Shetland season 8 has added a Downton Abbey legend to its ranks, with Phyllis Logan playing the intimidating matriarch Grace Bain.
When we first meet her, she and the rest of her family are on tenterhooks as Grace's granddaughter Ellen Quinn (Maisie Norma Seaton) returns to the island after a traumatic experience in London, and has since gone missing.
The Bain family starts to take matters into their own hands in upcoming scenes, and What to Watch spoke to Phyllis Logan about taking on a role that's very different from what fans might know her from, and she gives her thoughts about why we're a nation of crime lovers...
You’re playing Grace Bain — can you tell us a little bit about her, please?
"Well, she is the sort of head of the family, the matriarch, since her husband has died, of this sort of farming family on Shetland, and she has a son and a daughter and a son-in-law and a grandson, and family means a lot to her — she keeps them all close-knit and together until it sort of crumbles, but we don’t need to go there! [laughs] She’s quite — what would you call her, a bit of a nippy sweetie, I’d suppose."
In the first episode, we haven’t seen a lot of her yet but she seems quite powerful, everyone is slightly afraid of her…
"Yes, I think she does, and I think she quite enjoys that, you know, the fact that people are a wee bit fearful of her — I think she kind of relishes that in her sadistic way!"
Was that part of the appeal of the character for you, that she has that sway over people and they all look up to her?
"Oh yes, it’s always nice to play somebody who’s not nice, do you know? Who’s got a bit of an edge to them."
The whole Bain family — it’s mentioned in the first episode that they have a reputation that precedes them across Shetland, how would you sum them up?
"Well, yeah, they seem to have a lot of sway on the island, and probably have done going back generations, I would think — obviously she wasn’t a Bain to start with, but she married into the Bains, and they’ve always been a force to be reckoned with in the community, so they’re quite at the forefront. I’m not sure that they’re necessarily liked by everybody, but certainly, they’re a bit feature of that whole community, and love them or not, they’re there to stay — and have got sort of almost inordinate influence, it would seem, on some of the residents."
And a lot of our readers know you best as Mrs Hughes from Downton Abbey - how does a show like Shetland compare to Downton?
"Well you know, they both have — doing the part of, it’s like slipping into an old pair of slippers, playing Mrs Hughes, which is great, and Julian writes the character so well, and you always get nice stuff to do in his scripts. And so — and of course we have become, it sounds a bit of an old cliche, but we have become a bit of a Downton family, as inevitably you do!
"Because you know, we did six whole series together, we’ve done two films, and we’re still in touch with one another — [brief interruption] — you wouldn’t believe what’s happening here, I’m having a bath put into my living room. Not installed! I’m getting renovations done in the bathroom, so I’m having to store it downstairs until such times as it’s ready to go in."
The two characters of Mrs Hughes and Grace feel worlds apart - do you think there are any similarities between the characters?
"Well, I think Grace is — hmm, she’s not somebody you warm to, I would say, necessarily. Whereas I think Mrs Hughes is somebody that you can warm to, even though she can be quite formidable herself from time to time, but it’s always justified — she’s not horrible for the sake of it. Not that she’s ever horrible! She’s firm but fair. But I think Grace sort of relishes making people uncomfortable really."
What do you think it is that makes us a nation of lovers of crime drama?
"Oh God, I don’t know! I’m sure — it must be worldwide, because we’ve had so many similar things from America and everywhere. I think it’s just human nature that people want to explore more why people do certain things, and mysteries — everybody loves a mystery, no matter what it is, and I like watching some of these programmes, occasionally I’m just sitting looking for something to do for an hour.
"No, that doesn’t happen very often, I’m always dipping about doing something! But I love watching, if you get a sort of forensic programme where it’s recounting certain cases where they thought they couldn’t solve and then they explain what they did in order to, I love all of that, when they go into it forensically and discover what suddenly turned up that swung the case where they could make an arrest, or get somebody, as it were. I love all those sort of things. And I think people do want to find out what’s in people’s heads, why they do certain things, how they can get away with certain things — it’s very intriguing!"
