(typewriter clicking) - Mrs.
Wilson is based on my grandmother's memoir.
It's one woman's journey through discovery of who her husband is.
(dramatic music) - It's the story of a woman who fell in love with a man when they were both working in the secret spy service during World War II and he was her husband.
- Alex please, someone help me!
- [Rebecca] And then he died.
And she discovered that he had another wife.
- Who are you?
- Gladys Wilson.
I'm Alex's wife.
- [Rebecca] Ruth Wilson, an actress bravely decided to play her own grandmother because she knew the story.
She knew her grandmother.
- I felt inhabited by her.
I felt like there was a strange adrenaline going through me the whole time.
- [Rebecca] Mrs.
Wilson proceeds to investigate.
- [Ruth] Who was he?
Who was my husband?
- He was a very successful agent for MI6 during the war.
It's easy for us to forget just how dangerous it was.
Working here you have to keep secrets, even from your family.
He was an enigma.
He was a very successful novelist.
He spoke seven languages.
He needed to be different people at different times in different places.
They've asked me to go undercover.
They want me to go to Cairo.
It's a psychological thriller.
It's got fantastic period feel, the 30s, there's the war years, the 40s and the 60s.
You have your whole life ahead of you Alison.
I've lived too many lives already.
- He was a man who was deeply complex.
You said he was a good man.
Tell me, in what way exactly was he a good man?
- [Iain] The more the drama unfolds, the more you find out about the man and the more that you know he's hiding.
- [Rebecca] It's about secrets and lies.
- No!
It's the hardest thing I've done, the most stressful thing I've done.
- [Iain] In this case, truth is really stranger than fiction.
(dramatic music)
