Sian Brooke on ‘Blue Lights’ Season 2 on BBC

Siân Brooke is back on U.K. screens this week as Grace Ellis within the BBC‘s Belfast, Northern Ireland-based police drama Blue Lights season 2.

Blue Lights, about three probationary cops within the Police Service of Northern Ireland battling the overall pressures of the job and crime and tensions in Belfast, has change into a success show for the BBC, which has already ordered seasons 3 and 4. One of the brand new officers is Brooke’s Grace, a single mother in her 40s who left her job as a social employee to affix the police but must soon wonder if she’s made the fitting decision. 

Season 2 debuted on BBC One on Monday night London time, airing weekly, with all episodes now already available on streaming service BBC iPlayer. The show can be available internationally on streamer BritBox International. The season 2 trailer (see below) highlights tensions and latest challenges for the cops.

In addition to Blue Lights, Brooke has also graced TV screens in such roles as Aemma Arryn in HBO hit series House of the Dragon, Karen on Apple TV+ show Trying with Rafe Spall, and Sherlock Holmes’ sister Eurus opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC drama Sherlock. With the latter, she starred on a London stage in Hamlet as a part of her theater profession. And in film, she has been seen in Marie Curie biographical drama Radioactive, starring Rosamund Pike. This summer, she will probably be within the Netflix superhero series Supacell.

The Hollywood Reporter talked to Brooke in regards to the challenges of portraying a rookie cop in Blue Lights, the range of roles she has played across TV, film and theater, her thoughts on AI and what’s next for her.

How difficult or easy was it so that you can get into the role of Grace who’s, such as you, a mother but in addition a cop with a really difficult job?

I actually have to credit the writers really. We have phenomenal writers. Especially with this script, I just thought that it was quite magical in the best way that they’d made a world, which I didn’t know brilliantly, so accessible due to their writing. It is just not just my character, but so many characters who’re so identifiable. I actually have spoken to people not only within the U.K., but world wide who say: “I know someone like that who lives in my area” or “I’ve worked with someone like that.”

So, I actually have to credit the writers for Grace in that loads was in there. When I read the script, I had a sense I do know who this person is. That doesn’t all the time occur. There is not any quantifiable kind of mathematics or whatever, but there’s a little bit of that feeling about this person. Then, you obviously bring into that folks or elements of individuals you would possibly have met or know, and you set all of them into that big mixing bowl after which hope for the perfect.

The best thing about her is her abundance of empathy. Grace is anyone who desires to make things higher for other people. It’s such an exquisite thing. This person is on this path of the greater good, and in a selfless way. I’ve played many various roles over time, but she’s quite unique in that, and he or she won’t back down. She doesn’t learn lessons from it, she kind of gets herself into a complete heap of trouble, sometimes.

Seeing a personality like that on-screen feels refreshing at a time if you hear many individuals saying that they appear on the news and struggle with the state of the world.

I’m glad you said that. This show got here about in COVID times. When that whirlwind arrived, I had a gathering with the director over Zoom, and five minutes before I had this meeting, I did a test and it got here up that I got COVID.

Those people in the general public eye appear to be few and much between, these people who find themselves just trying genuinely to do their best with a very strong moral compass. And that’s what Grace is attempting to do. I feel that’s what lots of the cops that they’ve written do. These are strange individuals just attempting to do their rattling best to kind of make things a bit higher.

Is it fun or difficult to portray the layers that Grace and her colleagues must them? Like you said, they usually are not all the time doing the fitting thing and getting credit, and so they are all vulnerable in alternative ways.

That’s what I like about her. She is messy. She’s attempting to do the fitting thing. And if persons are going to place themselves on the front line, they’re going to fall on the booby traps, and so they’re going to get hurt. If you’re genuinely trying to alter things, you’re going to get hurt not directly, otherwise you’re going to say the fallacious thing. We’re all human beings, and all of us mess up on occasion. Those are essentially the most interesting characters to play. You don’t get anyone who’s just strong but anyone who’s strong due to victim they may have been in some unspecified time in the future of their life. It’s a consequence of something. So I all the time think there’s more to a personality than simply being strong or being determined, there must be something behind it that makes them more human.

What are among the key challenges that Grace faces on this second season launching this week

In season 1, she’s kind of wide-eyed and trying to search out a way and likewise is kind of dogged in her approach – “I’m going to make it better.” She is barely naive by way of what she might have the option to attain.

This time around, we’re a 12 months on, and like a 12 months on with any job, you might have a greater understanding of your capabilities and where to place your energy. So, now we discover her barely more hardened by this job, which I feel is inevitable with a job where you’re all the time putting yourself on the market and in dangerous situations. It’s a relentless job. Also, her son has left for university, and I feel she gets numerous solace in being a parent and numerous confirmation of who she is in being a single parent, and he’s not there. So that impacts quite a bit who she is and what’s her cause. It’s the empty nest syndrome of “gosh, all my focus has been on this person, and now they’re not there.” So that’s interesting.

And then now we have the kind of friendship with Stevie, this “will they, won’t they, do they, don’t they?” At this point, I feel they’ve decided that on this job they’ve got to let their heads rule their hearts and remain as friends, and principally discover whether or not they are any good at that or not.

While I used to be watching season 1, I caught myself reading up in between episodes on Northern Ireland policing detail and history. You said you weren’t brilliantly acquainted with all this. What helped you dive into this world?

The same as you. I used to be as not as knowing about policing in Northern Ireland as I’m now. I feel all of us have a notion of what we expect Northern Ireland is, or Belfast, and what we’re presented within the news and media and stuff like that. There’s nothing like actually being in a spot, there’s nothing like spending time there, there’s nothing like working there.

I find that I can visit somewhere, but when I work there for a time frame, you actually get to know the dynamics and the those that make the place, especially, for me, Belfast. It’s one of the enjoyable parts of the job for me. In terms of history, after I was at college, I wasn’t the best student, but now I find it irresistible. So, I delve into it and throw myself into the research, read articles and watch documentaries.

And we had amazing police advisors with us on set, so I could chat with them extensively and went on ride-alongs at the back of their automobile during their shift. They said, sadly, it wasn’t essentially the most eventful night for them – come back on a Friday night. But I discovered it so interesting. When do you get to try this unless you’re under arrest? I all the time think, especially when something is so firmly rooted in a location or a selected job or occupation, that the more I can take in, the more I actually have to play with at any given point.

Blue Lights was a brand new show that found its audience, but you’ve also worked on big franchises, comparable to Sherlock and House of the Dragon that include viewer awareness and expectations. How different is it to work on those big franchises and what pressures do they arrive with?

To say that you just don’t feel any pressure if you join these huge franchises, it might be a lie. Because you possibly can’t delete what went before. You must honor that. With House of the Dragon and Sherlock, I’d have been living in a cave if I’d said I didn’t know in regards to the shows. With Sherlock, I used to be an enormous fan before the potential of joining that show. So, there’s a way of pressure. But I feel you possibly can’t really hearken to that because otherwise it dictates what you do and the alternatives you make as an actor.

When you simplify what you do as as an actor, it’s, well, I create a personality to inform a story. That’s the essence of each job, whether it’s House of the Dragon or Blue Lights. But with [a new show], you’re creating this world as well. That’s all the time unique and special, since the canvas is blank. That’s all the time special and terrifying.

I heard you furthermore may worked on this upcoming Netflix show Supacell. Anything you possibly can tell me in regards to the series and your character and another upcoming projects?

Supacell is that this incredible show, which was created and written by this amazing man called Rapman, whose vision is phenomenal. It’s so infectious to listen to where he desires to take it. I remember meeting with him, and he said that is the show, and that is the premise, and that is what I would like to do. And I used to be like, wow, that is special. It’s set very firmly in South London, which was all the time a bonus because I live south of the river (Thames). It’s about these characters who realize they’ve superpowers, and the one similarity between them is that they’re all Black. It’s quite an epic piece. I play a personality who runs a hospital which is kind of cool, but quite different again, which is a joy. So that’ll be coming out on Netflix.

And then I got a show that could be very dear to my heart, which I’ve done three season of now, which is known as Trying (on Apple TV+). The fourth one goes to come back out soon, which I absolutely love. It’s like soul food for me.

Your character Karen on Trying can be different again, right?

Her empathy level is dialed down by way of the comparison between her and Grace (on Blue Lights). She might be on a level 4 or level three, while Grace is an 11. I like playing Karen because she’s so irritating. When do you get to play characters which are so unlikable sometimes?! She says all of the things that you just’ll never get away with actually saying in real life.

Also, it’s nice to play in a Midlands accent [spoken in the central part of England] again, which is my very own accent, because for a very long time that never happened. Coming into my 40s now, I feel a bit more, “yeah, that’s where I’m from, and I’m quite proud of my Midlands twang.”

Your husband Bill Buckhurst is a theater and film director and likewise an actor. Have you ever worked with him on a project?

It’s really funny. People would all the time ask me, “Will you ever work with your husband?” And I said: “No, never. I will never let him tell me what to do as a director, blah, blah, blah.” And then he directed a movie called Pond Life. It is a ravishing coming-of-age film about these kids in Doncaster. And he just said, “Would you come in and just play one of the mums, there’s just a couple of days filming.” I used to be quite reticent and undecided. I felt quite nervous about doing that.

And actually, it was the perfect experience. It was essentially the most amazing experience, because in case you trust someone, creatively the world’s your oyster. Obviously, there’s trust there. And so whatever he said, I felt, “Totally, I can do that.” So it’s taken an extended time, but we’re developing a script in the intervening time.

There has been numerous debate in regards to the use of AI and other technologies within the creative industries. How do you concentrate on technology and whether it’s a helpful tool or a threat?

I feel now we have to be very careful about it. And the more power now we have, the more we will’t put our heads within the sand about it. We must know more about it, in order that we will use it to our advantage when we’d like to and never let it overwhelm. Creatively, I feel it’s a really scary road to tread in a way, since the human brain is such an incredible, wonderful playground for creation. As an actor, it saddens me that you just might get replaced, because I don’t think you might possibly replace the human brain or what a human being has to supply. And also when human beings get together – actors, writers – that collaboration, I just don’t think you possibly can recreate that.

Anything else you’d wish to share?

Coming back to Grace and this character. I feel sometimes we forget that almost all persons are good. It is just that those that aren’t sometimes get the largest platform. And I feel that’s what Blue Lights tries to spotlight – these strange people in these extraordinary situations. In today’s world, we sometimes must hang on to that and possibly highlight that a bit more and possibly let that carry us forward. It’s a show that does have hope at its heart.