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Manchester Evening News Online
by WIL MARLOW
December 5, 2005
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 Nicole Kidman in The Others and head up the BBC drama, Fingersmith.
Now she has a lead role where the focus is entirely on her in the gripping police drama, The Ghost Squad (Channel 4, Tuesday, 10pm). 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.
Unofficial
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. With such an intense and demanding role, the pressure on Elaine to perform was immense. "It was the first series I've done, but I don't look at things in terms of the bigger picture, because that's not my job. My job is just to become the character. If I did look at it that way I wouldn't be an actress," she laughs.
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. "It was a difficult story but 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 was living with her famous uncle and getting bought everything she desires, having come from a poor family."
Before filming The Ghost Squad, Elaine spent time with the police, travelling in the back of a patrol car on a shift. "For me, research is a necessity because I'd be a fraud if I didn't do it. Police work was a world I didn't know about. I needed to know to play Amy to the best of my ability."
Kilcoole
Brought up in the County Wicklow village of Kilcoole, Ireland, she started acting by appearing in two films while she was still at school, she went on to get a part in Glenroe, a TV series 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 Faye Dunaway and Susan Sarandon.
She has also appeared with Anna Friel in ITV's Watermelon as well as starring with 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. "It was one of two songs I particularly loved on the album. Then I was at a party a week later and the 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. "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?'"
© Manchester Evening News
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