Amanda Abbington is back as Miss Mardle in the third series of Mr Selfridge, and Female First can today reveal a new and exclusive video interview with the star herself.
With the shop expanding dramatically, Mr Selfridge (Jeremy Piven) is mourning the loss of his wife whilst the rest of his family are trying to move on with their lives, concentrating on the upcoming wedding of his daughter Rosalie (Kara Tointon).
But what's in store for Miss Mardle? Watch and read on to find out.
What has series 3 got in store for Miss Mardle?
Season 3. It starts obviously with Miss Mardle heartbroken again. She has tragedy in her life once more and we come to Selfridges just after the war, so it's a period where there's a lot of mourning and there's also hopefully a bit of regeneration and people trying to pick up after the war. So there's hope there, but Miss Mardle is desolate once more.
What is new in this series?
In the world of Selfridges when we get back, it's bigger and it's more luxurious, but we've lost a lot of people during the war so we come back and it's quite subdued, and there's a lot of melancholy. But also you know with Mr Selfridge there comes, we've got a wedding, we don't have a funeral but there is a death, there's a couple of deaths, there's a lot of gambling, it's slightly darker, it's taken a very darker tone, but still with a bit of humour in it as well, but it's definitely got more of a tinge of darkness to it.
What is your take on Miss Mardle?
Well Miss Mardle, I love Miss Mardle, I think she's a brilliantly-written character. She's gone through the mill a lot, we either find her ecstatically happy or deep in despair, and playing that is amazing because you get these fantastic scenes with glorious actors, and you get to be either really happy and quite funny and quite quirky, or you have to be sort of heartbroken but yeah, she's gone through the mill a lot and she will again.
In season 3 you start with her, you see heartbreak, and then she starts to get happy and then the rug is pulled out from under her. There's a lot of angst with her and Mr Grove which is beautiful to play and hopefully quite sad to watch.
What's the best thing about the show?
Well I love doing Mr Selfridge. I've been doing it for three years now and I love coming back to it. It takes on a different face every time you come back, it evolves. We have beautiful new actors coming in, I mean we've got Zoe Wanamaker in this series which is just a gift, and it's just a joy. It's the gift that keeps on giving for actors, everybody gets a piece of the pie as well, everyone gets a nice storyline and you get to work with very gifted actors on this fantastic set that just keeps getting more and more luxurious every time you do it. So it's six months of heaven, and over the summer as well! So it's nice.
Who is your unsung hero?
Oh my goodness, well the hair and makeup department do a thankless task. The costume department, James is just fantastic, Marella from the makeup department, you've got Stu who lights it so beautifully, the camera department. Everybody just puts 100% into it and I've not even touched the surface of the props and the set design. Everybody on it puts in 100% and that's why I think it's such a good show.
What has been your most difficult scene this series?
The most difficult scene for me I think was when Doris gets run over, just technically it was very very hard to do because we couldn't actually run Lauren (Crace) over, mainly because you're not allowed to do that but also because she was heavily pregnant, so we had to be very careful about how we do it logistically, but it had to look like she'd been hit by a truck. So, it was very meticulous and we had to be very careful, but again it's a lot of fun, you've got Lauren Crace who's an amazing actress who managed to do it with twins in her tummy so, yeah, good times it was! It was great.
Talk us through a day's shoot.
OK so usually the girls get an earlier call time because of the wigs and the makeup, so I'll be picked up usually like, today I was picked up at 6 o'clock in the morning, you arrive on-set, you arrive on base, you have a cup of tea and then you go into makeup. You have your wig set and your makeup done which lasts about 45 minutes and then you go into costume. Luckily we don't have corsets this year so it makes it very much easier to get into the costume, that's about ten minutes. Then you'll get called onto set and you'll rehearse the scene with the director three or four times just to get an idea of how you wanna play it, and then you'll do a crew rehearsal which means everybody comes in and watches you, so that the camera guys and lighting guys get an idea of where you're moving so they can set up their camera shots. Then you sit down while they light it and then you have different set-ups, so you'll do a master shot, a wide shot, then you'll do maybe a two shot and a couple of singles, then you'll go in closer. And that's really what you'll do, if you have a big crowd scene you'll maybe have a big crane come in and do more elaborate shots. But it's basically that and you'll do about six scenes of that really.
Run us through this morning.
Yeah, so we're filming outside today so we're in Chatham Docks, so you have to set up the idea you're on a very busy street outside Selfridges, so we've got very very old cars, and they have to be reset every time you do it, so while you're acting you've got these loud cars going past so you're having to sort of shout. Then you have lots of extras as well, so all the supporting artists have to remember where they are and do it again and again again, because you don't just do it once, you do it about 10 or 12 times. So logistically it's quite tricky, so you have a third AD working out where the extras and the supporting artists are gonna be, and where the cars are gonna be, and then the director tells you where you're gonna be. A two page scene can take about two hours, three hours to do, depending on how much dialogue and how tricky it is with essays and stuff like that.
Mr Selfridge series 3 is available to own on DVD from April 20, with individual episodes available on digital download.