Nicky Morris
Four Lives star Jaime Winstone has revealed the reason why Stephen Merchant, who plays murderer Stephen Port, distanced himself from his castmates on the set of the ITV series…
Four Lives star Jaime Winstone has revealed that Stephen Merchant distanced himself from the rest of the cast while filming the new BBC drama.
MORE: Four Lives: viewers ‘angered’ and ‘shocked’ by second episode of BBC drama
The harrowing series is due to come to an end on Wednesday night and tells the true story of four young men killed by ‘Grindr killer’ Stephen Port, played by Merchant.
WATCH: Trailer for the BBC’s Four Lives
While chatting to Lorraine Kelly on her ITV morning show, Jaime, who plays the sister of victim Jack Taylor, Donna, in the drama, revealed that The Outlaws star steered clear of his castmates in order to create an atmosphere of fear. Speaking about Stephen, she said: “It’s so great to see such a comedic actor do something like this and he had real distance from us all, from the rest of the cast to build up this sense of fear.”
The After Hours actress also told Lorraine that Donna and Jenny Taylor, the real-life sisters of Jack Taylor, visited the set of the TV series and contributed to an atmosphere of anger and betrayal. She explained: “There was a real, especially as Donna and Jen were on set a lot of the time, so there was this real anger and a real sense of betrayal that had happened from the sort of basic policing that wasn’t done and the dismissive behaviour because these young men were gay.”
MORE: Four Lives: where is ‘Grindr Killer’ Stephen Port now?
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While on the show, Jaime revealed that the cast were shocked after reading the script which highlights the failings of the Metropolitan Police in their investigations as well as the ongoing discrimination against the gay community. She said: “It exposed a lot for us in terms of how the LGBT community are still quite unprotected in our society and we were very aware of that on set.”
Jaime Winstone plays Donna, sister to one of Stephen Port’s victims, Jack Taylor
“A lot of the case studies were only revealed to us [on set]. I know that we were quite familiar with the case, I certainly followed it, but when we read the script we just couldn’t believe the information and misinformation that was led to the families and how much had slipped through the cracks, it was deeply shocking and still is.”
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