While Bronagh Waugh will soon be back on our screens alongside actor in crime drama Ridley, she has revealed she hasn’t yet come to terms with her character’s final scenes in six years ago.
The 39-year-old played Sally Ann Spector, the wife of serial killer Paul Spector (), who was being hunted down by dogged detective Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson).
When Paul’s horrendous crimes were eventually made public, Sally Ann had a mental breakdown, attempting to kill both herself and her daughter, before being admitted to hospital at the end of season three.
But while star Gillian, 54, has teased the return of the tense BBC programme, which ran between 2013 and 2016, confirming to reprise her role last year, Bronagh has reservations about returning as Sally Ann.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, the Unforgotten actor said: ‘I don’t know. I’m so proud of that show and I loved doing it, and I think there’s definitely legs for Gillian, but I feel like mine and Jamie’s storyline ended.’
However, Bronagh admitted she wasn’t entirely happy with Sally Ann’s narrative arc and how it plays into the portrayal of women, particularly in crime dramas, on screen.
She revealed: ‘What I find difficult is that it ended very abruptly for Sally Ann; there was no conclusion for her and that’s always stayed with me.
‘And, actually, it’s very much shaped the choices of roles that I’ve picked since then.’
Bronagh said she has turned down work that ‘cashes in on women’s pain as a storyline’, adding: ‘You don’t want to become misery porn.’
On why she felt dissatisfied by the nurse’s final outing in the thriller, the former Hollyoaks star said: ‘I feel like her story didn’t get concluded: there wasn’t an ending or a conclusion. She’s just left bereft, and in this awful dark place and in hospital, where she’s lost her mind. And I just felt awful ending it there.
‘I very much would have liked to have seen the impact of what that [means]. I think Britain has a mental health crisis at the moment and we tell the trauma but don’t tell the aftermath’.
Bronagh also explained she is highly conscious of female characters in crime drama, who are ‘often used as meat and fodder and, for want of a better word, misery porn’ rather than as investigators or in lead roles.
‘Gillian is [a central female character] in The Fall, but we had a lot of female cannon fodder,’ she added. ‘And I think it’s important to pick up those pieces. We have a responsibility to do that because otherwise you’re just telling the story of the pain, and there’s got to be joy, and there’s got to be resolution.’
In Bronagh’s latest role she stars as determined detective Carol Farman in ITV drama Ridley, which she describes as ‘Northern Noir.’
Enticing former homicide cop Alex Ridley (Adrian) out of retirement to solve a series of grisly crimes, Bronagh said it felt ‘empowering’ to play the head of police.
‘She cares deeply about the victims and about putting a personal face and name to the story and letting their memory stay alive. And that really mattered to me,’ she added.
Ridley premieres on ITV on Sunday August, 28 at 8PM.
