Prime Suspect - Tennison

Playing this role has definitely been terrifying, but in a good way, in a really good way. -

Rebecca Eaton

It's now 1973. We're in London, and Jane Tennison is joining the force. Tennison, get your backside into comms and help Morgan out. Now! She is a woman in a man's world, and they're not very happy about it. -

Jane

Sarge, that's backwards, you meant to go forward. Thank you, Tennison. Sergeant Harris doesn't like women telling him what to do. Especially probationists. Jane Tennison is very, very green, has a huge ambition to do the right thing. But Bradfield, my character, doesn't really clock her until she's bringing in the tea into his office and she's asking questions that, perhaps, not other PCs are asking. She already has connections to the case, more specifically, to drugs and users. Might be worth speaking to her. Let's go. My character is very much the inexperienced version before she has this kind of strength of power and force behind her. There's like the starts of that, though, there's like the spark and the intelligence and the kind of ambition. The "Prime Suspect" we think of, when we think of the Helen Mirren character, is an older woman who's already been through all this, but this is a young woman at the very beginning, who definitely has not had her skin toughened up. So, has she done any foot patrol there before? Right, they'll eat her alive, posh sort like her. I'm sure I'll be able to handle it, sir. She's sure she'll be able to handle it, sir. Five minutes, front of station. It's been challenging and, obviously, having such a following already and going into such an iconic role, it's scary. But then at the same time, I had to treat it as a different thing. Stefanie taking on this job is as big, and potentially intimidating, as the job that Jane Tennison takes on. To come into this police force, the only woman, filled with strangers and people who are deeply suspicious of her. So, kudos to Stefanie for taking the plunge. (guitar strumming)