Laura Marcus x OVERDUE: ‘The Jetty’ is a reflection on the post #MeToo era

Words Leelou Reboh

Lau­ra Mar­cus unveils her secret to por­tray­ing Caitlin in the BBC’s lat­est mur­der mys­tery series, and reflects on the wider con­ver­sa­tion sparked by the show.

It takes a spe­cial kind of cre­ative mind to win the BFI Future Film Fes­ti­val’s Best Writer award straight after grad­u­at­ing from uni­ver­si­ty. That’s the case of Lau­ra Mar­cus, whose wacky sense of humour and quick-wit­ted screen­play won over the jury board’s affec­tions back in 2021. In the words of the young British actress, ‘it’s very sil­ly chic’. Mar­cus is a sort of Swiss army knife of act­ing. Her tal­ent goes beyond the mag­ic she cre­ates when she’s in front of a cam­era. When she’s off set, the actress’s head is con­stant­ly over­flow­ing with new screen­plays ideas and prospec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tions to bring back times of cre­ative exper­i­men­ta­tion and unadul­ter­at­ed fun to film­mak­ing. The young woman’s end­less imag­i­na­tion is bound to leave a mark in the indus­try, and will undoubt­ed­ly come along with a whole lot of range and unique­ness to the roles she will take on.

In the BBC’s new­ly released ‘The Jet­ty’, Lau­ra Mar­cus por­trays Caitlin, a teenage girl strug­gling to find her place in the world. Find­ing refuge in the wrong peo­ple, Caitlin embarks on a dan­ger­ous jour­ney in hope of self-dis­cov­ery, as she becomes the third pil­lar in the inap­pro­pri­ate love affair of her clos­est friend-maybe-lover Amy (Bo Bra­ga­son) with an old­er man. The past sto­ry­line of the young girls becomes entan­gled with the present-day cold case inves­ti­ga­tion led by Ember Man­ning, forc­ing the detec­tive to reflect on the moral­i­ty of own teenage experiences.

Sit­ting with OVERDUE writer Leelou Reboh to dis­cuss her first lead role, Lau­ra Mar­cus opens up about tack­ling heavy top­ics as an actress, and han­dling a sto­ry which will res­onate with many with care and sensitivity. 

You’ve shown an incred­i­ble range in your career. I found your CV online and I obvi­ous­ly had to go through it, and I was impressed to say the least. You write screen­plays, you act, you per­form — you do every­thing. What has this extreme­ly diverse skillset taught you about yourself? 

That I’m prob­a­bly a bit unhinged! I don’t know. I’ve always loved writ­ing, direct­ing and just being a gen­er­al cre­ative — act­ing being my main pas­sion. Being able to dip my toes into every­thing is what is so excit­ing about this indus­try. When I was emerg­ing as a cre­ative, peo­ple like Michaela Coel and Phoebe Waller-Bridge cre­at­ing their own thing, and empow­er­ing them­selves in that way. I’ve always been inspired by form­ing your own career and cre­at­ing your own nar­ra­tive, because I think in this indus­try you can also get boxed up. But I just have a love of so many things. I love com­e­dy — it’s where I start­ed — and I love dra­mas. Me and my mum would be watch­ing what­ev­er BBC dra­ma was on every week­day. So I just always loved so many dif­fer­ent things.

And would you say that act­ing is the career that you’re set on now?

I’d say so, although I’m always writ­ing and look­ing to meet oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tors to try and make some­thing bizarre and funky. Act­ing is where I’ve set­tled for now, but I’m look­ing to expand it to some weird realm at some point.

Why act­ing then, out of every­thing that you can do? How did you fall into it?

When I was lit­tle, I want­ed to be Brit­ney Spears like every­body in the naugh­ties did then, and there was this amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty the­atre where I grew up, called Hamp­ton Hill Play­house. They’d just put on loads of am-dram and com­mu­ni­ty-led shows. My mum would always act in them, and I would come to watch her per­form. It always felt like a cel­e­bra­tion of local tal­ent, as every­one there was putting on shows in their free time sim­ply for the love of the­atre mak­ing. You’d have peo­ple from all walks of life work­ing togeth­er to make some­thing spe­cial — and some­times bizarre but we love bizarre. I just loved watch­ing her and I was real­ly inspired to do it myself. I just fell in love with the­atre real­ly. I slow­ly moved into it, and then into TV and film. It’s just some­thing I’ve always done and always loved, and it’s the best pro­fes­sion ever.

Who’s some­one that you’ve always looked up to in the indus­try, your biggest inspi­ra­tion? I guess there’s your mum… 

My mum in her local the­atre! She would say that she’s respon­si­ble for every­thing. There’s also Phoebe Waller-Bridge, like I said, with ‘Fleabag’ which is real­ly ground­break­ing for me in terms of writ­ing, direct­ing, act­ing, and Michaela Cole as well with ‘I May Destroy You’. I was also obsessed with Jodie Com­er in ‘Killing Eve’, whom I lat­er saw in ‘Pri­ma Facie’ doing the best per­for­mance ever. I’d say strong, pow­er­ful British women really.

You’ve fea­tured in a few series now, um, but what was your reac­tion when you were approached for the role of Caitlin in The Jet­ty? Were you an avid crime pod­cast lis­ten­er before being cast­ed?

Oh my god, I was obsessed with the pod­cast ‘Ser­i­al’! I think I lis­tened to it three times — but I think the main thing that drew me to Caitlin and The Jet­ty was the writ­ing. It’s so bril­liant. Cat writes the most detailed and nuanced script. The char­ac­ters can say hard­ly any­thing, but they’re say­ing every­thing. I also think that after hav­ing played more com­e­dy roles for the last cou­ple of years I real­ly want­ed to do some­thing that felt more ground­ed. Com­pared to the oth­er char­ac­ters that I’ve done — and even myself — Caitlin is a lot slow­er. She’s a lot more curi­ous, and she exists in the world like a moth, where­as I’m per­son­al­ly more like a whip­pet, and every­body else that I’ve ever played has been like glit­ter, fairy toad fest. It was fun to do some­thing that was a chal­lenge. A lot of the things that she goes through in the series are pret­ty heavy and I want­ed to chal­lenge myself in that way to see if I could access that place and do it with care, and tell a sto­ry that is real and can mean a lot to a lot of people.

From what you’re telling me, you’re quite oppo­site to your char­ac­ter! How did you con­nect with her?

I think that when I was younger, I was actu­al­ly very sim­i­lar to her. I think Caitlin strug­gles to take up space, and I think being invis­i­ble is a much eas­i­er exis­tence for her. Mar­i­aly, the series direc­tor, talked a lot about the fact that she’s not a los­er nec­es­sar­i­ly — she’s just invis­i­ble. When she’s final­ly in the show, she’s seen by some­one. She’s care­ful­ly and curi­ous­ly and ten­ta­tive­ly com­ing out of her shell. I real­ly want­ed to do that jour­ney through the whole four episodes of the show of show­ing how some­one can start in a place of being invis­i­ble to enter­ing into these real­ly dan­ger­ous spaces. That’s very dif­fer­ent to me — I’m just insane!

Insane? You don’t seem that insane to me! How did you pre­pare to get into that head­space then?

There’s a tech­nique that I love called ‘Laban’, it’s a very clas­sic actor thing — it’s a sort of vocab­u­lary for how peo­ple exist or how they move. For me, it felt like Caitlin was try­ing to pad­dle through tar­mac. It was weird, but there was also love to it. I remem­ber, one day I also had din­ner with a per­son who was the same age as Caitlin — it wasn’t just me with a fif­teen-year-old, by the way! We had their par­ents and love­ly com­pa­ny with us — and I was real­ly curi­ous of the way they exist­ed. They didn’t want to take up space, they strug­gled with eye con­tact… When you’re fif­teen, your body’s chang­ing so much that you don’t know where your limbs go any­more! You don’t even remem­ber how to ges­tic­u­late. Every­thing felt like an apol­o­gy in the way they spoke, the way they looked and held them­selves. That was a big inspi­ra­tion to how I want­ed to phys­i­calise Caitlin.

The show strives to be much more than a mur­der mys­tery. It explores per­verse rela­tion­ships between grown adults and young girls, the notion that comes with that, and as one of the young char­ac­ters of the series, Caitlin’s sto­ry­line is a cat­a­lyst for those themes. I think most women can prob­a­bly recall a sit­u­a­tion where they received inap­pro­pri­ate atten­tion from an old­er guy. I want­ed to know how, as an actress, you keep your own expe­ri­ences sep­a­rate from those of your character?

It’s an inter­est­ing thing that hap­pens in those sit­u­a­tions, and it was a rea­son why I want­ed to do it. I knew it’d be a chal­lenge. It’s so heavy, and it’s such a sen­si­tive top­ic that I think will prob­a­bly has poten­tial to be some­what polar­is­ing. Yet it’s the real­i­ty and these things do hap­pen, and if we don’t show these sto­ries, we’re just pulling the wool over our eyes to the fact that these things hap­pen. We’re in the post #MeToo era, but that does­n’t mean that it still does­n’t hap­pen, or that it did­n’t hap­pen. In terms of sep­a­rat­ing myself from it, it was lot about me and Bo, who plays Amy, check­ing on each oth­er. We had a great rela­tion­ship, and the whole crew was always check­ing in on us. We’re for­tu­nate in that we’ve grown up in the age of under­stand­ing con­sent more, so Bo and I, as women, know to check in on each oth­er all the time as an instinct. 

Did it ever become too much?

It was heavy, but also part of your work is to look after your­self. A very good friend told me that you need to make self-care a part of your job, and that’s a part of being suc­cess­ful at it. Watch­ing the Kar­dashi­ans becomes vital! But it def­i­nite­ly makes it eas­i­er when you have great peo­ple around you.

How this did this role shape you or make you evolve as an actress?

Well learn­ing to cre­ate a sum­mer in minus one degrees in Rochdale, that real­ly helped me evolve to learn how not to shiv­er when it’s snow­ing. That was great learn­ing curve! But I think it real­ly pushed me in terms of cre­at­ing a char­ac­ter that was so dif­fer­ent from myself, like I said, and hav­ing that emo­tion­al sta­mi­na throughout. 

If you could give a piece of advice to your char­ac­ter, what would it be?

I’d say every­thing is going to be okay. You are total­ly capa­ble of being loved and you’re total­ly capa­ble of lov­ing. You will find your feet and be stronger than you will ever imagine.

And vice ver­sa, what’s a les­son that your char­ac­ter taught you and that you will take on to your dai­ly life?

I don’t know. I felt deeply sor­ry for her in the time that I played her. I think I more had things to teach her than she had things to teach me, because she’s not in a good way when we see her. But I guess she taught me to take leaps and be fear­less in try­ing to fig­ure out who I am!

Talk­ing about being fear­less, that’s def­i­nite­ly a word I’d use to describe your shoot with OVERDUE, and I think it’s quite fit­ting with how you por­tray your­self on social media — because I did the manda­to­ry Insta­gram check. You seem to have quite a flair for the dra­mat­ic, in the best way pos­si­ble! Would fear­less and dra­mat­ic be adjec­tives you’d use to describe your own per­son­al style?

I mean… I was in a punk band for like four years where we wore like full gimp masks and tiny biki­nis and the most ridicu­lous make­up smeared all over our faces, so my base­line is absolute ridicu­lous­ness and eccen­tric­i­ty being com­plete­ly cel­e­brat­ed! That is always where I want to go with fash­ion and style, and the way that I put myself out into the world is that being. Sil­ly is the new chic, baby! Neu­trals are great for some, but not for me. I want to explode. You know?

I real­ly like ‘Sil­ly is the new chic’. I’m def­i­nite­ly going to reuse that. So if I was to meet you in the street and you were wear­ing the most ridicu­lous­ly extrav­a­gant thing you pos­si­bly could, what would it be?

I’m a huge Vivi­enne West­wood fan, so it would be the shoes that Nao­mi Camp­bell fell over in, some humon­gous wig com­ing up to the top that’s been back­combed and pulled to an inch of its life, and then def­i­nite­ly some paper­clips, some tar­tan and some spikes.

I hope for you that you won’t be falling with those on as well, they look impos­si­ble to walk in.

Well if I do, then it will be with so much flare!

Oh absolute­ly! And dur­ing your shoot with OVERDUE, what out­fit felt the most like you? Or which piece did you think ‘I wish I could steal that and take it home with me’?

A lot of them! I loved the last piece that we did that was a pair of Mithri­date lay­ered top and trousers. As soon as I saw it, I was like ‘this is David Bowie glam rock’. Espe­cial­ly with the way my hair and make­up was done! Then we stuck on some Bowie, and I felt that glam rock feel com­ing through. I also loved the Saman­ta Vir­ginio petal look. As soon as I put that on, I felt like an angry pix­ie who’d been dragged there by their moth­er. So those two were def­i­nite­ly my favourites.

I’m real­ly excit­ed to see where your career takes you because you’ve done so much already, and I think there is so much more wait­ing for you. After win­ning the BFI Best Writer award at the BFI Future Film Fes­ti­val for your short film ‘The Mas­sive F*cking Ben­der’ — which I’m gut­ted I couldn’t watch by the way, because the link doesn’t work any­more — can we expect to see a sim­i­lar project from you com­ing out any­time soon?

What! No way, I’ll send it to you. It’s very sil­ly chic… but yes I’m always writ­ing and devel­op­ing. I’m try­ing to turn that short into a long for­mat thing at the moment, but I can’t real­ly talk about it much. I always want to make and cre­ate and meet more peo­ple. And I’ve also always got a mil­lion short films in the back of my mind that I want to make when­ev­er the ever reced­ing quite time emerges.

I look for­ward to see­ing what you’ll accom­plish, because if you made ‘The Mas­sive F*cking Ben­der’ with an £8 bud­get and iMovie, I can’t imag­ine what else you have in store for us! My last ques­tion for you today is, what is your dream movie/series col­lab — with you in it obviously?

Oh my god, okay, so I’m a huge Edgar Wright fan, I love a big sil­ly action movie, and I absolute­ly love Wes Ander­son. So I would have Wes Ander­son, Edgar Write, and Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos… Let’s put Gre­ta Ger­wig in there for some female ener­gy, and also Jor­dan Peele. They would direct and col­lab­o­rate, all that sprin­kled with no con­fronta­tion. As a cast, I’d have Hele­na Bon­ham Carter, Til­da Swin­ton, Willem Dafoe, and myself… I want to play some­one just ridiculous!

Right, okay. I can see it hap­pen­ing… I think?

Great, great. I’m glad you can see it. 

It makes total sense. 

Real­ly? Well, let’s make it hap­pen then!

Many thanks to Lau­ra Mar­cus for tak­ing the time to talk with OVERDUE. Find her on Insta­gram @lauraalicemarcus to keep-up-to-date with her lat­est projects! All episodes of ‘The Jet­ty’ are avail­able to watch on BBC iPlay­er now. 

Tal­ent Lau­ra Mar­cus
Pho­tog­ra­ph­er & Edi­tor-in-Chief Andrew Kim­ber
Art Direc­tor & Styl­ist Eve Fitz­patrick
Make-up Chi­haru Wak­abayashi using Suqqu
Hair Miki Ide
Stu­dio & Retouch­ing Kim­ber Stu­dio
PR Pin­na­cle PR