Brenda Blethyn has spoken out about the 'loyalty' amongst the cast and crew of Vera, as filming on the ITV drama's new series continues.
While other stars of the show have come and gone, since Vera made its debut 12 years ago, leading lady Brenda has been every present as no nonsense sleuth DCI Stanhope, trying to get to the bottom of murder mysteries for the past 12 series. It was confirmed earlier this year that Vera would be back for a 13th series, with Brenda's name once again top of the cast list, along with a surprising returnee, David Leon, who is now back on set, having quit his role as Joe Ashworth nearly a decade ago.
David, who has done a lot of work behind the camera over the last 10 years, re-joins the Vera cast, just as Kenny Doughty, who replaced him as Vera's sidekick, leaves his role as DS Aiden Healy after eight years in the job. Ibinabo Jack will also bow out of Vera in already filmed episode The Rising Tide, while other Vera stalwarts like Jon Morrison and Riley Jones are also busy filming for the new series.
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Brenda has often spoke about how something always 'pulls her back' to Vera, even though the job takes her away from home for months on end and she has also heaped praise on those who she gets to work with year after year. In an interview with ITV, the BAFTA winner said: “The Vera crew are great. Very loyal. When you consider we started filming Vera 13 years ago now, it’s mostly the same crew today. And a lot of local people as well. The loyalty to Vera is phenomenal. Our supporting artists are also very good. They are pretty regular and also loyal. It’s all part of the real teamwork that brings Vera to the screen.“
Opening about the long days of filming, which has taken them to the likes of Hexham,. North Shields and Wylam in recent weeks, Brenda continued: Everyone needs a huge amount of stamina to get through long days of filming with often a lot of travel to and from set. They can be 16-hour days by the time you also add on costume, make up and so on
"then when I get home I’ve got to go through the script for the next day. I might find a little anomaly or something that is not quite right. So then I have to sort that and get it approved and they have to issue re-writes to everybody else. You can never just sit back and think, ‘Right, I’ll learn that now and that’s done.’ It all takes time to do that.”
