The third season of Blue Lights has already been massive for Grace Ellis. In the Season 3 premiere, audiences learned that Grace knew the girl caught up in a major drug arrest—and saw how she went out of her way to try and help Lindsey. It was a moving arc for Grace, and just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Season 3’s big mystery.

As the story continues, TVBrittanyF.com sat down with actor Siân Brooke to talk about exploring Grace’s backstory further. She also spoke about how the cast of Blue Lights has grown along with their characters. Plus, how would she compare her role in the BritBox series to some of her other well-known parts?

Brittany Frederick: The Season 3 premiere makes a couple of references to how long Grace and her colleagues have been cops, and they kind of check themselves. Do you feel more confident in playing her now that you’ve likewise had years to live with her?

Siân Brooke: Definitely. Because in the first instance, when you create the show, you’re almost sort of putting paint on the canvas. It’s not fully formed yet, and all the choices that you make when you’re trying to establish a character—you are very careful about where you put the paint, what the color is and that sort of thing.

And then now it’s been created. And every time that you return to that character, you can just sort of bed in a little bit further. There’s a confidence about that, because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And people enjoy the show for what it is, and therefore you feel like you’re onto a good thing. So there’s a confidence, definitely.

That first episode directly connects Grace to Season 3’s main plot. Audiences knew she had been a social worker beforehand, but how much did you know about her history? What was it like to then put that out on screen in the way that you did?

I always knew, from before we even started filming Season 1, what her history was. [Blue Lights co-creator] Declan [Lawn] and I had talked about it before, when I was sort of creating or lifting her off the page. We talked about her and what her history was, and why this woman was so determined to rescue people in a very genuine way.

So that was something that I carried through Season 1 and 2, and it was something that informed all of the choices that she makes and all of the reactions that she has. It was something I knew, and then it was really lovely to be able to actually reveal that—and reveal it in a way where it wasn’t something she was saying. It wasn’t to do with herself. She was only doing it purely to help this young woman.

That does cause some early tension between her and Stevie. What can you say about Grace and Stevie’s dynamic in Blue Lights Season 3, both on and off the job?

There’s a lot of tension between them in this series. It’s not just happy families. They’re a proper couple, but because of the nature of their job and the things that they have to tackle in the job, it makes them look at who they are in the real world and how they relate to each other, and what really matters in terms of their relationship.

And I think if it wasn’t that they were police officers, doing that job and experiencing quite extreme situations, I don’t think they’d have to be as brutally honest in their real life.

At the same time, though, that means you and Martin McCann get to keep building your rapport together. How much fun has it been for you to grow those relationships with Martin and all of your co-stars as you get into your third season together?

It’s been really wonderful, actually. When I read the scripts and I can see that Stevie and Grace have these scenes, I really look forward to it, because [you] know that you’re in safe hands with your partner in the scene. You know that there’s going to be something interesting—that you can sort of dance with them in the scene, and you’ll find stuff that might not be on the page, but underneath the words.

And it’s also been lovely to watch everybody develop their characters. Nathan [Braniff, who plays Tommy Foster] and Katherine [Devlin, wo plays Annie Conlon]—this was one of their first jobs for both of them, and it’s been lovely to see them develop in terms of their acting and how they approach things.

Speaking of other roles, you’ve played plenty of women who have these intense emotional arcs, like when you starred as Pauline Gibson in David Hare’s play I’m Not Running at the National Theatre. How does Grace compare to some of your previous work?

Pauline, she’s quite similar to her in many ways—in terms of the past that Pauline had, and also the strength [and] Independence, like fierce independence, that she has developed because of that. So they are quite similar.

But yeah, I do end up playing these characters who have quite emotional, emotional baggage. I don’t know what it says about me. [Laughs.] But as an actor, it’s always great to play somebody who’s got a tricky past or a tricky undercurrent. They’re very real, aren’t they? Because nobody’s perfect.

Blue Lights Season 3 opens with Stevie, Grace and a box of cupcakes. How many cupcakes did you go through filming that very first scene?

Too many. Too many. [Laughs.] I was cupcaked out. I reckon it was probably about six, something like that. And they were really crumbly, like you just had to breathe on it and it fell apart. So I was eating these cupcakes, and the director kept saying, can you go for a bigger bite?

So you see I’m almost ramming this cake into my mouth, and it’s just crumbling down. And then it was getting behind the uniform. I don’t know how it got behind the uniform, but when I took it off at the end of the day, it was like, cupcake crumbs all over the floor. [Laughs.]

Blue Lights streams Thursdays on BritBox. Photo Credit: Peter Marley/Courtesy of BritBox.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.