Silent Witness' Emilia Fox: I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved
PH David Caves, Emilia Fox, Richard Lintern and Liz Carr
When a TV show reaches its 20th year, its cast can afford to give themselves a pat on the back. So it’s understandable that Silent Witness star Emilia Fox is on animated form when we meet to discuss the new series. “It’s a great thrill,” says Emilia, 42, who joined the drama in 2004 as Dr Nikki Alexander. “I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved and can’t believe it. It’s quite rare for a series to reach 20 years. The evolution of Silent Witness is something to be celebrated. It’s really thanks to the audience that we’re still making it.”
In the early days, Amanda Burton played leading forensic pathologist Dr Sam Ryan. The show also had a rotating cast of co-stars, until Tom Ward joined as Dr Harry Cunningham and Will Gaminara as Professor Leo Dalton in series six and stayed for a decade or more. Emilia joined in the eighth series and is currently joined in the fictional Lyell Centre by David Caves as Jack Hodgson, Richard Lintern as Dr. Thomas Chamberlain and Liz Carr as lab assistant Clarissa Mullery.
The show’s stories remain dark and twisty, if implausible, tales in which the forensic pathologists turn detective when faced with a mystery. They’re regularly propelled out of the lab to track down criminals and unravel cases, often putting themselves in danger. Stories keep abreast of current issues, too – this week’s tale could have been ripped from the headlines. Police officers bring a severed finger for Nikki and Thomas to test. A young Syrian immigrant was sent the finger by a people smuggler claiming to be holding her mother captive, and the authorities need to know if there’s a DNA match. “It’s about illegal immigrants and what happens when they’re coming here for a safer place to live, but end up losing their identities and often their families,” explains Emilia. “It focuses on what happens to them on a human level and what our responsibility is. It’s bound to cause some debate, I imagine, and the best episodes of Silent Witness are like that.”
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Emilia has played Nikki now for 12 years, but says that the scripts for Silent Witness continue to challenge her. “In the last episode of this series I was asked to do things I’d never been asked to do in Silent Witness before or in any other job!” she teases, laughing. “I can’t give it away – it would ruin the surprise – but definitely it’s been a challenge.” That episode sees the pathologists head to Mexico for a story about victims of the drugs trade. “It’s struck me recently what a luxury it is that I get to enter into five different genres of film in Silent Witness,” continues Emilia. “Each series we’ll have an action thriller, a whodunnit, an emotionally charged story. It’s personally and professionally satisfying to be able to do that and I never take it for granted.” One aspect of Nikki’s story arc that viewers find perpetually frustrating is her hopeless love life. Despite being gorgeous, solvent and super-bright, Nikki has no luck with men. Emilia laughs. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen to Nikki,” she agrees.
“Some series back, Harry was obviously the love of her life, but out of fear of that not working out they never committed to each other. “Whether that’s a missed opportunity or will be touched on in later series, who knows? I’m always saying to the writers, ‘Be careful: you can’t have every relationship she goes into be really bad,’ but I like the surprise element of what they want to do with her.” Despite Silent Witness’s super-serious tone – its earnestness inspired a memorable 1999 French and Saunders parody, Witless Silence – Emilia reports that when the cameras aren’t rolling, the cast laugh a lot. “We all hang out outside of work,” says Emilia. “In fact, we’ve all been out to play bingo together. It was Liz’s idea and it was hilarious because we kept getting told off for talking.”
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