Interview with Wunmi Mosaki who plays Detective Inspector Mercer

18 December 2017

Your new drama is Kiri – could you explain a little about the show and who you play?

The show is about a young girl black girl called Kiri who is about to be adopted by a white family. She goes missing and the series is about that and the public fallout with the press and the social worker and Kiri’s family and I play the police officer who’s investigating the case.

And what attracted you to the project?

Well first of all the script. I think Jack Thorne is brilliant. Second of all, the director Euros Lyn who I’ve worked with before and I think again is wonderful. Thirdly is Sarah Lancashire! I think she’s amazing and the opportunity to work with her and the rest of the cast drew me in. I always say it’s the story, it’s the most important thing for me and I think Jack is, is a very good story teller and I think Euros is really good putting it all together. He’s really good with actors and crew, I feel like acting with Euros is like going back to drama school and really getting to explore.

They’re a bit of a dream team?

It was a bit of dream team actually, it really was, yeah!

What did you do in the way of research, if any?

I’ve played a few police officers but we had a lovely police consultant on set every day and he helped me through everything, every scene, what would be the protocol. There’s a tendency to think when you’re playing a police officer, because this whole job is about protection, that you’re always in control and he reminded me that police officers aren’t machines and they feel certain cases, more deeply than others sometimes police officer and not just the function of the police officer.

And what kind of a police detective is your character? What’s her sort of style?

I think she’s just very honest and she’s not, she doesn’t concern herself with niceties all the time. She’s very blunt, driven by results, getting the result that she needs. This case is a little bit different for her as she and Kiri have a similar background. They both were in care, both come from African descent, a difficult father. So I guess in a way she has to fight her but because she understands it more, she almost puts up more barriers. She’s not cold, she cares, but she cares so much that she almost has to block things out to get the results that she needs and be as professional and as brilliant as she can be.

And as you mentioned you also played a cop in The End of the F***ng World which has been a real hit here.

Yeah I’m really proud of it. I think it’s easier for me to watch, because I don’t appear until episode 4. So, I watched the story before my character arrived, which is actually a bit of a luxury as an actor because as soon as arrive on screen as an actor I start judging myself. It’s quite nice to be able to just watch it before the self-assessment comes!

What was the main difference between playing Terri the cop in The End of The F*cking World and DI Mercer in Kiri?

I think one main difference is that in The End of The F***ing World my character and her partner are always a few steps behind the kids and they’re not really involved with the families and the people as like much as DI Mercer is. It’s really always to do with the family and the people. Terri has no tact at all. She’s quite cold in a way and she’s judgemental. DI Mercer has got more of a balanced approach to things. Even if she has a judgement she has a more professional, manner. She’s trying to do best for both sides which is difficult because you’ve got two families; one who hasn’t formally adopted her but she’s been living with, who feel like her parents, and then the birth grandparents. It’s a bit of a balancing act that I don’t know if Terri would be able to execute as well as DI Mercer.

What is the atmosphere like on set when you’re filming something like this. Is it sort of quite sombre and serious or do you have to make it light to combat the subject matter?

I mean obviously when we’re working everyone’s concentrating towards doing something extremely emotional and everyone’s respectful of that. But genuinely I was happy to go to work every day. Even when DI Mercer’s at her most intense, like, when they shout cut and you feel like you’re a treadmill or you’re about to break into a bit of a sweat! But it’s not a joyful process, you know what I mean? I sometimes feel like we’ve got the best job. Being on set is just generally fun. It’s hard work but everyone wants it to be brilliant.

And are you good at sort of switching off at the end of a day’s filming?

I think so. It’s hard actually. I think when you’re filming outside of London or outside of your home, you go back to a hotel and you don’t have to concern yourself with life, like taking the bins out, doing a wash. You get back to your hotel room and the bed’s been made and you can just chill. You can’t do anything else because you’re not at home, you can’t distract yourself and sort out accounts or whatever….

It’s just as well because with those twelve hour days…

Yeah it’s a fourteen hour day, fourteen/fifteen hour day, and it’s a long wait! So I think you end up just going to bed, but there’s nothing wrong with that!