Mother and Daughter

(gentle music) - Morgan, hi.

And Annika?

- The mother, guilty.

It's always about the mother, isn't it?

Well and guilt as well, probably.

At least now you can put a face to the source of the trauma.

- Morgan is just starting to enter a really difficult part of her, you know, of her teenage life.

- Morgan is a very complex, playful character.

She's got a lot going on in her head.

She's kind of going through that awkward stage of growing up and she's going through that teenage stage where she's starting to like people and start to fancy people and she's kinda exploring her sexuality and she's discovering alcohol.

- [Morgan] I'm being parented with a website about liver damage.

- Yes, because no one believes you use vodka as a mouthwash.

- It's a fascinating and very dynamic age to meet a character.

So the kind of low teens on the brink of kind of adulthood having to make some choices, but also independent enough so that there's not quite that kind of pull on Annika in different sorts of ways.

- Best news is that I get taken in a crappy boat to a crappy school to be in a totally crappy play.

- I've uprooted her many times you realize because of my career because it's just us two against the world.

We've not, it's not been stable in that way.

The job has dictated quite a lot of moves in their lives and this one seems difficult for her this time.

- You know what?

Nothing.

I'm sorry.

- Too late.

- Hey, maybe you're having trouble fitting in because you're so chippy.

- Well, she's got that relationship with her mom which I can definitely relate to and the fact that you argue like cat and dog and you clash, but like you still love each other.

So I definitely like that kinda side of it and I thought it would be really interesting to play someone that has got so much going on in their head like all at once and then she doesn't really know how to sort of deal with it.

And I've obviously, I've gone through that stage of my life where it's kind of like awkward.

You're not old enough to do like things that you want to be doing, but you do them anyway.

Like, I dunno, it's like, it's just an awkward stage.

- [Philip] She's struggling with the new school, she's struggling with the new house.

She struggles with the fact that Annika can't give her any time.

That Annika's always working and sometimes drags her along to interview people or when really she should be having a young person's life, which is quite difficult of course in the walls of Scotland, you know?

So, you know, there's a massive weight on Annika.

She tries to keep an eye on Morgan because Morgan can be a bit wayward.

She's pushing back, which is perfectly natural and healthy.

But you know, it's, she's a handful for Annika while she's trying to work and sort things out and then come home and try to have some kind of family life.

It's sort of an impossible balancing act.

- Why are you being snippy with me?

- When I was writing the series, I do have a teenage, you know, daughter and sort of like recognized that sort of really fascinating, you know, combination of wanting to be independent but still really needing, you know your parents around for reassurance.

And also the concerns that, you know, that a daughter might have for somebody who essentially is her work puts her in contact with murderers every single week, you know, and what the concerns are about that.

- She's really worried about her mum and her mum's really worried about her.

So you've got these two people that really love each other.

It seems a very honest portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship and I think they understand each other really well 'cause it's just been the two of them.

It's not full of screaming angst.

It's not, it's much more complicated and layered than that.

- [Sylvie] They definitely do clash, but there's definitely some really nice moments between them.

She struggles with her mom being away a lot of the time, especially the work that her mom's involved in and it stresses Morgan out but there's nothing she can do about it, like it's her mom's job.

She's kind left alone a lot 'cause her dad's not in the picture.

Her mom never really talks about him or anything like that and I think Morgan kind of just accepts it, like it's kind of just always being her and her mom.

But Morgan, like, she knows that her mom loves her job and she doesn't want to like get in the way.

But I think having her dad would help a lot.

(gentle music)