Rebekah Staton interview for Raised By Wolves

6 March 2015

We don’t really need to know what attracted you to Della as she’s completely and utterly brilliant but is there anything in particular that stood out for you?

Who wouldn’t want to walk in those biker boots? As Grampy puts it “A Scorpion and a Lion in the body of a woman – Mayhem.” A Mother like no other. 

 

You’re from Stoke on Trent originally. Was the Black Country accent easy to nail?

Well I was actually born, like many a Staton before me, in Leek in Staffordshire. For my first nine years we lived in Shrewsbury and then moved to Penkridge. So for most of my teenage years my accent was actually pretty close to how I sound in the show, as Penkridge is only ten miles away from Wolverhampton.

My family and I went to Wolvo at the weekend for a look in Marks’ and a window shop in Beatties. 

Over a cup of tea one day Caitlin, Caz and I discovered that we went to the same places and clubs when we were growing up, and also have mutual friends back home. In fact Caz used to pass the shop I worked in on her way to college. Seems like we were destined to meet.

 

Do you share any traits with Della?

Well for those who haven’t seen the show or me in the flesh, Della and I look almost exactly the same. I also know my roads, and appreciate men who can handle a long wheel base.

 

All Della’s children are named after strong female role models (bar Wyatt) – if she had another one, what your choice for a name be?

Maya after Maya Angelou, Or Oprah, after Oprah. But if we get Twin girls they would have to be called Caitlin and Caroline after our Writers. The Garry family love TV so I’m certain the Morans would inspire Della in the same way Greer, Ono, and Franklin did before them.  

 

They say you should never work with kids or animals and you have six on your hands here. How was your experience?

It’s the names that get tricky. So many names - Germaine, Aretha, Yoko, Mariah, Wyatt, Cher when the camera was on;  Helen, Alexa, Molly, Isabella, Scarlett, Caden, Erin, when the camera was off and Miss Erin sometimes prefers to be called “Ariel” “Snow White” or “Aurora” depending on the day. 

They meanwhile opted to call me “Mom” on and off camera; but “Fake Mom” when a genuine parent was around presumably to ensure neither of us got confused. 

Despite their youthful and angelic appearances, Helen, Molly, and Alexa are all adult women over the age of 18 so I only really had to work with four actual children and a cat. For the record the cat was the best cat I’ve worked with, very committed to the project, purred over the script apparently. 

The older cast, together with our wonderful Crew, worked incredibly hard to do as much as possible when the little ones weren’t available.

However, Caden, Erin, and the Twins (who take it in turns to play Cher) are all such great people we felt their absence and it wasn’t easy without them.  

Thankfully in all this, we also have Phillip Jackson, and if you’ve got Phil Jackson, anyone in the industry will confirm, everything is going to be okay. The man is a legend. 

In all honesty what you see on screen is a group of strangers who actually became a family. And we love each other, for real. I wonder if it was like this for the cast of the Waltons? Probably. But I doubt they talked as much about Periods.

 

This is Caitlin & Caz’s first foray into sitcom writing. How did it compare to working on something like Pulling?

You would never know that Caitlin & Caz hadn’t written a sitcom before. I have long pondered how they managed to be so good and make it look so easy, because we all know that it’s not. They love TV and Film and that’s an excellent place to start. Learning through watching. And boy have they done their homework, between them they have seen everything.  

Like Sharon and Dennis, who I also greatly admire, Caitlin and Caz have a distinct and hilarious writing style that sets them apart. I’m very proud and lucky to have worked with them all.

 

What’s coming up next?

You can see me in “The C Word” with Sheridan Smith coming soon to BBC One.