. I don’t think in normal circumstances, she would have brought that to the table so quickly and so flippantly on her first day. Her whole first few days there are very much colored by her domestic situation. But as I said, I don’t think she would be so quick to verbalize that, had Steve not dropped the bomb a couple of hours previously.

 

MIDROLL

 

Jace Lacob: I do have to ask Sinéad, what did you make of Jess having Steve filed under “My Gorgeous Hubby” in her mobile? Because I cringed every time.

Sinéad Keenan: Oh my god. Jace, I have to say, I have to say Jace, I queried it. The first time I saw “My Gorgeous Hubby” in my phone, I physically reacted. It came from my gut. I was like, oh my god, no, we’re not really, are we doing, you know, just turning around to the art department. Are we really, do we have, is that really, do we need it? And Chris Lang, he’s a great writer, has written it down and that’s what happens if Chris says it, it happens. So, the way I kind of got around it in my head was either he had put it into her phone, or she put it in really sarcastically. I just cannot believe that comes from the heart.

Jace Lacob: And it’s just now such a sort of painful reminder of any kind of joyfulness or playfulness between the two of them. Ugh. I love the scene between Jess and her mom Kate, played by the fantastic Kate Robbins, in which we see a much more vulnerable side of Jess than we’ve seen thus far. Steve’s affair has massive consequences, not just for her marriage, but her career as well, and Jess debates whether she’ll actually have to pull back at work.

Do you think then, her attitude at work is born of the sense of uncertainty that she has? This might be her first day, but this could be potentially one of her last days in this job, and she’s sort of being pulled in so many different directions?

Sinéad Keenan: I do. You know, as she goes throughout her first few days and tries to keep her mind on the job, the background noise in her head is a constant kind of, okay, well, what if this happens and what if we get divorced and then how are we going to run that? And who’s going to have kids? And am I going to, is Steve going to be away? Because he was away for work. So, am I going to be the one to have to take the hit? Am I going to have to resign? You know, all of that constant going on in her head.

So yeah, and also there’s a moment in episode two, I think, her mind is clearly not on the job, and everybody is clocking it. Fran at one point kind of says quietly to Sunny after a meeting in their office, in Jess’s office, I don’t even know why she bothers coming in. And I think it’s not long after that that Jess walks to Chief Superintendent Andrew’s office, you just see her outside, and she’s stopped from going in by another police officer coming out of another office. And the intent was that she was going in there to go, look, I can’t do this. But fate intervenes through an open door, quite literally, and she walks away. But yeah, I think definitely her first few days are colored by the fact that, is this the beginning of something or the beginning of the end of something?

Jace Lacob: I love the juxtaposition of that scene with, in episode two, the scene between Jess and Kate,

 

CLIP

Kate: All your life, Jess, even when you were little, you were always this person who could just cope with anything—so self-sufficient, unphasable. But that’s hard for people. For me and your dad sometimes, for your sister definitely. Maybe it is for Steve.

 

Jace Lacob: What goes through Jess’s head during this conversation, and would anyone ever say these things to a man?

Sinéad Keenan: Isn’t that interesting? I think in my head, you know what it’s like if somebody accuses you of something or being something or having a particular character trait, and if you absolutely a hundred percent feel that that is not true, you can just laugh it off or whatever. You’re totally incorrect. But if there’s a little part of you that thinks, oh, maybe there’s an ounce of truth there, it can get even more of a reaction in you. Do you know that kind of way you can get even more defensive of it? So maybe there is, maybe she feels, yeah, maybe I have been very self-sufficient and maybe I should show a little vulnerability every so often. But I do think that was interesting timing for a mother to say that.

Jace Lacob: The pressure’s mounting on Jess. She’s coming in late. The team is handing info to Sunny rather than to her. And she walks out after telling Ebele Falade that they found Precious’s body and Sunny confronts her. He ends up showing Ebele the photo of the squat which Jess is not happy about. Why do you think these two can’t communicate at this point? Why are they actually behaving this way in front of an interested party, let’s say?

Sinéad Keenan: Yeah. They have not taken to each other yet, quite the opposite. Sunny certainly feels that Jessie is just, she’s not on the ball, and this is not how we do this, and I am going to show her this photograph to see what we actually get, despite the fact that Jess made it very clear going in. Not necessarily saying that was the right thing to do, but she very much cuts him down and says, I’ll do the talking. And he clearly has ignored that instruction. But I think as to why they’re not getting on, I think it’s just all that, it’s, obviously Cassie died a few months before, but that’s a major, major traumatic event in anyone’s life. Grief, even for want of a better word, “normal grief”, somebody’s old, has been sick and whatnot, it’s trauma in someone’s life. When someone is snatched out of it, it’s doubly, triply so.

So, he’s dealing with that and she’s had her world upended that morning and the first few days she’s in an absolute tailspin. They’re in the eye of their own two separate storms and they just cannot come together. And when she tries to say, well, you know, I understand, I’m filling big boots and I hope to do her justice. And he is not in a position to accept that from her. And anytime when he tries to kind of come to her with possibly a kind word or trying to help, she’ll cut him down. It’s all timing. It’s all timing.

Jace Lacob: I mean, the fact that they seem to disagree about everything, including just merely how to break the news to Ebele is, is not a good thing,

 

CLIP

Sunny: We should get back in

Jess: Has she calmed down yet?

Sunny: I don’t really care, it’s a murder investigation. We shouldn’t have left.

Jess: Should we have not? Felt right to me. I’ll do the talking.

 

Jace Lacob: Without spoiling, how much danger is there that this investigation will be derailed because these two can’t figure out a way to communicate or work together effectively?

Sinéad Keenan: I think it’s a very grave danger, certainly in those first couple of episodes you kind of think, how is this going to resolve itself? Because if the two senior most people of that team cannot communicate, then they’re kind of done for.

Jace Lacob: You mentioned Sanjeev earlier, and the show that you worked together on was Porters. He is, I think, one of the nicest people working in television today. Even though Sunny and Jess are at odds with each other for a big chunk of the series, what was it like working with Sanjeev as a scene partner?

Sinéad Keenan: Well, I can confirm Jace, that you are correct. And in terms of being on set, oh my God, it was a joy. It was a joy. You’ve interviewed Sanjeev. First of all, he knows everybody. He’s got an anecdote for literally you name them, he’s met them, or he’s got an anecdote. It was an absolute joy. In between scenes he was literally like, you just sit down, ask him a question, sit back, and let him go. Just constantly entertained. Yeah, he’s a joy.

Jace Lacob: As a fan of Unforgotten, you’re usually on the other side of the screen trying to solve complex crimes alongside detectives. But this time, you, Sinéad, know the solution ahead of time. Did you find it challenging to have that knowledge as an actor rather than a viewer?

Sinéad Keenan: I suppose, without sounding trite, you just stick to the script. You just have to think about it line by line as opposed to, I know this gentleman’s lying because in episode five, I’m going to prove him wrong. But the great thing as well about Chris Lang’s scripts, you start off with these four people and you think, how in the name of God have you people ever been in a room together, let alone been suspects in a murder?

So, they’re so rich, his scripts, and the stories and the details and the plot is, can be quite complicated. But actually, it’s quite easy to forget who’s done it. Each scene provides a little bit more information or provides a contradiction of something else that’s happened, or you’ve heard in a previous scene or a previous episode. So, in that sense, it was very easy to just think of it line by line. But yeah, as I said, without sounding flippant, it’s just stick with the script, what’s asked of you in this scene, say your lines, and that’s it.

Jace Lacob: I believe the very first things I ever saw you in were Doctor Who and as the werewolf Nina in the now cult classic supernatural drama, Being Human. What was the experience of making Being Human like and are you still recognized by fans for having played Nina?

Sinéad Keenan: Do you know that show was so much fun. It was so much fun. It was an absolute joy and a pleasure to do brilliant scripts. Toby Whithouse and lots of others, like Sarah Phelps, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sarah Phelps’s work. She wrote scripts on that. Lisa McGee, Derry Girls’ Lisa McGee, wrote for that show. Daragh Carville, I don’t know if you have The Bay. Does The Bay come to you?

Jace Lacob: It does. It does.

Sinéad Keenan: There you go. I mean, brilliant writers and a brilliant cast and production team. It was so much fun. But yes, I do still get people coming up, talking about Nina.

Jace Lacob: That’s amazing.

Sinéad Keenan: It is amazing.

Jace Lacob: We talked earlier about, uh, Jess having Steve saved in her mobile as “My Gorgeous Hubby”. So, I do need to ask, do you and your husband have any embarrassing nicknames for each other in your respective mobiles? And if so, has this convinced you to perhaps change them?

Sinéad Keenan: I’m going to let you in on a secret, Jace. I’ve been with my husband now for a very long time. Like 18 years, right? Married for nearly 11. And he is in my phone, I’ll tell you what his name is in my phone, Christopher Keenan McGill. Much like a colleague, or a stranger.

Jace Lacob: I will let you in on a secret as well. My wife and I have been together for 25 years. So, we’ve got a few more on you. Married for 15. And yeah, she’s saved in my phone with her full name. So, yeah.

Sinéad Keenan: None of your “gorgeous hubby” nonsense here.

Jace Lacob: Nope, no sappy nicknames, nothing cringy. Sinéad Keenan, thank you so very much.

Sinéad Keenan: Thank you. It’s been so lovely to talk to you.

Jace Lacob: And you.

 

In two weeks, Sunny’s expert interrogation skills continue to bring this complicated case into focus.

 

CLIP

Sanjeev: So, this was both the last meeting you had with her, but also as I understand it, possibly the last with anyone. You resigned the day after.

Karol: I don’t recall the exact date.

Sanjeev: You resigned on the 27th.

Karol: Right.

Sanjeev: Are the two events connected at all?

 

Unforgotten creator Chris Lang joins us Sunday, September 24th to share how he approached this complex new season, full of its own new challenges.