EVELYN BROGAN
Played by Lucy Cohu

Lucy Cohu was nominated for an Emmy for her role as Princess Margaret in the acclaimed Channel 4 drama The Queen's Sister and also recently starred in the Jane Austen biopic Becoming Jane. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and one of her first roles was playing the title character in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Her TV credits also include roles in Sweet Medicine, Red Cap, Bombshell, Peak Practice and Soldier, Soldier.

The moment Lucy Cohu heard the premise of Cape Wrath she was intrigued about the ambitious series. "The scripts were incredibly unusual and unlike anything I'd ever come across before," she recalls. "Plus, they had this sort of American style that added to the 'oddness' of the series. The final cast line-up was extraordinary and we all looked to each other to make our performances pitch perfect."

Cohu relished the opportunities afforded by her character Evelyn Brogan. "Saying her relationship with Danny is intense is an understatement. Evelyn is a character very much in crisis. On the surface she looks capable but she's an emotional haemorrhage inside and desperately trying to hold it together. She just absolutely loves this man, Danny, but is obviously in serious denial over the state of the relationship because he's done a lot of very bad things to affect her and their family. But there's something electric about these two together – they can't live with and can't live without each other. Terrific stuff for any actress to get her teeth into."

She continues, "When the series starts Evelyn's at the point of having had enough of the disruption, the trial, the safe houses and she's looking around Meadowlands thinking, how the hell do we get out of here? She doesn't know that everyone else is in protective custody too, and when she finds out it makes her worse. They could be living next door to rapists, murderers and who knows what other criminals. But then her son Mark, who hasn't spoken since the fire (the event which ultimately caused the family to go into protective custody), seems to come out of his self-imposed catatonia and starts talking. Evelyn sees that as a positive step and suddenly thinks that this new strange environment might actually be good for the kids. Maybe they really can start afresh. Then she meets Dr. York and his weird infatuation with her starts..."

Cohu adds, "I do think Evelyn has delusions of being a good mother. In her past life she was far too self-absorbed, running a bar in Soho with her husband. The kids didn't want for anything, but they had to grow up quickly, especially Zoë – and Evelyn's now trying to rectify that. But the family dynamic changes rapidly as everybody starts harbouring new secrets in Meadowlands. The Brogan family scenes are crucial to the on-going drama of the series. There was one dinner table sequence I vividly recall where none of us could really look at each other in the eye because we all had something dreadful to hide. It was an astonishing mind-set to explore because each character has so many layers."