Breaking the Fourth Wall

short | 04:49 | CC

Lead actor Nicola Walker, cast and crew muse on the effect of breaking the fourth wall with viewers of the crime series, Annika.

Transcript

(lighthearted music) - Call me Annika.

- Annika, in the radio show talks to us directly and we always wanted to keep that for the TV series.

- What we're aiming for here is a crime drama where the viewer is sort of brought into the fold in the same sort of way as almost all the other members of the homicide team, you know, you are part of the action, you're drawn into it.

- Our brilliant writer, Nick, came up with a really good way of holding onto this very intimate relationship you had with Annika on the radio, that she's, you know, she's in your ear and on television he's using breaking the fourth wall to maintain that intimacy.

- That job is mine, Annika.

- Ah.

- You feel like you really know her and she feels, when she's speaking to you, you are a friend and a confidante.

So let's see how this plays out, cuz we certainly found something nasty in this one.

- In all good crime movies there's a kind of relationship that you have with, you know, your partner in the police unit or wherever it is, and we thought what if the audience was Annika's police buddy?

What if the sort of the things she talked about were, were to us rather than to somebody else?

And we felt that that was just a really sort of new innovation that we were kind of let in on the case, so distinct from perhaps other crime shows we're sort of involved in the action in a much sort of more direct way, because she shares information with us that she doesn't share with anyone else in the team.

- Some tension is clearly important, (lighthearted music) just not too much.

- She's a highly emotionally intelligent woman and an emotionally intelligent boss, and I think, you know, the breaking the fourth wall just helps you get inside her head.

- I was sent on a leadership course before taking this job, I went on a mini break to Madrid instead.

I regret that now.

- It's really useful in this show, and it serves a very particular purpose, and we talked a lot at the beginning about who Annika's talking to and why she's talking to them, and I think we settled eventually on the feeling that you're with me throughout the case.

I need you, (laughs) you know, I need to ask, I'm not just talking for the sake of it, I need you, I need you to listen to me, and I bounce ideas off you, and I know you're there all the time, it's just, I talk to you when I've got something to say.

- Okay.

- It's quite weird for actors, obviously, because it's the one thing we're not supposed to do, but it's proving to be surprisingly comfortable.

- I've watched her do these pieces to camera and they're really, really difficult and, you know to be just involved in the scene and trying to work out the circumstances, the scene, the thought process of your character and where he or she might be in a certain time and place, and then for her to jump out of that and just talk down the barrel of a camera, is um, is very very difficult, but she seems to be doing it brilliantly.

- Get him to the morgue, and see you tomorrow.

- Sometimes there are things that Annika's not ready to tell you, and she waits until she gets to a place where she's comfortable enough to tell you, but she knows that you're waiting to hear it.

So it's a real relationship, for me it's another character, and I think that makes it a lot easier to do.

(lighthearted music) - The bridge is just this beautiful idea, isn't it?

And they're often beautiful in themselves, and they're so hard to build.

You need loads of experts, and getting the keystone in the middle right is a delicate and difficult moment.

But the main problem with them is that quite a lot of the time when you say you're building a bridge, (siren wailing) you're actually burning it to the ground.

- It's as if Annika is talking directly to you and you're going through the case together.

I haven't seen that before, it feels very unusual to me, but it doesn't feel gimmicky, it feels just, it's her, it's very true, to her personality, comes very naturally to her to swing around and speak directly to you.

(lighthearted music)