“I like to pursue things now that are really quite tricky and challenging,” Eve Myles says, and that’s certainly true of her character in the psychological crime thriller, The Crow Girl, coming to the U.S. on Monday, September 8, on Acorn TV.
In this gritty drama, based on Erik Axl Sund’s (pen name of Swedish author duo Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist) internationally bestselling novel of the same name, Myles plays DCI Jeanette Kilburn who works with psychotherapist Dr. Sophia Craven (Katherine Kelly) to find the killer of young men, and their investigation uncovers a dangerous world of historic abuse and murder.
Below, Eve Myles introduces Jeanette, teases the dark case, and more.
What drew you to this role and this show? You’ve done crime dramas before, but what was it about this one?
Eve Myles: I like to pursue things now that are really quite tricky and challenging and not just the role of her, but the actual story. The premise of the story is very, very dark. But what really shone through for me, even from the first script, Milly Thomas’s brilliant script, was that there was so much good in it. It was about was actually about people trying to be good people and trying to put bad people away and trying to protect the people on the streets. And I really liked that. It really kind of really gave me hope actually. And I found that the story in a way was life-affirming because it was about people sacrificing. She sacrifices everything for her job, for her work, and for her principles. So that was a big part of it for me. And then I kind of fell in love with this witty, passionate, straight-talking filterless steam train of a bull that Jeanette Kilburn is. And I just thought I could have a lot of fun with this and that was it.
Courtesy of Acorn TV
We can tell that Jeanette and her partner Lou (Dougray Scott) have a history from their first scene together.
Oh, that’s good.
Can you just talk about what that dynamic is like and how much does she trust him?
Lou is her family. She’s with Lou more than she’s with her son and her husband [Raphael Sowole]. He’s been her mentor. He was there for decades before she even turned up. So she’s kind of pipped him to be the DCI, which he’s a little bit grouchy about. [Laughs] But their relationship is a bit brother and sister, niece and uncle, best friends, husband and wife, enemies, all the things that make a brilliant partnership and they’ve got each other’s backs.
And how would you describe her marriage and her home life? Because of what her work means to her, how is that affecting her at home?
I think from the word go, things are not great. I think they’re living two very separate lives and she can’t quite see that until it’s too late. But it’s something that she thinks and so does he think that they can work on, but they have so much love for each other and they love their son so much that they kind of just have to surrender. They have to surrender to the fact that this is going nowhere. And that is heartbreaking because nobody’s having an affair, nobody’s done anything wrong. It’s just their lives don’t flow together anymore. They’ve outgrown each other, they’ve out-loved each other, and it’s really quite heartbreaking actually, that strand of the story because with a lot of crime drama, the heroine goes home and that’s her backbone and that’s her strength and that’s what allows her to have this incredible ability to go out in the day and be the badass. But it’s all kind of falling away. The relationship is building a house on sand. It’s just pointless. It’s just going nowhere.
Talk about the case. How does Jeanette get drawn into it and why is she so determined about this one?
Jeanette is a character who just runs on instinct. She’s not by the book. That’s not to say that she breaks the law or does any bad dealings or anything like that. She’s not corrupt in any way, shape, or form. She’s just a woman who smells it out, feels it in her gut, and follows her kind of instinct. And this is set in Bristol. And for Bristol, for a body to be turning up every single day is a really, really big deal. And there’s something really, really wrong. And she knows that it’s her responsibility to stop that as soon as possible. And she’s got the pressure from everybody at the station. She’s got the pressure of the family, she’s got the pressure of the press that she has to get this fixed, but also the nature of it. These boys are all connected and they’re boys and there’s something really bad happened to them. And she knows that these cases are connected, but she’s just got to find the links and she won’t sleep and she won’t rest. And she won’t eat until she does.
And it’s also the pressure that she puts on herself, right?
Yeah. I mean, her father has had an awful time. He retired because we find out in the story that [he had a case] and never solved it, particularly in that day and age that was seen as a real shame that crippled him and he had to retire. So it ruined his life, ruined his career, ruined his life, and then that bled into his daughter, me. So it’s like this thing of you always solve your active case, you always hunt it down and you solve it, otherwise you’re a complete failure. It’s the worst thing in the police not to be able to find the person who’s doing these atrocities and to close your case with a positive verdict. So she’s got this incredible drive and need to put bad people away.
Jeanette and Sophia don’t get off to the best start, but that does change.
[Laughs.]
Courtesy of Acorn TV
What can you preview about that dynamic and what each needs from the other?
Well, you’ve got two women that, I mean, on the surface have nothing in common, and they lead very different lives. But they’re both very high up in their departments. They both work with people and we’re like ships in the night, we kind of cross with our jobs, we cross over with them. So I think first of all there there’s a class problem at the top. I think that Kilburn might feel a little bit put down by Sophia, by her manner and by her class and belittles her slightly. And I think that’s something that Jeanette’s not very good with. I think Jeanette’s, in my opinion, a working-class hero.
She’s got to where she’s got to through hard work. So their relationship is they’re not each other’s cups of tea at all. They don’t have anything to connect with each other. And yet really quickly, she turns up to her aid and she gives her information. And that’s like, okay, so that’s a little bit of your defenses gone away. I’m seeing you in a different light. And I think the thing is for Jeanette, she makes her laugh the first time she comes to meet her. She makes her laugh for the first sentence and it’s like, okay, we’re just women. We’re actually just women who really have really, really difficult jobs, that have a lot of responsibility, that a lot of people are counting on us on our shoulders, and we’re terrified of letting anybody down. So they share this kind of really intimate fear that they have very quickly because they’re really these real intellectual women that understand that in each other.
And so that’s the connection. And there’s not a lot of people you can admit that to, your fear or your weakness, but if you’ve seen it in somebody and somebody’s seen it in you, something happens. There’s a closeness, a relationship starts to build, and then they just find that they are women of a similar age. Lonely. All they’ve got is work, not quite sure what makes ’em happy anymore, not sure what they love anymore. And they laugh together. So there’s this really, really lovely genuine friendship that comes from two women that just make each other laugh and comfort each other.
The Crow Girl, Premiere, Monday, September 8, Acorn TV
More Headlines:
- Inside ‘Brilliant Minds’ New Doctors, Family Betrayals & Romantic Struggles of Season 2
- Could Jack Bauer Return? Kiefer Sutherland Reveals Big ’24’ Update
- ‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family’ Showrunner on Bringing Podcaster Mandy Matney Into Hulu Adaptation
- Second City Heroes
- Gleb Savchenko Explains ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Return After Hinting He Was Fired
