MARK BROGAN
Played by Harry Treadaway

Harry can currently be seen in the critically-acclaimed film Control, which won the Directors' Fortnight 'Best Film' at this year's Cannes Film Festival. A biopic of the band Joy Division, Harry stars alongside Samantha Morton and Sam Riley. Harry also appeared as the joint lead (with his twin brother Luke) in Film4's award-winning film Brothers of the Head, for which he was nominated for the BIF award for 'Most Promising Newcomer on Screen'. Harry has made a number of high-profile TV appearances, including Marple: Sleeping Murder, Afterlife and Recovery.

Harry Treadaway agrees with Felicity that getting the on-screen relationship between the twins was crucial, "Felicity and I worked together incessantly to make Mark and Zoë's relationship fly. We spent literally every evening in each other's pockets during shooting. We spoke a lot about our collective back-story – Mark's parental mollycoddling, Zoë being physically and emotionally stronger – to give a solid basis to their upbringing and fit the pieces together. I know from experience what an incredibly close thing it is being a twin and I enjoyed working it all out with Felicity."

It's Mark who changes the most thanks to Meadowlands. Treadaway explains, "Mark has many personal issues as a troubled teenager, the first one being high-functioning autism. When you first meet him he's practicing elective mutism and doesn't speak. Then there's the trauma suffered because of the fire in the Brogans previous existence, before they moved to Meadowlands. Mark's hands were severely burnt and scarred and he keeps them covered by gloves. So you have all those neuroses in one individual.

The challenge for me was playing someone who already has massive issues with his own sense of identity anyway having to take on a new persona and all the change that comes with the protective custody programme."

Because he wanted to understand everything about Mark's neurological state, Treadaway contacted a leading doctor in the field of autism. "She had set up an autistic association in London and had all the relevant text books on the subject. It rapidly became clear to me that each person has a unique set of different symptoms affecting their social interaction, vocal intonation and body language. I just had to take certain pieces of information and use them for Mark's character to the best of my ability. You could see him in misunderstood Edward Scissorhands terms I suppose – he's different which makes him isolated."