The Street
Gina McKee plays Jan
The award-winning actress Gina McKee was immediately fascinated by the character of Jan in The Street.
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Jan is very close to her sister and neighbour, Cath (Lorraine Ashbourne). However, their relationship is put under the severest strain when Jan's and Cath's sons are involved in a serious incident and dire family strife ensues.
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"Jan's a complex character," says Gina, who has been acclaimed playing leading roles in such varied pieces as Tsunami: The Aftermath; The Lavender List; The Lost Prince; The Forsyte Saga; Our Friends In The North, for which she won three Best Actress awards; Notting Hill and Croupier.
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"She's always wanting, order and trying to control things, particularly with her son."
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The 43-year-old actress explains how that obsession with order spills over into something more worrying when Jan attempts to cover for her son. "She has dedicated herself to her son always, to care for him, to improve his prospects and make sure he gets the best chance in life."
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"But unfortunately, her good intentions tip over into a form of madness. If she stopped for a moment to think about what she is doing in covering up her son's crime and worse still letting his cousin take the fall, she would see sense. But she is blinded by her near-clinical obsession with doing the best for her son."
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Gina who enjoyed working with her co-star Lorraine Ashbourne, underlines that the sibling rivalry resides at the core of this episode.
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"Jan and Cath have a closeness that you can only have as siblings who have lived in each other's pockets their whole lives. That brings both positive and negative consequences.
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"They know each other inside out, but that makes it all the more powerful when Jan risks losing her sister by instinctively protecting her son. It's a huge moral dilemma that forms the heart of this piece."
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Jan's temper is not improved by the fact that she and her sister are in the midst of trying to give up smoking. "That's something the writer Jimmy McGovern was interested in," Gina reveals.
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"He's given up smoking and one of the things he's exploring is how stopping a habit as addictive as that can affect your behaviour. Obviously, it's not the reason why Jan makes those choices but it's links into issues of habit and comfort and again, control."
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Finally, Gina, pays homage to the mastermind behind the whole series: "I've been wanting to work with Jimmy McGovern for such a long time. Jimmy takes the landscape of working-class life and through his characters, illustrates epic themes and dilemmas. His writing always possesses such integrity and true passion and this script is no exception."
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