Alex Jennings plays Ted Day

"Gold Digger is a bold and truthful portrayal of something we don’t often see on screen, an older woman having an affair with a younger man, and it was the angle the scripts took on this relationship that initially drew me to the drama. It is something rarely seen in drama or literature and it is a big issue for society to address and adjust to, especially within popular culture. This show exposes that.

"I also seem to have been on a bit of a roll playing various forms of sleazebags recently, and Ted was a fresh and new version of that, he is much more complicated than simply being a bad guy. There were moments in the writing that allowed me to understand the complexity of the pain this character was in. He has some serious anger issues but it wasn’t black and white in the scripts, so I felt there was something quite complex to explore within him, which was exciting."

Alex reveals some details about his character, Ted, and his role in this drama.

"Ted is the ex-husband of Julia and they have had a long marriage and have three grown up children, but it has gone pretty sour. That is largely because of Ted’s controlling personality, wanting Julia to play a traditional role in their marriage, and he has certainly been psychologically abusive towards her. The story begins about a year or so after they have finally separated and he has had an affair with one of Julia’s closest friends, Marsha (Nikki Amuka-Bird).

"Ted is throwing everything he can into this relationship with Marsha, trying to desperately make something positive out of his situation. He is attempting to turn himself around; he has stopped drinking and he is trying to rage against the dying of the light, in that he is become a fitness freak, pushing himself in a determined effort to make this life work. However, it is all just keeping the lid on the pressure cooker."

Alex discusses Ted’s fractured relationships with his three children.

"Ted and Julia’s children, Della (Jemima Rooper) and Patrick (Sebastian Armesto) have been damaged by things that happened in their childhood but their youngest son Leo (Archie Renaux) however, has been protected from that experience. So Ted is desperately trying to pour all his efforts into Leo, trying to make something positive out of his relationship with him as he is the only one of his children who wants anything to do with him.

"It is awful, but he has no one to blame but himself and maybe his cold mother, who certainly had a part to play in his isolation and in making him feel terribly unloved. When you are playing a character like Ted you have to try and understand him, while not soft-pedaling the corrupt way he has behaved."

Unsurprisingly, Ted does not react well when his ex-wife brings home a new, much younger man.

"When Julia brings Benjamin home Ted is incredibly jealous and angry, and so is completely dismissive of it. He actively tries to stop their relationship, diminishing and ridiculing it to the children, claiming Julia needs saving from her own bad judgement and that there can’t possibly be anything real or genuine in it. As the story progresses Ted goes out of his way to destroy their relationship."

Alex admits he was grateful to work alongside this amazing cast, specifically as he had some challenging moments to film.

"We had a fantastic group of actors who were not just incredibly talented but really great people and we all became very close. It was quite unusual; we became a tight little group, which was completely pleasurable.

"You meet people you may not have worked with previously or have not met before and you have some pretty tough stuff to film together, specifically for Nikki and I as we had some rather intimate moments to film, but you just make a leap of faith and hope you’re going to be able to trust each other and in this particular job that was a huge part of it. We were very lucky."

Related Programme Information

• Episode one
• Episode two