Robyn Cara x OVERDUE: Beyond ‘Bodkin’

Open­ing image: Trousers Vidi Blak jack­et Dolce & Gabbana

Words Leelou Reboh

Bod­kin lead Robyn Cara sits down with OVERDUE to unrav­el the intri­ca­cies of her char­ac­ter — Emmy — and rem­i­nisces about the most mem­o­rable anec­dotes on set.

Star­ring in Netflix’s high­ly antic­i­pat­ed dark com­e­dy thriller series Bod­kin, Robyn Cara is set to make a name for her­self in British tele­vi­sion with her riv­et­ing por­tray­al of Emmy, the young assis­tant to the mag­net­ic inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Dove (Siob­hán Cullen) and charis­mat­ic pod­cast­er Gilbert (Will Forte). Cara explained the series delves into the ‘impor­tance of truth’ and ‘the sto­ries shared with­in com­mu­ni­ties’. What Emmy and her asso­ciates believe to be the usu­al cold case inves­ti­ga­tion for their true-crime pod­cast takes a dis­turb­ing turn as they soon realise the locals might not be entire­ly truth­ful with them. With its off-beat twist, Bod­kin sets itself apart from the tra­di­tion­al mur­der mys­tery to cap­ti­vate and trans­port audi­ences into the dark and puz­zling real­i­ty hid­den behind the seem­ing­ly innocu­ous Irish village.

Over a video call, OVERDUE writer Leelou Reboh met with a cheer­ful Robyn Cara, com­fort­ably nes­tled in her home and far from the eerie atmos­phere of Bod­kin, ready to break down the most impact­ful moments of the series. 

What made Bod­kin dif­fer­ent from the oth­er projects that you’ve pre­vi­ous­ly worked on?

The scale was the biggest dif­fer­ence. Bod­kin felt real­ly big and expan­sive. We took over an entire vil­lage in Cork for a bit, which became the vil­lage of Bod­kin! The fes­ti­val scenes were huge, there were loads of great back­ground artists, cool cos­tumes, and hun­dreds of peo­ple. It was great. It tru­ly helps you feel like you’re part of the world you’re cre­at­ing when it’s so huge and immer­sive, and it’s easy to believe it’s real because it is in a way.

How would you describe the over­all atmos­phere of the series? 

It’s very dark and quirky, and real­ly fun­ny! The tone of the show is great and also unique in the sense that it cre­ates a sense of unease for the pod­cast­ers’ inter­ac­tions with the locals. There’s an omi­nous feel­ing through­out the episodes, like everyone’s hid­ing some­thing, but it’s done in a real­ly fun­ny way. 

Did you feel that uneasy atmos­phere at times when you were filming?

Obvi­ous­ly, every­one was love­ly, so as soon as you cut it gets back to nor­mal… But when you are in the scene, you do feel this awk­ward, uncom­fort­able ener­gy every­one’s bring­ing. It’s great on-screen though, it’s real­ly funny!

Which aspects of your character’s per­son­al­i­ty do you iden­ti­fy with the most?

I play Emmy. She’s the researcher on the pod­cast and is there to make sure every­thing runs smooth­ly. She’s very bright and eager to please, which expos­es her inse­cu­ri­ties about not being expe­ri­enced enough out in the field, because this is her first time inves­ti­gat­ing on the ground. I would say that Emmy and I share quite a sim­i­lar bub­bly Eng­lish ener­gy. I think that came very eas­i­ly to me — we prob­a­bly both don’t know when to stop talk­ing and we both hate awk­ward silences! She’s also real­ly ambi­tious and dri­ven, and I like to think I am too.

How does Emmy evolve along with the investigation?

She starts this series just hap­py to be involved and to be work­ing with some­one like Dove (Siob­hán Cullen) who’s this hot-shot inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist that Emmy looks up to and has for years. Through­out the show, she grows in con­fi­dence and realis­es that she’s way more capa­ble than she and oth­er peo­ple thought. She also starts to under­stand that the peo­ple in charge, like Dove and Gilbert, are just as clue­less as her. Even­tu­al­ly, she finds her voice in a more assertive way, which was real­ly fun to play. 

We were dis­cussing Emmy’s strug­gle to assert her­self between the dynam­ics of Dove and Gilbert. What has helped you find your voice as an actress?

I think it was my first series lead in Ack­ley Bridge. Those kinds of shows are such a good train­ing ground because you’re in every day and you get to know every­one so well. I think I real­ly felt proud that I could do some­thing like this for three months, and know­ing that I was actu­al­ly good at it!

What are some of the chal­lenges your char­ac­ter faces in ‘Bod­kin’ that impact­ed you on a per­son­al level?

At some point in the series, my char­ac­ter has to go through this real­ly high, tiny win­dow. I had to do about fifty takes and it start­ed to hurt, so I had to ask for some padding. This is a very lit­er­al answer to your ques­tion because it’s very much a direct, per­son­al impact. I have to say it was quite fun­ny to be fair.

Let’s talk fash­ion! Obvi­ous­ly, your char­ac­ter in Bod­kin is in the mid­dle of an inves­ti­ga­tion, so her wardrobe had to be func­tion­al rather than styl­ish. How dif­fer­ent is Emmy’s style from your own?

Emmy is from quite a priv­i­leged back­ground. She’s very put togeth­er, but in that kind of real way, like she wears nice jack­ets that would actu­al­ly keep you away from the rain and oth­er things like that. I’d say that she’s a bit prep­pi­er than I am, and she also def­i­nite­ly has more expen­sive taste than I do.

That sounds like my dream clos­et. Tell me…did you nick any­thing from the set?

Yeah, I kept quite a lot… We had stunt dou­bles, so there were basi­cal­ly two of every cos­tume! Siob­hán and I kept on ask­ing the team if we could take the cos­tumes with us. I think I got some trousers and some dun­ga­rees that I love, and a real­ly cool cardi­gan with bees on it. I was so hap­py. Thank you, cos­tume team…

Tak­ing you back to the shoot day with the OVERDUE team, what’s your favourite look you wore?

I wore this real­ly beau­ti­ful black dress. I want to say it was Givenchy — I’m very green and new to fash­ion so you should dou­ble-check that! It was stun­ning; real­ly love­ly and soft.

Are there any brands you’ve enjoyed being styled in recently?

I’m going to wear Chanel soon, which I’m very excit­ed about because I love Chanel! I went for a fit­ting yes­ter­day and I got some love­ly looks from them. I’ve also recent­ly dis­cov­ered this brand with my styl­ist called Noon by Noor, which I like a lot. Their whole col­lec­tion is real­ly cool.

What can we expect to spot you in, your go-to outfit?

I have this real­ly pret­ty orange linen dress with a waist­coat of the same mate­r­i­al I got in Ire­land while I was there film­ing. It’s from the brand called Sta­ble of Ire­land. The shape is beau­ti­ful and it flows real­ly nicely.

Going back to talk­ing about all things Bod­kin, what’s your favourite behind-the-scenes anecdote?

One of them is def­i­nite­ly the win­dow-climb­ing sce­nario. Siob­hán, Will Forte — who plays Gilbert — and Chris Wal­ley — who plays Sean — and I also went on a road trip once. Will bought us all match­ing green ‘Ire­land’ hood­ies with sham­rock socks, which I loved but Chris and Siob­hán, who are actu­al­ly Irish, were prob­a­bly mor­ti­fied they had to wear them!

What do you think sets the series apart from oth­er mys­tery series? 

As I men­tioned ear­li­er, its tone is real­ly cool and unique, it’s quite off-beat. The inter­ac­tions are so odd that it leaves you think­ing ‘Did that real­ly just hap­pen??’ It feels like a slight­ly dif­fer­ent world in which you have to work out the rules, and there’s a sense of unease that makes you want to watch more. 

In what way does the series explore larg­er themes beyond the cen­tral mystery? 

It address­es the theme of ‘sto­ries’ as a whole — like the kind of sto­ries we tell our­selves to make sense of our actions, and the sto­ries we tell oth­ers to excuse what we’ve done. It also explores the sto­ries shared with­in com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect them­selves. It’s all about the impor­tance of truth and how far peo­ple are will­ing to go to expose it, but at the same time it ques­tions what the best thing to do is — should it be exposed or is it best left hid­den? It’s all about the per­spec­tive of who wants that sto­ry to be told.

What are you most excit­ed for view­ers to expe­ri­ence when they watch Bod­kin?  

I’m just real­ly excit­ed for them to be sur­prised about how weird it kind of gets. The show presents itself as one thing and then starts to morph into some­thing else. It’s a real­ly fun expe­ri­ence to watch that hap­pen, so I’m excit­ed to see how peo­ple respond to it!

And are you plan­ning to con­tin­ue work­ing on more off-beat projects?

Def­i­nite­ly! I love TV that breaks the rules! But for now, I’ve just fin­ished a fam­i­ly fan­ta­sy film with Emil­ia Fox and Tamzin Grieg. I’m excit­ed to see when that comes out.

Sounds excit­ing!

Oh, I’m also going to LA next week! I’m real­ly look­ing for­ward to it because I’ve nev­er been…

Many thanks to Robyn for tak­ing the time to talk with OVERDUE. Make sure to catch the actress in Bod­kin releas­ing on May 9th, and find her on Insta­gram @robyn.cara to keep up-to-date with her lat­est projects!

Tal­ent Robyn Cara
Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Andrew Kim­ber
Styl­ist Adele Cany
Make-up Maho Moriya­ma
Hair Yui Oza­ki
Stu­dio & Retouch­ing Kim­ber Stu­dio
PR Pin­na­cle PR