Emilia Fox is one of Britain’s leading actresses thanks to her role in the hit BBC One crime drama series Silent Witness.
But when we chat to the star, who plays forensic pathologist Dr Nikki Alexander, she admits she sometimes struggles with the subject matter of the show, which has been running for 26 years.
Talking about the brutal crimes played out in each episode, the mum-of-one, who is currently filming the 26th series, says she worries that the violence shown on screen “influences” real life.
Emilia said: “The producers and executive producers decide what to show in relation to what the audience want. But I do think, and I say this as a worried parent, that I think it influences what is happening in real life and what we become immune to.”
The 48-year-old, who shares daughter Rose, 12, with her former partner and actor Jeremy Gilley, says she has concerns about such content on other mediums, too. “I do think about video games and what that stimulates in children’s heads or grown-ups’ heads. It concerns me definitely. What do you choose to put on television?”
She added: “I don’t like being scared. I have never liked Halloween. I certainly don’t like the idea of watching a horror film at all. I don’t know what the thrill of that is.”
Given that Emilia is from a thespian dynasty that includes her dad Edward, 85, her younger brother Freddie, 33, and her cousin Laurence, 44, a frequent question is whether the profession has always been in her blood.
“I do get asked that a lot,” she tells us. “People say, ‘Is it in the blood that you have all gone into the same business?’ For years I said ‘No. Absolutely not.’ I did not want to be an actor.”
She continued: “I did try to steer clear of acting as I grew up. I went to Oxford University so my mum and dad did not nurture me into becoming an actor. They were like, ‘Do anything but!’.”
Edward Fox became a worldwide star after playing an assassin in the 1973 film The Day Of The Jackal. Her mum, Joanna David, 75, has starred in a number of TV hits including Sense And Sensibility, The Darling Buds Of May, Inspector Morse and Miss Marple.
But Emilia, who’s in a “very happy” relationship with Netflix producer Jonathan Stadlen, insists that despite her parents’ success, she had no real awareness of their work when she was growing up.
She tells us: “I did not know that Mum and Dad were actors really. They did not expose to me their acting life as a child and their feeling about parenting was to try to give stability to us and not take us out of school. I was not really aware of what they did until much later.”
Despite her attitude before going to university, it turned out Emilia was destined for a career on stage and screen. “By good fortune, I got a job at university in acting and when I left, I started doing a job that I love,” she says. “I felt so lucky as
the value of the job you are doing is priceless.”
The actress says it was only when she entered the profession that she realised her love for it might have been inherited from her parents. She tells us, “It was only then I believed I had gone into it as it was a world I felt comfortable in – maybe then I did think it was nurture.”
Emilia – who took part in the BBC One show Who Do You Think You Are? – has realised that many previous generations of her family before her parents were also actors.
“I discovered that not only in this generation but in my grandparents’ generation there were actors and the next and previous there were more actors,” she says. “I found that my great-great-grandfather worked his way up from the factory floor in Leeds and became an entrepreneur and his great passion was the arts and he collected arts and made a donation to the Royal College of Music. So I thought ‘Maybe it is in the blood.’”
She adds, “I was really surprised learning about my own family and how affecting it was getting to know members of my family who I did not know. The ones I could not know as they are not alive. But you get so involved in the story of it that you do become emotionally involved in that.”
As well as learning about her ancestors, Emilia says she was finally able to talk to her father about his own past, which had been too painful a subject to broach in the past.
“I had a conversation with my dad I had never had before, about his father. His father died as a relatively young man and Dad had not talked about him; I know that he feels emotional about it so I did not go near that subject.
“Suddenly, I was given that opportunity to talk to him about his dad and to discover things about my grandfather and the relationship my dad had with his dad. That was a very moving moment and something I will have and hold forever for the rest of my life.”
In terms of her future in the industry, Emilia tells us she will continue to present the Crime+ Investigation true-crime series Murdertown and will continue to make Silent Witness so long as the BBC wants it.
When asked if a 27th series is on the cards for filming next year, she says, “I’ll have to ask someone else. At the moment, I’ll finish this series of Silent Witness and then I do some Murdertown, some podcasts, a film and an audio book. Next year there may be another Silent Witness, I don’t know.”
Let’s hope so!
