The Cuckoo's Jill Halfpenny on one demand she made over new role

ok.co.uk:

Jill Halfpenny is back on our screens in suspenseful psychological thriller The Cuckoo. She plays Sian – a mysterious woman welcomed in as a lodger by Nick and Jessica, a couple in dire financial straits who need the cash.

But they start to worry about Sian’s true intentions when she begins borrowing Jessica’s clothes, acting overly familiar with Nick and developing an inappropriate rapport with their daughter Alice.

For Jill, The Cuckoo was an opportunity to take on a completely different role, having recently played grief-stricken housewives in both The Long Shadow and The Drowning. “In the initial chats, they were thinking I would be playing Jessica, the person on the receiving end of this drama.

It was me who said, ‘Actually, can I play Sian? Can I be the person doing all this stuff, because that seems like more fun,’” she reveals. “I was attracted to playing somebody who was doing these things, rather than having them happen to her.” Sian is a femme fatale who blags her way into the heart of a family home, and Jill admits she didn’t have to look too far for inspiration as she’s a true crime fan. “It was easy for me to find empathy with her, because I know people can completely convince themselves of something if they want it to be true.They just doggedly follow that idea to the end,” she says. “You see these people on Netflix documentaries all the time, and look how far they go.