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GHOST PATROL
November 8 2005
icWales
ELAINE Cassidy is an actress on the cusp of becoming a household name. At only 25, she already has an impressive career behind her. Having made her name in the 1999 film Felicia's Journey alongside Bob Hoskins, she has gone on star with the likes of Nicole Kidman (in The Others) and head up the BBC's most expensive period drama to date, this year's Fingersmith.
Now she has bagged a lead role where the focus is entirely on her, in Channel 4's gripping new police drama The Ghost Squad. She plays Amy, a talented police officer who has to use all her wits when her colleagues turn against her and try to set her up for a murder that takes place at the station.
It leads to Amy joining the ‘Ghost Squad’, an unofficial body that polices the police, searches for corruption and stamps it out. Elaine is in every scene in every episode of the eight-part series, with Amy very much the eyes of the audience, taking them on the same journey she goes on as she wrestles with what is right and what is wrong.
With such an intense and demanding role, the pressure on Elaine to perform was immense. Elaine, however, is oblivious to all this. She just enjoyed what she saw as another challenging role in a career already full of them.
“It was the first series I've ever done, that was a new thing for me,” concedes Irish-born Elaine. “But I don't tend to look at things in terms of the bigger picture, because that's not really my job. My job is just to become the character. I think if I did look at it that way I wouldn't be an actress,” she laughs.
Elaine's focus when she takes on each job is purely the character she is about to play. Everything else is peripheral. This might seem a very luvvie way of talking, but Elaine's enthusiastic discussion of her ‘craft’ is so infectious, it fails to sound like cliche. A perfect example of Elaine's insular approach to her acting is her take on playing Geli Raubel – the young niece of Hitler and the subject of his unhealthy obsessive attention in ITV's one-off drama Uncle Adolf, shown earlier this year.
While it was obviously a difficult subject, and one that had to be treated with some tact given that the events of the Second World War are still an emotional subject for many, Elaine had a ball with the role, only finding it draining towards the end. “Yes it's a difficult story but for me my job was Geli and nothing else,” says Elaine. “If you look at it from Geli's point of view she was having the time of her life – she's living with her famous uncle, and she's getting bought everything she desires, having come from a poor family.
“It only got hard at the end – the big argument scene and then when he's kind of groping her. That scene was hard because it was first thing in the morning and we'd done the argument scene all the previous day. That was the only time in that piece that I thought, God I'd like a day off today. “But you find the energy from somewhere. Apart from that she was the most fun character I've played to date. She was so lovely to be around every day because she just loved life. She was the most uplifting character I've ever played.”
For The Ghost Squad Elaine indulged in that other actorly cliche – doing research for her role. She spent time with the police, travelling in the back of a patrol car on a shift. Actors often do this before starting filming but it does beg the question as to why it's needed when they have everything they need in the script. “Well for me research is a necessity because I'd just be a fraud if I didn't do it,” says Elaine. “Police work is a world I don't know about, so it's a world I need to get to know in order to play Amy to the best of my ability. For me it's crucial.”
Brought up in the County Wicklow village of Kilcoole, she started acting at a young age, appearing in two films while she was still at school. She went on to get a part in Glenroe, a TV series which was filmed in her village. But it was Felicia's Journey that gave Elaine her big break. When the film was shown at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival she found herself the toast of the town, being praised by the likes of Faye Dunaway and Susan Sarandon.
 Despite this enviable start to her career, it's still had a slow build. It's only in the past year we've been seeing her in roles that show off her talent to a bigger audience – Uncle Adolf, Fingersmith and now The Ghost Squad. Between then and now she's played second fiddle to bigger stars – Nicole Kidman in The Others, Bob Hoskins in The Lost World, and Anna Friel in ITV's Watermelon.
She also starred alongside Chris Martin in the video for Coldplay's hit single The Scientist. “It was weird because I'd been bought that album the week before I was asked to do it,” says Elaine. “And it was one of two songs I particularly loved on the album. Then I was at this party a week later and this director asked me if I wanted to be in a pop video. “I had images of Britney Spears so I was thinking, ‘No way!’, while being really polite. Then he mentioned it was Coldplay and I was suddenly interested, going, ‘What song? What song?’. He told me but I never remember the titles so I was going, ‘What track number was it?’,” she laughs. “When I got home I listened to the album and it was one of the two songs that the week before I'd been thinking, wouldn't it be cool to be in a video for this song?”
Elaine is reticent about whether she thinks Chris Martin would be a good actor. “I don't know the limits to his talents, I don't know him well enough,” she says. “But I think he'd probably make a better singer and musician than he would an actor. But I don't know, you can't underestimate people.”
Real name: Elaine Cassidy
Birthdate: December 31, 1979
Significant other: Dating actor Stephen Lord
Career high: In 2003 she won Best Actress at the Irish Film & Television Awards for the 2001 film Disco
Pigs
Career low: The many bad reviews for Disco Pigs
Famous for: Much was made of her sex scenes with Sally Hawkins in the critically-lauded BBC drama Fingersmith
Words of wisdom: “The way I see relationships is that you go through life's journey with someone – you're two little travellers on the same path. But then all relationships come to an end and the paths veer off in different directions. That's just the way it is.”
© IC Wales
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