The final season of Grantchester has been emotional to watch for PBS viewers, but it’s also been emotional for actor Melissa Johns. Melissa has played Miss Scott since Series 6, and now audiences are getting to see how Miss Scott’s journey concludes in Series 11. And it’s a wonderful story arc that will make audiences cry.

TVBrittanyF.com spoke to Melissa about how it feels to let go of a character she’s portrayed for so long. She also revealed her favorite moment from Grantchester Series 11, and why it was such an important scene for her personally. Plus, what will she carry forward from playing Miss Scott?

Brittany Frederick: First of all, what has it been like just to bid farewell to Grantchester and this character, after so many years spent in this world?

Melissa Johns: I feel like every time we get to a different point in the process, my next stage of my grieving happens. When we did the read-through—we all got together in London and we did the read-through round the table—that was the first, oh my gosh, it’s coming to an end. And then there was filming, going this is the last time in the police station, and this is my last day on set. The wrap party that I didn’t manage to make because [my daughter] was only nine days old. [Laughs.] The last ADR session.

Although we finished in November, this now feels like another beginning of the end. Now that people are starting to see it, this now feels like the final goodbyes, really… Honestly, it feels very bittersweet. I have only known my 30s with Miss Scott by my side. I do not know this decade yet without her, and it’s going to be strange to go into this summer not not stepping into her shoes.

Did your appreciation of her character, or perspective on her, change as the seasons went on? Did you find new things to love about Miss Scott?

Absolutely. Her strength has carried me through the last six years. She is an incredible woman that actually got to rub off on me, and maybe there’s some bits [where] got to kind of put myself into her. But I have always been in awe of her strength. She’s a disabled woman in the ’60s, working in a male-dominated environment, and that takes a lot of grit and a lot of fantastic one-liners that are brilliantly written by the writers.

And this season, more than ever, did I have such a respect for her because I felt everything she was feeling even more, on such a deeper level. She finds herself with child and in the nerve-wracking predicament of what am I going to do about that? I want to keep working. I want to earn my own money. I want my career—and I can’t tell you how similar that is to me as an actor. You work really hard to be where you are, and the industry still isn’t as good as it could be in terms of supporting actresses that are mums. And every line she said carried even more weight, because this woman in 1963 was absolutely mirroring this woman in 2025, 2026, and it was nice to know we were going through it together.

What scene from Grantchester Series 11 stuck with you the most, and why?

It’s pretty obvious that Miss Scott can’t stay working at the police station with a massive baby bump, or indeed a newborn baby by her desk. That’s something that isn’t able to happen, and we tease it all the way through. We tease that Geordie, as supportive as he is of her and his love for her still shines through, he does let her know that this can’t go on forever. And when she makes the decision to to step away to have a baby, that was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.

Miss Scott is saying goodbye to her job and her police station family and and her career, and in the same breath, I’m saying goodbye to the show. Me handing in my notice as Miss Scott is me saying goodbye to a show that I love so much, that has been part of my life.

And the third thing that it did was, it was me saying goodbye to a chapter of my life. I had [my daughter] two weeks after I finished filming, and that that final goodbye for Miss Scott really was my goodbye to potentially the industry for a little while. It carried a lot of weight, and there was a lot that I had to sift through as an actor to make sure that I got that across as best as possible.

For Grantchester fans who want to see more of your work, what would you want them to watch next? Is there anything you want to leave the fans with?

Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s the [hypothetical] Miss Scott and Larry Peters spinoff, right? [Laughs.] It’s called Scott and Peters, and it follows Miss Scott and Larry in their life as a crime-investigating married couple in the ’60s, which I personally think sounds great.

But another show that I had a lead in is a BBC drama called Life, alongside Alison Stedman, and that one should be available online. So I would say if people are missing my mug that much, which I can’t imagine they will be. [Laughs.] But if they were, that one is a great show, fantastic, and hopefully I’ll have more to offer very soon.

More than anything, I really hope that the fans of the show really love this final series. I hope that they don’t leave that final episode with a hole in their heart. I hope that there is a space in their hearts for us to live on for a little while as characters. I hope that we’re a show that they can come back to. I just really hope that the fans of the show love it as much as we loved filming it, because we gave it everything we had.

On a personal level, I have an incredibly close relationship with Bradley Hall, who plays Larry Peters, and it is going to be incredibly hard to not spend the summer with him. We’re trying to plan some family dates with his family and mine, just to kind of fill that hole. But it will be very hard to not see the whole team every day. Not have Bradley knock on my trailer and say, are we having lunch in your trailer or mine? Or not having him offer me his dessert because I probably didn’t like the one that I got. People say all the time that casts become a family, and this show is absolutely that. We’ve got our little WhatsApp group, and hopefully, our relationships and friendships will continue for years to come.

Grantchester Series 11 airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS Masterpiece, and is also available on PBS Masterpiece on Prime Video, PBS Passport, and the PBS app. Photo Credit: Courtesy of PBS.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 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.