Asha Banks x OVERDUE: Everything you need to know about the newly released ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’ series

Open­ing image: Dress & Jack­et Patrick McDow­ell

Words Leelou Reboh

Asha Banks sits down with OVERDUE to dis­cuss her role as Cara Ward, and what’s next in her career.

As soon as Asha Banks con­nects to our video call, I feel like I’m catch­ing up with an old friend. Although we’re bound to our com­put­ers, her enthu­si­asm seeps through the screen, and I almost for­get we’re meet­ing for an inter­view and not to chat over a coffee. 

At twen­ty years old, the young British actress has noth­ing to envy from her peers. Start­ing her career at the age of sev­en on the West End por­tray­ing the young Epo­nine in Vic­tor Hugo’s clas­sic ‘Les Mis­érables’, she went on to get many more roles, from Duffy in the beloved ‘Annie’, or Vio­let Beau­re­garde in ‘Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry’. After mak­ing sev­er­al appear­ances in TV shows like ‘Eas­t­en­ders’ or ‘Call The Mid­wife’, she made her film debut as Princess Pam­i­na of the Night in Flo­ri­an Sigl’s ‘The Mag­ic Flute’, based on Mozart’s opera of the same name.

Late­ly, Banks has been in the spot­light for star­ring as Cara Ward in the long-await­ed screen adap­ta­tion of the young adult nov­el ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Mur­der’, fol­low­ing Pip­pa ‘Pip’ Fitz-Amo­bi (Emma Myers) in her quest to unveil the truth about the cold case of the mur­der of Andie Bell (India Lil­lie Davis), and find her true killer.

In this exclu­sive inter­view for OVERDUE Mag­a­zine, Banks dis­cuss­es chaot­ic ten­nis lessons, the impor­tance of inti­ma­cy teams, and the pres­sure of por­tray­ing an already well-estab­lished lit­er­ary character.

It’s real­ly excit­ing to final­ly see an adap­ta­tion of ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Mur­der’ on our screens. Were you a fan of the nov­el before you were cast as Cara?

I had­n’t actu­al­ly read the book, but I’d heard just so much about it and the cov­er was very famil­iar. When I got the audi­tion for the role, I saw the pic­ture of the cov­er and realised I’d seen it a mil­lion times before! I’m a mas­sive fan of the book series now obvi­ous­ly, I think it’s incred­i­ble and I had an amaz­ing time play­ing Cara.

And for those who might have not read the book, what can they expect watch­ing the series? 

The plot fol­lows our pro­tag­o­nist Pip, played by the bril­liant Emma Myers, and she decides to reopen a closed mur­der case that hap­pened in her small town five years ago. It’s basi­cal­ly a crime thriller, mur­der mys­tery, young adult, every­thing enter­tain­ing all in one!

But what makes ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Mur­der’ dif­fer­ent from the oth­er mur­der mys­tery series out there at the moment?

It’s real­ly enter­tain­ing, obvi­ous­ly. It’s got the mur­der mys­tery ele­ment, which is fun and grip­ping, and great to get your teeth into as an audi­ence mem­ber. The inter­ac­tions and the char­ac­ters’ sto­ries also feel very real. One of the rea­sons why I loved read­ing the book is because of how real the life sto­ries and inter­ac­tions of the char­ac­ters felt. The fact that they’re all most­ly young peo­ple, and that the pro­tag­o­nist is a young female detec­tive was so cool to me, and Emma is absolute­ly cap­ti­vat­ing and real­ly fun to watch.

What aspect of the role of Cara ini­tial­ly piqued your interest? 

She’s real­ly relat­able. I remem­ber that when I was read­ing the script, I found myself laugh­ing at what she’d say, and I realised that if I actu­al­ly was part of this friend­ship group, I would be Cara. When I was going through the lines before I had my ini­tial call with my amaz­ing cast­ing asso­ciates, one of the first things she says in her first scene is “There bet­ter be a good rea­son I’m not watch­ing Love Island right now!” That made me gig­gle, because as some­one who watch­es Love Island, it felt so true. Her humour and the way that she was writ­ten is what drew me to the part. She’s just a real­ly lov­able char­ac­ter on the page, and that was excit­ing to try and recre­ate — and that’s the case for all of the char­ac­ters! They’re so real that you can pick out your own friends in each of them. 

What was one of the chal­lenges that you faced while film­ing, and how did you over­come it? 

In the show, my char­ac­ter plays ten­nis — I feel like I’ve spo­ken about this ten­nis scene so much and I’m real­ly over­do­ing it because it end­ed up lit­er­al­ly being a five sec­ond clip — but  when I was film­ing it, the pro­duc­tion team sent me on like a ten­nis les­son whilst I was liv­ing in Bris­tol. It was boil­ing hot, and I had loads of fun dur­ing the one ten­nis les­son I had with this amaz­ing coach, so I thought I’d be fine and that the scene would be real­ly easy to film. When we got around to it though… we had 20 min­utes left in the day, and I realised that maybe I wasn’t that good at ten­nis, so it was quite hard. Thank­ful­ly, every­body was real­ly sup­port­ive and kind, and they were telling me I was doing good — even though I def­i­nite­ly wasn’t! That’s prob­a­bly one of the chal­lenges I’ve faced, and I hope I over­came it.

I’m sure you did, and even if you didn’t I can’t real­ly speak on that because I’m hor­ri­ble at tennis!

It’s real­ly dif­fi­cult, you wouldn’t think so, but it is!

Besides the ten­nis les­son, what else did you do to pre­pare for your part?

I start­ed by read­ing all of the books! It was nice to have them as a ref­er­ence, and it felt proac­tive to be able to research and read them, and dig more into my char­ac­ter. In real­i­ty, it was just amaz­ing because the books are so won­der­ful. I couldn’t believe that this was the work I had to do! In terms of get­ting to know the cast and bond with them, it hap­pened quite nat­u­ral­ly because we all moved up to Bris­tol a week before we start­ed film­ing. We had loads of rehearsals with our lead direc­tor Dol­ly Wells, and if we weren’t work­ing or rehears­ing, we would just be hang­ing out in Bris­tol. We went to every char­i­ty shop we could find, we had din­ner togeth­er, and we real­ly got to know each oth­er. It felt so easy, and we were lucky to have such a won­der­ful cast where every­body was so close.

How does play­ing Cara com­pare to your pre­vi­ous roles? 

I think it was quite nerve-wrack­ing com­ing into a project where the books and the char­ac­ters are so loved, and have a fan base that was already so excit­ed about the series. We were all ner­vous, because we want­ed them to be hap­py with the out­come, but at the same time, it was also quite amaz­ing, because it felt like the fans of the books were involved in the process since it was announced. They were always there chant­i­ng us on and help­ing us get through it… but to get back to your ques­tion, hav­ing this fan base that was along for the ride with us was prob­a­bly one of the biggest dif­fer­ences for me.

You were say­ing before that, when you were read­ing the script, you realised that you were your own friend group’s Cara. In what oth­er aspects of life do you relate to her?

Cara is a very loy­al friend. She real­ly cares about her friend­ships and her rela­tion­ships in the show and I think that is some­thing that rang true to me when read­ing it, because my fam­i­ly and my friends are the most impor­tant part of my life. Also the friend­ship between her and Pip, I also have a best friend that I’ve known since I was four, it felt so mir­rored in my life when I was read­ing the script. That’s what I mean when I say the show and the books are great, the rela­tion­ships do feel real­ly real, and that’s what I relat­ed to the most.

Obvi­ous­ly, it helps if you relate to your char­ac­ter that much, but it’s also prob­a­bly dif­fi­cult to sep­a­rate your­self from it if you do. How did you deal with that?

To be hon­est, Cara was such a won­der­ful char­ac­ter to play. She has flaws, because every­body does, but that wasn’t some­thing that I want­ed to sep­a­rate myself from. I gave a lot of myself to her, and she gave a lot of her­self to me as well dur­ing the film­ing process, and we merged into this one being that I became whilst we were shoot­ing. Even when Cara is going through hard­er times lat­er on in the series, and we had to film scenes that were emo­tion­al­ly tor­ment­ing or tough, the team around me was just so amaz­ing that it felt like fun por­tray­ing these emo­tions. It helped me to get out of the role at the end of the day, and go for din­ner with every­body and have a good time. It remind­ed me how lucky and how amaz­ing of a time I was having.

Talk­ing about shoot­ing dif­fi­cult scenes, I under­stand that both the book and the series deal with uncom­fort­able top­ics, such as drug abuse and sex­u­al assault. How did you and your costars men­tal­ly pre­pare to tack­le these sen­si­tive themes?

We had a won­der­ful inti­ma­cy team that was there to guide us through it — and I real­ly appre­ci­ate that it is the norm now in film and TV. So there were always peo­ple we could go to if any­thing was becom­ing too much, but we also had each oth­er. We were all very close and sup­port­ive, and we just want­ed to make sure that every­body felt com­fort­able when we were film­ing. That also goes for the rest of the team, like our direc­tor Dol­ly who was always there for us, and all of the pro­duc­ers, because they were aware that the book can get quite dark. That’s what Hol­ly Jack­son, the author of the nov­el does. She writes real peo­ple and real sto­ries, and sad­ly, things like that do hap­pen in the real world. It’s good that the show also por­trays char­ac­ters that aren’t good peo­ple, and the not-so-great things some oth­ers go through, because it’s all part of writ­ing a sto­ry that feels true.

What have you learned from this job that you will take on to your next projects? 

One of the main things that I learnt on set is from Emma, and it’s her cour­tesy and respect for the peo­ple around her. The choic­es she makes when act­ing, so much of it is to help the peo­ple around her, every mem­ber of the crew, and every mem­ber of the cast. She’s so won­der­ful help­ing every­body around her, and I def­i­nite­ly took that into con­sid­er­a­tion for my next jobs.

The cos­tume design in ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Mur­der’ looks absolute­ly icon­ic — the match­ing star cos­tumes you wear with Emma caught my eye. What oth­er excit­ing looks can view­ers expect from the series, and which one did you keep from set?

I took a pair of jeans and a lit­tle zip-up jumper. There were quite a few pieces of Cara’s wardrobe that I wish I could’ve tak­en home with me. She wears rain­bow socks the whole show, and I have like a load of pair of those as well. If I could keep some­thing that I don’t already have, I think it would def­i­nite­ly be the star cos­tumes — I’d be set for any fan­cy dress par­ty ever! They were so beau­ti­ful­ly made as well. They’re obvi­ous­ly comedic and we come on the screen, we look like these stu­pid stars, but the cos­tumes and the embell­ish­ments are so beau­ti­ful, so I’d find a way to wear them in real life.

Lis­ten, if you go to fash­ion week, you can pull off any­thing! On the top­ic of fash­ion, you wore some fan­tas­tic looks dur­ing your shoot with OVERDUE. Which one was your favourite? 

My favourite item was these mas­sive block chunky heels that made me ten feet tall. I felt like this ‘Bratz Doll x Giraffe’ sit­u­a­tion, but in the best way. Because I’m quite tall already, as soon as I put on big heels, I feel so cool. It’s just weird being so much taller than every­one else, but it was fun. I also loved the met­al corset that was real­ly fun and dif­fer­ent. The details on it were beau­ti­ful. And the bub­ble skirt of course!

You’ve been show­cas­ing an impres­sive range of fash­ion, based on what I’ve seen on your Insta­gram and online. How has your per­son­al style been influ­enced from being in the spotlight? 

I’ve always loved fash­ion and cared about how I dress, and I find it real­ly fun. I think that the influ­ence it has had is just being able to find it more fun! I’ve found myself to real­ly love every­thing about pho­to­shoots: being on set, try­ing on loads of cool clothes that I would not have access to in my per­son­al life, hair and make­up… I don’t know if it’s changed my per­son­al style much, but I real­ly love hav­ing the ele­vat­ed ver­sion that I can take to car­pets or shoots!

What’s one out­fit that you would wear every day if you could?

The one out­fit that I can think about, prob­a­bly because it hap­pened just a cou­ple of days ago, is this Vivi­enne West­wood suit that I wore to ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Mur­der’ screen­ing. Vivi­enne West­wood is so icon­ic, I’ve seen many of her designs before, but it was the first time I was actu­al­ly able to wear one. I felt real­ly cool. On my day to day life though I just wear mas­sive shorts, Doc Martens, and loads of sil­ver jewellery…

With the release of ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Mur­der’, I’m sure you’ve got a whole lot of new projects lined up, and I hear that ‘My Fault: Lon­don’ just wrapped film­ing in the UK. How will view­ers see you evolve as an actress in this part?

This project is real­ly excit­ing for me because it’s my first lead in a film! So that was a buck­et list moment, and a dream come true. The movie itself goes through a lot of things. It’s a romance at the core, but there’s an action side to it as well. I mean, my character’s a rac­ing dri­ver, so even that was just dif­fer­ent from what I’d done before. Every day on set brought some­thing dif­fer­ent, and it was fun to chal­lenge myself. I had to put on an Amer­i­can accent too, because my char­ac­ter is from Florida!

What will make this project stand out from the work you’ve done before?

I’m so excit­ed about this project. The whole team was amaz­ing, and it was daunt­ing com­ing in and play­ing a lead. We had two amaz­ing female direc­tors who made every­thing run so smooth­ly, and with Matthew Broom, who plays my male lead, it felt like the four of us were mak­ing this movie togeth­er. I was more involved in the cre­ative process than I ever had before. I got a deep­er under­stand­ing into how mak­ing a film works, and that’s price­less infor­ma­tion. It felt real­ly edu­ca­tion­al as well as being so much fun. It was also inter­est­ing to take a Span­ish book and rethink­ing it as well as relo­cat­ing it in Lon­don. I just had an absolute blast. I’m so lucky to have loved every minute of it, and to feel like I’ve grown as a per­son whilst doing it. 

Many thanks to Asha Banks for talk­ing to OVERDUE. All episodes of A Good Girl’s Guide to Mur­der are avail­able to watch on BBC iPlay­er now and on Net­flix from August 1st. 

Tal­ent Asha Banks
Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Andrew Kim­ber
Styl­ist & Art Direc­tor Eve Fitz­patrick
Make-up Jesse Walk­er
Hair Miki Ide
Stu­dio & Retouch­ing Kim­ber Stu­dio
OVERDUE Assis­tant Maya Doman­s­ka
PR Ace PR