Liar’s Joanne Froggatt and Katherine Kelly talk ‘joy’ of working together ahead of series two debut

The ITV series returns to our screens tonight 
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George Fenwick2 March 2020

The first season of Liar ended with a gruesome shock: serial rapist Andrew Earlham (Ioan Gruffudd), seemingly moments from being brought to justice, was discovered murdered in the marshes.

Equal parts shocking and infuriating, the twist triggered a dizzying spiral of questions, starting with who, and why? And what does Andrew's death mean for Laura Nielson (Joanne Froggatt), who had only just managed to reveal the truth about the man who raped her?

Writers Harry and Jack Williams always hoped to bring Liar back for a second season, and Froggatt says she's thrilled they got the chance. “The hope was to tell the story over 12 episodes,” she tells Standard Online. “It depended how the first season went down, so they had to be very careful how they ended the first one. I think they just went: ‘We're just gonna go for it.’”

Season two picks up immediately in the wake of Andrew’s death, with the arrival of a new face: the formidable Detective Inspector Karen Renton, played with a menacing composure by Katherine Kelly. Recruited to lead the murder investigation, DI Renton is relentless in her pursuit of the truth, quick to disarm her suspects and not afraid to make snap decisions.

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“I personally can only play those characters if I feel like they're authentic, and they come from a truth, and a truth of a story,” says Kelly. “It's my belief that Karen Renton is that way because she has to be that, and if she wasn't that, I wouldn't believe that out of all the detectives that they could send from the Met to solve this front-page news story, why would they pick her if she wasn't excellent at her job?

“I think she would have been chosen because she can act very quickly and very swiftly, and she has great instincts,” she says. “I would hope that if you are suffering from a trauma, either by proxy, yourself, or you're even in a small village where such a terrible crime has occurred, I would want someone like Karen to come and sort it out, someone who is brilliant at what they do.”

Froggatt, whose character Laura inevitably comes under suspicion for Andrew’s murder, says Kelly’s tough-as-nails performance made her job easy. “Katherine and I, in our scenes together, from the off I was just like, ‘Oh this is really good’ - because I just totally believed everything,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, she's looking at me!’.

“It's such a joy to sit opposite someone and just totally believe them, because you don't think about anything, you just play it, and it's just the nicest part of the job when that happens.”

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Froggatt’s powerful performance as Laura depicts a commanding, headstrong woman suddenly at her most vulnerable. In the first season, Laura’s life was upended by Andrew’s crime, and as the show returns, she finds herself increasingly desperate as she clashes with DI Renton. Froggatt allows Laura’s trauma to boil to the surface, her wounds painfully on display as she fights tirelessly to be heard.

“When your character is in a situation that's very traumatic, or the show is dealing with a subject matter that's very sensitive, I just want her to feel as truthful as possible,” says Froggatt. “She's a fighter, she's used to being listened to, she's used to having a voice and being respected - and she finds herself in a position where she's not.

“She finds herself in the most vulnerable position she's ever been in in her life, and that feels alien to her, and she does not like it, and she is gonna get out of that feeling of vulnerability,” she says. “[But] she's human, if you don't show those emotions, then I don't think the audience cares.”

ITV

As Liar forced Froggatt to confront traumatic subject matter both in and outside the world of the show - she recently revealed that sexual assault survivors told her after the first season that they’d felt represented by Laura’s harrowing story - the actress says at was important to her to keep a healthy distance from work.

“I think it's our own responsibility as actors to work out a way to leave work at work,” she says. “And that's not even just when you're an actor, that's anybody, anybody in any walk of life. Sometimes it's difficult to leave work at work and not bring it home, and I think it's finding those healthy ways to just be able to do that.”

She says hearing from assault survivors is sacred to her. “As actors it's our job to try and recreate things that we haven't experienced, and find ways to do that by using our empathy and our research and our logic,” she says.

“I found it a very touching experience to have people be able to feel that they could be candid with me and tell me about their experiences, and I feel that's something very sacred, and that I would always respect, and it’s not something that I feel scared of or intimidated by.”

Liar's second season airs Mondays at 9pm on ITV.

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