Filming heart-wrenching scenes for upcoming ITV drama Broadchurch left the actress, who is better known for her comedy roles, in floods.
The compelling eight-parter, in which Olivia plays DS Ellie Miller, opens with the grim discovery of schoolboy Danny Latimer’s body at the foot of a cliff.
She was moved to tears during the scenes when DS Miller quizzes the dead boy’s grief-stricken parents.
Olivia said: “I found it really hard to do the emotional scenes with Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan who play Danny’s parents.
“Because they are such beautiful actors, I had a hard time keeping it together.
“My character wasn’t supposed to cry half as much as she ended up doing but I couldn’t stop myself. It was so sad.”
Olivia is best known for appearing in TV comedies including Peep Show, Rev, Twenty Twelve and Green Wing. But it wasn’t just the serious subject matter of Broadchurch that wiped the smile off her face.
The mum-of-two found it hard being away from her family while filming on location in Dorset. She wasn’t the only one. Co-star David Tennant, who plays DI Alec Hardy, also found it tough going.
They battled their homesickness together by watching videos of their kids.
Olivia said: “The worst thing was being away from home and my family for so long. I don’t think I will ever be away for that long again.
“Stupidly, when I took the job, I didn’t realise it was all going to be filmed away from London. I thought we’d pop off and do the cliff scenes in the West Country but do all the internal stuff in London.
“So it came as a bit of a shock. But David and I got on really well and he feels the same as me. So on Friday nights, after filming finished, we’d leg it to get into the car and head home to our families.
“He totally understands and we’d be looking at videos of our kids on our phones to keep ourselves buoyant.”
Under the glare of the media spotlight, the grim case is investigated by local copper DS Miller and newcomer DI Hardy.
Yet Broadchurch, which begins on March 4, is far more than just a whodunit. It looks at how 11-year-old Danny’s death affects the small, close-knit seaside community.
Former Doctor Who star David revealed how the role also gave him an agonising insight into the lives of grieving parents.
He said: “As actors, our job is to always empathise and think oneself into the emotional situation, whatever that may be.
“This script has great humanity and the writer, Chris Chibnall, shows immense understanding of the human condition in all the different characters and the way the death impacts on the community.
“I think it will have emotional empathy, which is what pulls the audience in whatever it is — whether it’s a murder mystery or something set in the future on Mars. It’s the range of characters and their responses to this horribly heightened situation that make Broadchurch so compelling.”
The drama, which also stars Birds Of A Feather’s Pauline Quirke, has plenty of twists and turns — for both viewers and the cast who were kept in the dark as to the outcome.
David explained: “I had two scripts to look at and knew that other scripts would be appearing throughout the process. But we wouldn’t get final scripts until months into the shoot. It was a gamble.
“But the fact that I read it from cover to cover in one pass and was left at the end of the first episode desperately wanting to know what happens next was telling.
“That initial response is always worth noting. If it grabs you and you want to know more, and if you’re intrigued by the characters in that first moment, that’s always something to be pursued.”
He added: “When you’re playing those initial interviews with characters and you genuinely don’t know what the truth is, you can’t load those scenes with ‘actorly’ tricks.
“You have to play it for what it is, which can only make it more real. You can be as exasperated about the mystery of the characters as the audience will be.
“It’s great to be part of something where all the characters have powerful stories to tell. There’s the whodunit aspect but there are other stories going on and such wonderful people portraying those parts.
“It’s great to be able to see those characters and worlds develop.”
Source: thesun.co.uk – Olivia Colman scenes with dead childs parents left me in tears
