Lara Pulver

Lara Pulver reveals why she was drawn to the role of Katrynia, the wife of Tyador Borlú's, which was a role created especially for BBC Two's adaptation of China Miéville’s original novel.

What first drew Lara to the role

"When I first read the scripts I was fascinated by how multi-layered Katrynia is as a character - she doesn’t feel like the same person in any scene and that is a gift but also a real challenge too. We could do a scene four or five different ways in tone and tension because she is such an enigma that anything can work. She gave me the opportunity to really play as an actress because she is such a rainbow of personalities within one person.

Playing Katrynia meant nothing was off limits because she lives in this world where everyone is so timid and small minded and my job as this character was to push every boundary. It felt like she was this wounded little butterfly who needed looking after and yet the second she felt comfortable she felt the need to break free and push those boundaries, to question everything."

How Katrynia helps to unveil Tyador Borlú’s own mystery

"The writer Tony Grisoni has done a fantastic job of creating this wonderful mirror between the detective story and the unravelling of Borlú’s own personal relationship. Including Katrynia creates a heart at the centre of this detective story and makes you care for David’s character, and so you have a bit more empathy for him and the whole situation because of this love story."

The key challenges she faced during filming

"For me the most challenging part of shooting was getting my head around when it was my reality or if it was Borlú’s projection. We filmed scenes numerous times in different ways because often you are seeing my character through Borlú’s recollection of events and then often days later we would go back and film it as my reality.

We were telling stories within stories. It makes you realise, in that Black Mirror way, that what we project as our reality and what actually happens can be two different things."

What makes this drama stand alone and why people will enjoy it

"We do detective dramas very well in this country but I think the fact that this is so much more than that is what really excited me about it. Visually, it is so cinematic and it also plays a little bit with your psyche in terms of what is real and what is not and what we hold in our subconscious. It opens one’s mind.

Whether we know it or not we all tend to live in a form of bubble, even if it is a liberal and wide bubble, and this story is a bit of an eye opener on how we live, and on humanity."