Yahoo Finance Priyanga Burford on ITV crime drama Innocent, and working on the latest Bond film
Priyanga Burford compounds our suspicions that there's something unnerving hiding beneath the pristine exterior of her latest character in ITV's crime drama Innocent.
The actress, who is known for her roles in Mike Bartlett's Press and King Charles III, Armando Iannucci's Avenue 5, and BBC2 and HBO's critically-acclaimed Industry, plays Karen in the series from Unforgotten show-runner Chris Lang, a seemingly upstanding member of the community as a school governor and involved, single mother.
The drama starts with Katherine Kelly's teacher, Sally Wright, being released from prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering her pupil, with whom she was rumoured to have had an affair. Sally served five years inside, lost her job and her marriage to parole officer Sam (Marcella's Jamie Bamber), who is now about to marry Burford's Karen.
"She is called Karen, which has become a byword for suspicious," Burford told Good Housekeeping UK. "So it's understandable if we don't immediately trust her. She has this need to belong and to have a status and stake in the community. It's that need to keep it all together that drives her. And suddenly this news comes out about Sally, and it starts pulling at a thread and it doesn't stop."
When Sally relocates back to their hometown of Kessock, Karen's steely veneer slips and she's suddenly vulnerable and insecure – which manifests itself into paranoia about partner Sam, and one very awkward sex scene that hurriedly unfolds between them on the hallway stairs.
"The sex scene felt very real to me because of that – Karen and Sam are trying to make something Hollywood-esque and sexy happen but they're not really achieving it and that felt very real for the characters," Burford continued.
The scene required an intimacy coordinator, which has become a fundamental part of theatre, film and television production, just as there are stunt coordinators to choreograph fight sequences between actors.
Burford explained that as intimacy coaches are very much in their infancy, actors are learning to adjust to this new process, which currently works well as a "sponge" to absorb any "awkwardness" between the cast and the director.
"The thing about intimacy coaches is it's a very new job title and I think people are slightly behind their hands slightly sniggering about it," Burford continued. "But actually, they just become this sponge for everyone's awkwardness, so from that point view alone they're incredibly helpful to have in the room, especially when you're having conversations about stuff which most of us would like to keep private and it's very personal... So it makes the conversation with the director easier."
Burford explained that they're also "brilliant" at giving the sex context, so that the scenes are an integral part of the story, rather than being gratuitous or frivolous.
"It's about looking at the sex and trying to find a reason for it, what is this sex about, because sex isn't always about intimacy, and intimacy doesn't always involve sex," she observed. "Coaches help to locate the sex, to give it a meaning and a purpose and make it part of the story of the relationship, rather than having it as this thing which is quite generalised sometimes in films.
"In the past, you hear terrible stories about actors being told to 'get on with it' and I think that's a really lonely, horrible experience to have and I'm delighted that's changing. And not just for women, for men as well – there's a sort of preconception about male sexuality because you're a guy you'll be up for everything but I think that's also wrong and something that needs help too."
Meanwhile, there was something similarly unsettling and opaque about Burford's Sara, aka the President of prestigious bank Pierpoint in acclaimed drama Industry. The BBC Two and HBO series, written by former bankers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, focuses on the cutthroat world of Pierpoint & Co, and the young graduates competing for a limited number of permanent positions at the London bank.
Viewers were left uncertain as to whether Sara really was as concerned as she preached about about eradicating the pervasive toxic work culture, and creating a more diverse, equal and empathetic workplace. Or was she really just trying to protect the company's reputation and her high-powered position within it?
"I think she was trying to achieve noble ends but finding out you can't always do that by noble means," Burford said. "Sometimes, you have to become a bit of the thing that you don't like to achieve the other things. She had the best of intentions in terms of trying to tackle the culture, the ridiculous work culture, the machismo, the lack of diversity but in trying to achieve those a bit too quickly, it was a bit performative and she didn't think too deeply about what she was doing...
"I think she's one of these people who read articles in Sunday supplements about young people and so she thinks she knows about being woke and the woke generation but in reality, what she has found is those around her aren't using the right language, they're not all ready to fight the good fight, it's more complicated than that."
HBO recently confirmed that the show will return for another season, although Burford couldn't reveal any details about the plot, or even whether she will be back.
"I can't you tell you anything! I can't tell you anything except they're planning big things," she divulged.
Speaking of which, Burford will feature on the silver screen in James Bond's No Time to Die, which, after much rescheduling due to the pandemic, is now set for release in cinemas on 30 September.
"I play a government scientist and it was really cool, and really exciting to do," the star revealed. "When I went to Pinewood Studios to shoot it, it was around the time that Daniel Craig was recovering from breaking his ankle in Jamaica, so they had to turn the whole schedule around,which is like trying to turn a tanker.
"It was a really well oiled machine, because they're Bond and they can afford whatever they want and so everyone in that department is on top of their game. You walk into this production and you just feel like everyone is on it and it was really exciting and lovely to have a small part in something like that. Cary Joji Fukunaga [True Detective, Beasts of No Nation, Maniac] was a really fun and interesting director to work with."
This will be Craig's last role as 007, and speculation about which British actor will be taking over have been ramped up recently, along with conversations about whether Bond should be played by a woman.
"Controversially, I don't know about Bond as a woman because of Ian Fleming's novels, Burford admitted. "Because there is such a particular strain of masculinity in that character... He's from a particular background and place and institution that I think is patriarchal and masculine, and so I think if you're going to be true to that character you probably need a guy to do it.
"That's not to say you don't interrogate what that world is, which I think they are starting to do. So I don't know about Bond as a woman. Daniel Craig is such big shoes to fill – off all the people that are rumoured I've gone, 'yeah', but actually 'no'. I've never said yes to any of them that have been suggested..."
What about the name of the moment, Bridgerton's Rege-Jean Page?
"Oh, I can see that, yes. I can see that. Handsome," Burford added.
Innocent airs on ITV at 9pm.
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