Doctor Foster's Bertie Carvel says The Sister will keep audience guessing
Doctor Foster star Bertie Carvel has teased his new ITV drama The Sister, promising that it will keep the audience guessing.
Four-part mystery drama The Sister is written by Luther creator Neil Cross and stars Russell Tovey as Nathan, a man settling down with his partner Holly (Game of Thrones star Amrita Acharia) who receives a big shock when an unexpected visitor turns up at his door.
The unwelcome guest is a face from Nathan's past named Bob (Carvel), who has arrived to tell Nathan that the nearby woods are being dug up. This event throws Nathan and Bob back together again, unravelling a years-old mystery which concerns the disappearance of a young woman named Elise (Sex Education's Simone Ashley) – who just happens to be Holly's sister.
Related: Doctor Foster star reveals why series 3 return "will be difficult"
Speaking to hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning today (October 26), Carvel revealed that the audience will be able to put their detective hats on to unravel the mysteries of the story when it begins tonight.
"Nathan opens his door one night... to someone he hasn't seen in 10 years and says, 'Bob, what are you doing here, we agreed?' and Bob says 'They're digging up the woods'. And so we hurtle into this kind of mosaic, kind of Russian doll structure whereby you cut in between different time periods, piecing together what happened on that fateful night 10 years ago," the actor said.
"(Cross) gives you pieces of a jigsaw and then you're fitting them together, so there's an element of the audience as detective, kind of figuring out... It's really a beautiful piece of writing."
Explaining that he hopes the show will be "appointment television" for viewers, he revealed that he can't wait for people to meet his character.
SHOP NOW Burial by Neil Cross
"You want the audience to ask themselves that question, 'How did that guy become this guy?'" he said. "We had great fun... I feel very freed by putting on a mask; I feel much more able to be honest about my own experience of the world when I can do it through the lens of the character.
"Bob is just a wonderful invitation to a character actor like me because he's larger than life."
The mystery series is adapted from Cross' own novel Burial and the writer recently revealed during a Q&A with Digital Spy and other media that the story was inspired by a terrifying dream he had when he was younger that he had stabbed a man to death.
"I woke up with a very, very clear memory of coming across a homeless man asleep on the steps who I randomly stabbed to death," he said.
"And I woke up the next morning and, as I say, there was no sense of it being a dream, I just remembered doing it, to the extent that I lived in degrees of fear for certainly the next week."
This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV. The Sister premieres tonight (October 26) at 9pm on ITV.
Digital Spy has launched its first-ever digital magazine with exclusive features, interviews, and videos. Access the latest edition with a 1-month free trial, only on Apple News+.
Interested in Digital Spy's weekly newsletter? Sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox - and don't forget to join our Watch This Facebook Group for daily TV recommendations and discussions with other readers.
You Might Also Like
