Jemma Redgrave reflects on the price of motherhood as she plays a woman trying to protect her son from a serial killer dad. Steve Pratt reports on the latest series of dramas starring the 40-year-old Redgrave dynasty member.

ACTRESS Jemma Redgrave is a mother herself so she can understand the desire to protect your family. But she doesn't go along with how the woman she plays in the TV drama Like Father, Like Son behaves over a guilty secret.

"We can all imagine wanting to protect your family so much that you would go to any length to prevent them from being hurt," she says. "But I cannot possibly make a correlation between my own life and her life. We're incredibly different. What she does wouldn't be my way, but it's her way."

Dee Stanton has a blossoming legal career and a boyfriend, teacher Dominic, who unexpectedly proposes to her. But she's fibbed to her 15-year-old son Jamie about his dad, whom he thinks is a Gulf War hero. In fact, he's been jailed for life for the brutal murders of four young women.

When Jamie learns the truth, he demands to see his dad. The murder of a sixth form schoolgirl makes Dee wonder if her son is taking after his father.

The two-part dramatisation was developed with Redgrave in mind. She first heard about it while working on another thriller, Amnesia, being made by the same company, Ecosse.

"I went to do some sound dubbing and the producer Jeremy Gwilt asked me if I had time for a coffee. He gave me the synopsis of Like Father, Like Son and asked me if I would be interested. I said, 'Absolutely'," she recalls.

"Not only is it a fascinating story but I can't think of anything else like it. Dee and Jamie are victims in a different way. They're guilty by association. It must be very difficult to live with."

She found playing Dee an exhausting experience because her emotional journey is harrowing and really traumatic. "She's driven to terrifying extremes and that's quite hard work. To portray what she's going through, you have to put yourself imaginatively and emotionally in her situation as best you can - it's knackering," says Redgrave.

Eleven years previously, Dee was vilified by the press and her community over her serial killer husband's activities. She's moved, changed her name and raised her son to believe his father was an air force pilot who died in the first Gulf War.

"But she's fallen in love and for the first time in 11 years she has to be honest about her past. This opens a Pandora's box. The past comes back to haunt her in a very real and very terrifying way."

Redgrave had worked with a lot of the production team before. She found there was a sense of community and family that she hadn't had since making the ITV period drama series Bramwell.

"It made it a much easier experience for me. If you're going to get into an emotional state on a daily basis, it's good to be supported by people you know and trust and like working with," she says.

"Robson keeps it very real indeed. He's a very grounded, rooted person and a fantastic actor, although he's very twinkly and wicked too. I enjoyed hitting him over the head with a hotel prospectus in one scene. It was delightful because we didn't have many light-hearted moments."

The actress - who is married to barrister Tim Owen and has two sons, Gabriel, ten, and four-year-old Alfie - also enjoyed working with young actor Somerset Prew, who plays Jamie. "I thought Somerset might find it a bit difficult to have someone you don't know coming up and tousling your hair or cuddling up," she says.

"Most 14-year-old boys find that difficult enough with their own mother. But he was absolutely delightful and open. I think he's got a future ahead of him if he wants it."

Like Father, Like Son was part of a busy year for Redgrave as she appeared in mini-series The Grid and then as headmaster's wife Mary Arnold in ITV1's Tom Brown's Schooldays. She also toured theatres in the comedy Misconceptions.

Now she's playing a policewoman for the first time in Cold Blood, also for ITV. She's a murder squad detective in the series, which also stars Matthew Kelly.

The 40-year-old actress is, as her name implies, part of the Redgrave acting dynasty. She appeared with aunts Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave in a West End production of Three Sisters. She once again that "having a famous surname opens doors and is entirely helpful. And God knows you can do with every single bit of it in this profession."

* Like Father, Like Son is on ITV1 on Monday and Tuesday at 9pm.

Published: 20/01/2005