Anna Friel talks about the dark subject matter of ITV’s Marcella

Sipping  a cup of lemon and honey throughout our chat and occasionally pausing for a mini-coughing fit, she soldiers on nevertheless, eager to promote the long-awaited second series of Marcella, the ITV cop drama written by Hans Rosenfeldt, the man behind the Scandinavian smash hit The Bridge.

It’s a role that petite Anna admits takes its toll on her. She consulted her brother, Michael, a doctor, about why she was feeling low during shooting.

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“It affects me that Marcella doesn’t have any scenes where she is smiling,” says Anna, 41.

“She is just always in a state of angst and worry. I asked my brother, ‘Why am I always so exhausted and completely drained every time I film Marcella?’ and he says that the body doesn’t connect with the brain that it’s not real. The character sees the thoughts you have, and I have to have Marcella’s thoughts, and if she cries, I cry.”

And it’s no surprise that Anna finds Marcella a draining character to play.

DS Marcella Backland is a London detective tackling some of the bleakest cases you can imagine, while at the same time suffering a secret mental disorder in which she suffers blackouts and becomes violent, but later can’t remember what she did.

In the first series Marcella feared that she had committed a murder while having a blackout, although she hadn’t.

The second series’ subject matter is no less heart-wrenching.

The eight-part run sees Marcella and her colleagues investigating a murder after a boy’s body is found in a bricked-up wall, surrounded by toys and dressed in a school blazer – it is the corpse of Leo Priestley, a friend of Marcella’s son who’d been abducted some years ago.

Heaping more tragedy upon the plot, Marcella’s two children are now living with her ex-husband, Jason (Nicholas Pinnock), who is loved-up with a new girlfriend.

“This series focuses very much on Marcella trying to get her children back, but she is not in the right state of mind to be able to look after two children, and is in denial,” says Anna.

Marcella is having a secret, casual relationship with Tim Williamson (Jamie Bamber), who’s been promoted to DCI, and several familiar faces join the cast – Midsomer Murders’ Jason Hughes and Ballykissangel’s Victoria Smurfit play a wealthy couple whose marriage seems to be in trouble.

Nigel Planer and Keith Allen play ageing pop stars who’ve been linked to the body in the wall.

The grisly case of a dead child is followed by an even scarier one. In episode one we see another youngster being held hostage and almost certainly about to be tortured.

Anna, who’s a mum to 12-year-old Grace with her former partner, Harry Potter actor David Thewlis, defends the dark subject matter.

“It’s going to be hard for some people to stomach, but it exists – there are child killers.”

And Anna works very hard to ensure that the children on the Marcella set are not affected by her character’s dark moods or the bleak subject matter.

“We look after them,” says Anna. “Any time there was a harrowing scene for any child, I would literally get their hand and we’d go and put music on and do something uplifting and I’ll say, ‘I’m sorry to be mad in that scene.’”

Anna is equally attentive to the needs of Grace – she and Thewlis live near each other in Windsor and co-parent – and ensures that her daughter isn’t affected by her mum’s work.

“I manage to lift myself up because I’m going back home to Gracie and she doesn’t want to see Marcella, she wants to see her mum,” explains Anna.

“Grace is my priority, so I always make sure that every single night, although she might be in bed, that I’m there so that we can have a snuggle, and that her mum is there in the morning.”

When Anna finishes a project, she likes to take Grace off on an adventure to somewhere new. They’ve just returned from St Lucia and have been to Uganda and Vietnam.

It’s difficult for Anna not to stretch herself too thin, giving the tantalising offers flooding in from both sides of the Atlantic.

Last year she also appeared in season two of the acclaimed US series The Girlfriend Experience and in Jimmy McGovern’s excellent BBC1 drama Broken.

She’s already started filming her next gig, ITV’s Butterfly, playing the mother of a transgender child.

“Then I’m meant to go into something else, but I’ve asked to put two weeks off into the contract,” she says.

“Otherwise you’re wearing yourself thin, and I’ve been running on nothing other than adrenaline.”

Anna explains that she tries to counteract the stress on her body with healthy smoothies and shots of turmeric and ginger.

But the drive to work has been with Anna since she made her acting debut as Brookside’s Beth Jordache in 1993.

Rochdale native Anna says she is only concerned about becoming a better actress.

“I have worked since I was 13 years old and chose jobs because they would challenge me and make me better, rather than have a huge, wide, massive audience,” she muses.

“I always wanted longevity, so I took the slow-burning route.”

And despite the demanding nature of Marcella, the toll it takes on her and its grisly subject matter, Anna throws herself into the role with gusto.

Vulnerable-yet-tough Marcella, with her keen detective instincts and messed-up personal life, is a gift of a role for any actress.

“Marcella is one of my favourite characters,” says Anna.

“I’ve just spent 10 months of my life playing her and she is close to my heart.”