Season one of Bloodlands aired last year with audiences gripped by the tale of legendary assassin coming out of retirement to kill again with the police hot on his trail. Little did viewers suspect the lead detective on the investigation would be Goliath with Brannick trying to cover up his tracks and keeping one step ahead of his colleagues by destroying evidence and bumping off anyone who might spill the beans about his true identity. This time around, fans will be getting six episodes – two more than the first outing to audiences champing at the bit.
Irish actress Smurfit, 48, said it was a “no-brainer” when she got the call to star in Bloodlands and play the unpredictable Olivia who crosses paths with Brannick (played by James Nesbitt) during the course of a murder investigation linked to a cache of gold thought to belong to assassin Goliath.
“What I found really interesting was the idea that I got drip-fed Olivia in many ways,” she told media including Express.co.uk at a Royal Television Society panel.
The Irish actress revealed creator Chris Brandon was writing the scripts as the show was filming and so she was never completely sure where she stood with Olivia.
Smurfit, who has also starred in ITV’s Marcella and Dracula, went on to say: “What was so fantastic was that he gave me a complete sense of her from the opening and then spooled around.
“Even I didn’t know exactly where she was going to go or exactly how dark or light or sexual or as twisted as she was going to become. So it was a real game of minutiae.”
She said working with Nesbitt again after 20 years was a “position of great comfort and safety” and “wasn’t worried about failing” because her co-star was such a great scene partner with the two able to play off each other.
Smurfit went on to tease her character, saying: “At all times, whoever she’s in the room with, she’s lying to at least all of them. So that was really fun.”
As part of her performance, Smurfit would try to make sure her body language would be at odds with her eyes and what she was saying, to show how manipulative Olivia was.
She said: “For me, what I was trying to do was play the three levels differently too because you’d have to switch.”
Adding: “It was really exciting. There was no room for dialling it in on this show. Let me tell you.”
The actress she based Olivia on some “real pieces of work” and “collated gold diggers” she’d come across during her life and “stole some of their moves”.
Smurfit said: “She knows how to mimic emotion. She knows how to mimic what is expected of her as a delicate little grieving widow but does she feel it? No!”
Reflecting on Olivia and Brannick’s interactions, she said: “It became a minute game of cat and mouse that just kept turning on its head.”
She said: “So just when you thought you knew where they were going, it would flip and it was just such enormous fun.”
Nesbitt, who was also on at the Q&A, said Olivia “weakens” Brannick because of her double-dealing ways and lies ad “prodded his vulnerability”.
He added: “I think she was incredibly disarming, sexy, intelligent, frightening, cold.
“All the things – I think she demonstrated to him a lot things that exist in him that he didn’t want to admit.”
The star’s words suggest Olivia could bring Brannick close to breaking point and his true nature coming out.
Smurfit hailed the cast and crew was enormous fun and filming season two was an “astonishing” experience.
Whether Brannick will be taken down remains to be seen but his secret can only stay hidden for so long.
Bloodlands season 2 starts tomorrow on BBC One at 9pm