Corrie airs at 8.30pm on ITV1
We have seen some of the old Bernie recently with her going off the rails after Billy’s funeral. It’s sometimes nice to be reminded of Bernie’s past.
Absolutely and also I don’t know that we’d looked at Bernie’s grief. I was pleased that we were going to go there, because as we all know, we all have to experience it as we go through life. She’d buried it for the last 18 months, Billy being the absolute catalyst. He was a tiny piece of Paul and that just compounded everything. And she’d been there for everyone else, hadn’t she?
At the same time she had all the stuff with finding Kit, and then all the stuff happening with Brody. And she was spread very thin. She was sort of sticking plasters on all sorts, I think. But, as we all know, grief doesn’t have any rules. It’s just going to come and get you whenever it can and that is what happened with Bernie
We saw Bernie confess to Dev about taking pills and having to go to hospital on the night out, why didn’t she tell him the full story?
I think she’s got this—and she’s always had it—it’s always a half-truth with her. She can’t ever go, “This is exactly what happened,” All her life she’s had to tell lies because she’s not been a good mum. She didn’t turn up for parents’ evening or whatever, because she might have been out with her mate, but being out with her mate actually meant that she was out all night with her mate. So, for whatever the reasons, truth is something that Bernie’s constantly trying to seek, but she’s not capable of telling the whole truth.
We did see them make-up after her first part confession. What is it about their relationship, you think, that he forgives her for these situations? What is their relationship like that makes that happen?
I’ve said this before: I don’t know that she’s ever experienced kindness like it. She’s never had a man be kind to her before. And Dev is so kind. And she also, you know, she sees that he can be obsessive about things, and controlling about things, but that’s usually his business, and his family, and that’s for the greater good of everybody. And Bernie, I think, has huge respect for that. She’s never, ever had a man be this decent to her before. And I think they have a fabulous time in the bedroom!
She’s now in this position where Mal is there in the cafe and starts behaving very strangely. He’s very interested in her. What makes her think that she now needs to tell Dev everything. Is she worried that it’s going to come out and it needs to come out from her?
Yeah that is definitely part of it. And I think that she’s kind of looking at Mal and going, “Gosh, right, this man is going to take this somewhere else and that he’s not perhaps what he makes out to be and could be dangerous.” That he’s completely fixated for no reason other than that’s his personality.
She has an enormous capacity for burying things. She locks it up, she locks up the secret in her head, and she just hopes and prays that nobody’s going to get access to the loft. And if they do, and that case comes open, she’ll do everything she can to sit on it and stop it from actually coming out. This kind of denial is a very, very strong part of her personality. So the half-truth’s kind of all right, yeah, because she can bury the rest until it raises its ugly head, and inevitably it does, doesn’t it? And now she knows the full ugly truth needs to come out because she might need help.
This week she’s left alone with Mal and he locks the cafe door and confesses his feelings. What is going through her head at that point?
She’s really quite frightened, and she’s been on the end of an aggressive, violent man a lot. So this is absolutely terrifying, she’s in deep now. It is really dangerous. She’s made herself vulnerable—somehow she thinks she can kind of pull down her armour. Yeah. That’s her superpower, the way she has this hard shell that keeps her safe and.
But this is really bad. He’s unhinged. Then she also then discovers that someone has cut her head out of her wedding picture. I mean, this is stalker territory, he’s been in the house! She thinks at that point, “The only way for me to get away from this is to finally come clean to Dev about the kiss”?
Does she do that in the confidence that they will be able to get through it, and then Dev can also protect her?
I think so because then everything is laid out, isn’t it? She’s being fully transparent finally, it has taken weeks and weeks on end, but it is the only option over to her. She knows that if Dev knows what Mal has been up to, it will all be okay. It takes away Mal’s power, he’s got no power whatsoever. Because that’s what he’s been blackmailing her with.
Obviously she can confide in Kit as well. What’s her relationship like with Kit these days?
It’s pretty good, you know. He’s always going to have some anger about being abandoned but he does just accept her for the hot mess she is. I don’t think he really judges her now.
Do you think it helps that she’s taken Brody into the fold with open arms?
Yes very much so. And also Kit realising after the fact that he was a dad and his own son has spent, not through his choice, time away from him.
How does she feel when she sits down and decides to lay her cards on the table, and admit to Dev that she wasn’t alone on that night, and Mal kissed her, and starts to explain to him what he’s doing now?
She is deeply, deeply anxious. He deserves to know, but again, it could well be the end of the relationship. How many times can she test him? How many times can she keep doing this? Is he going to forgive her or not?
At the end of the week, Mal is attacked, which does not look good for Bernie.
It’s not a good look because she’s been heard threatening him. She is definitely going to be under suspicion so in the end telling Dev has not made it go away. If anything, things have got worse.
Do you think she has found herself in a situation here, which is going to have far-reaching implications for her and the family?
Definitely, she knows she’s messed up. If she had told the full truth from the start they might not have got to this place but here they are and it is down to her.
Do you like playing Bernie, it would be very easy just to settle her down with Dev and the children and her extended family of grandkids and step-grandkids and half-grandkids. But actually, you’re still getting to play the Bernie from the nineties.
I absolutely love it. I know quite a few women, you know, that still have a foot in the nineties, as far as they’re, yeah, they’re all of those things. They are the great-grandmother, but they’ve still got that in them that they can make 10 pence turn into £10 that day. They’ll go and wait till the end of the day for the yellow label and all of that. And she’s a survivor. And I think that’s very much a working-class thing as well. But no, I love it that she’ll never get rid of the tie-dye or that wretched bag.
So you wouldn’t ever want to see them properly gloss off her edges?
No, not at all. You want to keep her edges. I love it that they write that for her, it’s a real thrill to go, “Oh, no, what’s she done now?”
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