Mandip Gill breaks down Curfew character's "rage": 'She's got secrets'
The Doctor Who star lifts the lid on her dark new character in female-led Paramount Plus drama.
Former Doctor Who star Mandip Gill has been teasing her "rage-filled" character in new series Curfew, who may initially be hiding more than meets the eye.
In the Paramount Plus drama, she's joined by Sarah Parish and Alexandra Burke in a world where men are electronically tagged and are not allowed to leave their homes from 7pm to 7am as part of an initiative called the Women's Safety Act.
Gill plays Sarah, a single parent whose ex-partner is in prison for breaking curfew, a controversial policy she's heavily in favour of, so much so that she takes up a job as a government tagger.
But that legislation is quickly called into question when a dead body is found outside her workplace, and before long Sarah is caught up in the investigation to track down the killer as her affable persona begins to shift.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com about Sarah's anger, Mandip said: "There's definitely stimulus for her rage that, I think, maybe has got out of control. Personally, when I was doing the work on it, I was like, 'Why is she so angry?' Like, she's got a teenager, she's stressed, like lots and lots of people, so there's that.
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"But why is she so angry? Why is she so for this? Why is she working in the tagging centre? There's loads of places you could work, but she does something because of something that happened to her. So that's why she's on this rampage."
Mandip also went on to talk about Sarah's "secrets", which threaten to spill out into the open.
"They say her ex is coming out," she added. "There's a reason he's inside prison. And she's got secrets. So it's just a very stressful, exhausting period of her life, and especially alongside a teenager, yeah, it's not getting any easier, and she's not helping herself.”
Across the course of the show, the validity of the male curfew is called into question – not least of which by Pamela, who believes that the murder has all the hallmarks of being carried out by a man.
But she finds herself ensnared in the red tape distributed by the police higher-ups, who don't believe it – or want it – to be true, as the victim was killed while curfew was in effect.
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On whether or not a curfew could ever actually work, Gill doesn't believe it can, although she did acknowledge that it's not as simple as a yes or no answer in the show's alternate reality.
"There are probably lots of different answers, and I think curfew isn't one of the answers," she said. "That's what Curfew does do, it comes from loads of different points and shows you.
"Inside this storyline, there are loads of different views. I guess, within themselves, they're going, 'It does work' or 'It doesn't work, but we need it to work', and everyone's got personal views on why they need it."
All episodes of Curfew will be available to watch from 10th October 2024, exclusively on Paramount Plus - sign up for Paramount Plus here.
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