Interview with Anna Chell (Jodie)

Jodie has now been in Casualty for over a year, did you expect her to make such an impact, so soon after arriving?

I was so shocked at how fast she came into the storylines, and how many people resonated with them. It’s been such a privilege to play out everything that she goes through.

What have been highlights so far?

There are so many highlights with this job. We are a proper team and it just makes going to work so much fun. Constantly discovering, and creating, Jodie is really great because it’s a never-ending journey. Then, of course, you’ve got the big action scenes, and the stunts are always so much fun to play. Honestly, it’s just been a buzz.

Self-worth, and being taken seriously, is very much a thread in Public Property. How do you think Jodie will handle her responsibilities?

Jodie is very good at what she does, she is a good nurse, however she is easily wrapped up in moments that could potentially crush her career and her relationships or friendships. She’s strong-willed and she likes to take on and grab things with both hands and roll with them but being like that she often does things without thinking about the consequences and finds herself in sticky situations. During this next box set her self-worth hits an all-time low and you know, it is with good reason. Her journey is sort of sad because she’s not had many people to lean on, she’s been a lone rider for a long time. Then even those people that she does have to lean on, her actions throughout this next boxset push them away. So her self-worth is at rock bottom but… that strong will and that fire inside of her remains.

We enter this new series with Dylan playing very much of a mentoring role. How do you think Jodie is feeling about this?

Oh, she’s buzzing! I think she’s thrilled when Dylan offers to mentor her because everybody in the hospital looks up to Dylan. He’s a brilliant doctor and she’s worked well with him before, and they’ve been a team in the past. They’ve worked on patients together and she trusts him and when he offers that branch and says “Look, do you want me to mentor you?” She goes… well… he obviously trusts me now and he’s putting a lot of trust in me and that for her is really fulfilling.

Do you think Jodie’s turmoil about her mother’s death, and the situation with her father, has influenced the bad choices she has made?

You know, Jodie has drawn the short straw in life, and she’s had bad luck after bad luck, which of course has an impact on the way that she behaves and connects with others. That’s just the way it goes if you get given that card. She’s constantly felt left behind and there’s a huge hole in her heart from her mum and then, just when she thought that she was ready, her dad entered her life but then he left again. People have just kept leaving and it’s a knockback after knockback.

She’s been in her own little bubble for such a long time and she’s always reluctant to let people in, so she often seeks short-term connections to stem the pain of what she’s going through, short-term connections with men especially, which the audience have seen a bit of and there’s maybe more to come.

But thank goodness for Cameron and Rida for bringing her back down to earth every now and then, she’s super grateful for those guys. They are her chosen family, but the friendships will get tested throughout this next chapter.

How does betraying Dylan’s trust make Jodie feel, especially when she goes against his advice?

I think she’s deeply disappointed with herself and embarrassed. Dylan and Jodie are a team and it works well. So the fact that she then betrays his trust and puts him in this position is disappointing for Jodie.

She knows Dylan is a really good person and she would never mean to put him in this position but it’s a habit of hers that when someone offers her an olive branch, she often takes it and breaks it. It goes back to her childhood trauma.

Life is throwing curve balls at Jodie, and we’ve seen her make some bad choices – such as mixing business with pleasure. Do you think she will ever change? What motivates her?

I feel like she will change when she wants to change and when it’s right. People have to go through the motions before they start to make changes, or they want to make changes. I think this next chapter will hopefully motivate her to start to make some good changes and start to rebuild connections.

How to you feel that Jodie will evolve, will it affect her career hopes?

I think Jodie will be forced to evolve. She can’t carry on how she’s been carrying on. Her actions will only keep pushing her back and affecting her career. This is the moment where she realises that which is good. She’s got that fire inside of her and she is desperate to be a good nurse. She wouldn’t have taken Dylan up on his offer if she wasn’t and I think that desire to be good at what she does and the desire to help and care will pull her through.

Interview with Will Beck (Dylan)

What can viewers expect this new series?

The first thing that comes to mind is chaos, it’s a real roller coaster ride. I think particularly for Jodie, it’s a real opportunity for people to get to know her. I think the thing that this box set does, is it goes to an emotional depth. Dylan strangely enough gets caught up in it because of the correlation between the situation that Jodie finds herself in.

Dylan remains charismatic, focused, strong, loyal – this season we see his vulnerable, considered and caring side. Do you think he sees himself as a father figure to Jodie?

I think he recognises characteristics from Jodie from his own mum. He recognises something he cares about and that he needs to utilise some of his experience and some of those childhood regrets that we all have, those things that children grow up unfortunately blaming themselves for. I think the boy in him just would rather that she made a better go of things.

What have been your highlights from Dylan’s storylines in recent years?

Storylines in which Dylan has acted as either a lightning rod, an antagonist or a love interest occasionally – have had impact. There’s one episode in this box set which really focuses on Dylan’s response to the situation with Jodie and things that go beyond that, and those episodes are always so much fun to do. You get to drive the narrative a little bit more. Whenever one gets the opportunity to do that, it’s always a privilege to be a part of. The opportunities you get into in this particular environment, on this particular show and with this type of reach and the reputation it has is amazing. Working with Sharon Gless was something that was a bit of a pinch me moment.

Each and every storyline you are conscious that you’re dealing with something that is sensitive ground for so many people and not just for the people watching but for people that they’ve had to support. You just have to try and tell the story of your own character and hope that it rings bells for other people. There’s a sense of pleasure looking back but there is also a sense of responsibility. The best story is always the next one.

Dylan’s relationship with Sophia is a bit of a roller coaster – do you think Dylan surprises himself?

This an interesting one because the relationship with Sophia is authentically complex in the fact that it’s very difficult to read. They are presented with a moment which they both have to try and confront, and Dylan has to go through some self-examination…

We will be seeing a softer side to Dylan in the new series?

Dylan is actually so soft. The exterior can be a little bit gruff, lacking in airs and graces. Anybody that remembers episodes with Dylan’s dad will understand where that might have come from. I think his bedside manner has improved a lot, and in these episodes he’s demonstrating care. My feeling is that perhaps he’s somebody who cares to a fault. I think that the wonderful thing is on a show like this is that you get a chance to explore all of it.

Are you proud of the way that Casualty covers social issues sensitively?

It’s certainly something that I’m pleased to say is a bull that we take by the horns. It can be a real quandary to know how to sometimes take storylines that are so relatively commonplace in people’s experience. We will all know somebody, who’s been touched by each of the conditions that we that we alight on and each of the social situations that we might contextualise within drama. It’s obviously a different thing from documentary and the way in which you surf each particular wave ideally should bring each of those important issues to light. I think that’s where the show is brave and is direct about focusing on some of those issues..

I think we do make some remarkable television, for example, and I don’t mean to be obvious, but the episode that we produced immediately after COVID.

What can we look forward to next from Dylan?

It’s difficult to know where, if I were a story-liner, I might go next – but the funny thing about life is that it continues to be interesting, and events continue to occur that one doesn’t expect. For Dylan I think his heart was hardened over the last five or six years by various events and it would be absolutely fascinating to see what happened if that protective case around him was dropped, if that totally shatters. Anything that puts Dylan at the centre of the action is always stuff that I relish because I find out what he’s like, as the audience do.