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Claudie Blakley plays worn-out wife Ros McKee in The Driver. Here, Claudie gives us some insights into her character, and explains that despite the action-packed scenes, family remains at the heart of the show.

Happier times: Vince (David Morrissey) with his wife Ros (Claudie Blakley)

Being childhood sweethearts they read each other really well, and he is terrible at lying and terrible at covering things up.

Claudie Blakley

Even though this is called The Driver, this is also very much a family drama. Was that something that drew you to the project?

I think that’s spot on. Obviously it’s a very tense, edgy, action-packed drama - but at its heart there is a very true, very normal, very real family, who are very loving and very close. That did attract me because within all the chaos, this craziness, there’s this stable, domestic, functional, real life going on. It’s a great juxtaposition and I think that’s why it has such a strong impact.

Do you think audiences will relate to issues raised in the drama?

They are a very simple family who are very close, and this completely knocks them sideways – what happens to a very normal, simple man. I think it resonates with everybody because it could so easily happen to anyone. I think people can relate to the fact that you get to a certain point in your life and you’re bored, and you just think something else needs to happen, something needs to change.

You just feel like you’re going through the motions and suddenly you find yourself handed something and you take it – when it’s probably the wrong decision – but you’re in a vulnerable position and you just want to shake things up a bit. Ros and Vince are also at a certain point in their marriage where something’s got to give, because they're on a downward spiral. I think people can relate to that because he’s disillusioned with his life.

What is going in Ros’s life when we first meet her?

When the story opens she’s in a very different place, but she’s just this really solid, dependable, loving woman who would do anything for her family. Family is everything to her. She’s pretty straight, her needs are quite simple but she wants the best for her family. They're a really tight knit family, really close, but when we meet Ros I’d say the light has probably not completely gone out, but it has really faded. Their son is no longer living with them, and I think it would break a lot of people - but Ros being Ros - she’s the kind of woman that she buries her head in the sand and puts her everything into working and running. She’s sort of adopted this new hobby of running marathons and her marriage is breaking down. Where they are at in terms of their family is that it’s slightly been thrown apart.

What is Ros’s relationship like with her husband Vince?

I think she starts to really blame him, and there’s just a real kind of void within their relationship and it starts eating away at her. So they very much start living separate lives. It’s really sad. I think her running is a good metaphor for her running away. She’s like that as a person – instead of crumbling, crying and admitting defeat, and also giving into the guilt she feels – she runs away from it. She starts to resent him because I think it’s easier to blame someone else in a way. I think she blames Vince a lot for their son leaving home, and not communicating, and it becomes this big elephant in the room. She just shuts herself and carries on with her life, and he carries on with his, hence him being vulnerable to other influences like Ian Hart’s character Colin.

What David and I tried to show was what they had before, because you don’t really see that, and what they had before was pretty perfect I think. Even though it was simple, their family was four quarters. They were childhood sweethearts, so they’ve been together a very long time, so I suppose their way of dealing with the guilt was to shut themselves off from each other, out of fear of losing one another. When we meet them they are going through the motions of a marriage rather than actually living it.

When do you think she first becomes suspicious of Vince’s behaviour?

I think being childhood sweethearts they read each other really well, and he is terrible at lying and terrible at covering things up. I think she notices a change of behaviour pretty early on, and he’s edgy. Then obviously things unravel and she realises he has two mobile phones. At first she obviously thinks he’s having an affair and she can kind of understand that in a way. Things snowball pretty quickly and she pins him down quite early on, and because she knows him really well, he buckles under her. He’s not strong, he’s not deceitful. He’s gentle and honest, and she notices the change.

What did you enjoy about filming this drama?

David was just wonderful to work with. We had a great time, and I was never aware he was producing it as well. He was my fellow actor and he was unbelievably supportive. He was in every day and got very comfortable whereas I wasn’t, and Jamie Payne was just amazing. He is a proper director. The whole job was one of the most creative jobs I’ve ever done. It felt like the actors were really allowed to explore the scene. We really worked on it, threw ideas at it and tried things out. More often than not you’re getting less and less time to do that. The performances and the storytelling has really benefitted. It was a really supportive, lovely environment to work in.