Chanel Cresswell on Vardy v Rooney: "This is the bit we don't get to see"

In the now legendary social media post, Rooney kept us all on tenterhooks as she detailed her predicament and the Hercule Poiret-esque steps she took to unmask the alleged traitor lurking in her midst, signing off with a line that is now immortalised in pop culture: "I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It's … Rebekah Vardy's account."

The powers of deduction! The ellipsis! The strategic use of the word 'account'! The greatest minds in Hollywood could never.

Vardy strenuously denied the allegation and launched a defamation lawsuit against Rooney, but High Court judge Justice Steyn later ruled in Rooney's favour.

The Wagatha Christie dispute, as it was dubbed (a reference to the now outdated term WAG, wives and girlfriends of famous athletes), is the subject of Channel 4's Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, a two-parter that explores how the high profile trial unfolded.

"I didn't really have an opinion on it," said Chanel Cresswell, who plays Rooney. "I didn't really follow it, so I didn't know the information. I didn't know who was right, who was wrong. But when I kept seeing it crop up on the TV, I thought, 'Oh God, this is getting a bit heated. This is getting quite serious.' But I didn't think it'd go that far."

The series does exactly what it says on the tin: the action takes place within the High Court and the dialogue is based on real transcripts, with "little flashbacks" interspersed throughout. Most of the details are well-known but "there is a lot of information that I don't think people will know", said Cresswell.

"[The vast majority of the time] we see their glossy lifestyles but this is the bit we don't get to see, behind the curtain. It's not the polished article."

As the trial progressed, a raft of extraordinary details emerged. After Vardy's agent's phone was requested as evidence, it was lost to the waves of the North Sea. On another occasion, Vardy was asked why she didn't respond to a message from her agent about passing on information to the press, to which she claimed she'd been too distracted by Gemma Collins's faceplant on Dancing on Ice to comment. And let's not forget Vardy's remarks about Peter Andre's "miniature chipolata" following a one-night stand several years ago. I could go on, but I'd be here all day.

The show does "touch on" those comedic moments, but it's largely played straight, according to Cresswell.

Did she get a chance to meet the woman she's playing?

"Time didn't allow that, for one. It was quite a quick turnaround. And I think just out of respect, I decided not to. Coleen, I gathered, is a private person and I didn't want to intrude on that. But I would have loved to have spoken to her."

What questions would she have asked?

"To be honest, I'd just like to sit and have a general chit chat, really. I would never really press her on anything. I’d just ask some stupid questions like, 'Do you believe in aliens? Do you believe in the afterlife?’"

Without that face-to-face encounter, Cresswell watched "a lot of" Rooney's interviews and clips to get acquainted with her.

"It was interesting seeing her when she was a lot younger because I feel that's the more naive version of her," she said. "That's the roots of her. And then obviously as she's gotten a bit older, I think she's probably become a lot more private within her life for various reasons.

"It must be very strange being somebody who was just a normal person and then they go out with somebody who blows up, but you're still just a normal person. You've had to change your whole structure, the way that you live to accommodate marrying the love of your life, so I think it must be really difficult to find people that you can 100 per cent trust.

"And the one thing that became very apparent in the transcripts I read from Colleen was this was a massive betrayal of trust for her. You think your information is safe and then it isn't. It creates a paranoia within your little world. You feel like you've been invaded. It almost has a hint of the phone hacking scandal."

This role was "one of the most testing" performances of Cresswell's career, but not for the reason you might expect. Obviously there's the innate pressure that comes with re-telling one of the biggest entertainment stories in recent memory, but there wasn't much room for artistic expression, which she found limiting.

"In terms of creative freedom, I didn't have a lot," she said. "I'm playing somebody [real] and I have to stick to that, so I couldn't make it mine. And it's quite difficult because she's in a courtroom situation, so she's got to act a certain way. You're told not to react that much because you're playing them within a situation where they have to be quite straight, so there were times where I felt a bit one-dimensional. There were times when I was questioning what I was doing."

But her biggest concern was not falling into a caricatured portrayal of Rooney, "focusing on just making her a normal person, and playing her as strong".

"She's a mum of four boys, so she's going to be a strong person," she added.

Cresswell certainly knows a thing or two about playing resilient women. She made her name as Kelly Jenkins in This Is England, Shane Meadows's brutal yet beautiful drama about a group of working class friends in the Midlands, for which she won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in 2016.

There have been rumblings of a fourth series set in the 2000s, but there's been no official word from the powers that be.

"We were all together not long ago for Tommo's [Thomas Turgoose] 30th and we were all asking him [Meadows], and the answer hasn't been no. He's definitely got some ideas but I don't know [if he'll do another one]. I did say to him, 'Come on, we're getting older. You’ve got to hurry up. We've only got so long in us.'

"I'm sure most of us would jump back at a chance."

Like all of the characters in This Is England, Kelly's journey takes her to some difficult places. Her father rapes her best friend and her sister Lol, played by Vicky McClure, almost dies after an overdose. "With Kelly, it either goes really, really well, or it goes really, really dark. And I love playing the dark side. That's what I'd ask for [in the next series]."

But despite what the character and the project as a whole means to Cresswell, she "can't really watch it back anymore".

"She's very personal to me because I was going through quite a lot of the time.," she added. "The music, what's happening, it just makes me so upset. But at the time it was like a therapy session going on set and talking with Shane and acting those things out. And it definitely put very strong stepping stones down for my career.

"It's one of those moments. And you can't knock any of the people involved. They were all insane, so I hope we come back."

If you have been affected by the themes discussed in this article, you can find help and support at www.victimsupport.org.uk and www.rapecrisis.org.uk.

Vardy v Rooney airs tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Drama hub for the latest news.

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