The Crow Girl star Katherine Kelly doesn't 'want to miss' time with kids - but there's one big problem

When the bodies of murdered young men begin to show up across Bristol, detective Jeanette Kilburn must team up with psychotherapist Dr Sophia Craven to find the dangerous serial killer in new thriller The Crow Girl. The impassioned cop and sophisticated therapist don’t get off to the best start, but the same can’t be said of its stars, Welsh actress Eve Myles and Barnsley-born Katherine Kelly. The pair quickly bonded on set over their career ambitions and experience of motherhood.

“We’ve decided that Barnsley and Swansea should be twinned somehow because we have similar childhood references,” says Katherine, who plays Sophia. The 45-year-old, who has daughters Orla, 10, and Rose, eight, with her ex-husband Ryan Clark, continues, “We’re at a similar stage in our lives. We adore our jobs, but we adore being mothers as well and we don’t want to miss any of that. We admit that we’re both workaholics – and I mean that in the most positive way. We do what we love for a living.”

Eve, who plays Jeanette and has three daughters with her husband Bradley Freegard, adds, “In this field, you work with people all the time and very rarely see them again, but sometimes you find people who you think, ‘I can’t possibly not work with this person ever again,’ and Kate is absolutely one of those. She’s a queen of what she does.”

Based on Erik Axl Sund’s novel of the same name, The Crow Girl follows detective Jeanette as she hunts down a mysterious killer, whose victims are found beaten and injected with the anaesthetic Lidocaine. Struggling to find evidence, Jeanette asks Sophia – the therapist of a prime suspect – for help with the case as the bodies continue to pile up.

“Jeanette is a mum of one and a wife, both of which need work,” says Eve, 46. “She’s an obsessive risk taker, unapologetic, a tour de force character and what’s absolutely delicious about her is that she is the antithesis to Sophia.

“Jeanette is a chaotic, inappropriate, gung-ho mess and then you have the sophisticated, clean-cut Sophia. When these two women collide, something happens. Their jobs bring them together but what comes to the surface is two middle-aged women, talking about life, realising the flaws in each other and celebrating them.”

Katherine adds, “They’re absolute opposites but you quickly find out that maybe they’re not that different at the root of who they are. Sophia is a construct, she’s immaculate and dripping in hand-sanitiser. But you start to see cracks in her personality and Jeanette manages to get into some of those cracks without her realising that she’s doing it.”

While Eve was able to return to her family home after filming each day, Katherine relocated to Bristol from her home in the north of England. “I’ve found that I’ve had to work away from home a lot since Covid, so the minute I leave the house, I just immerse myself in work really,” she says.

“I’m quite all or nothing and I find it hard to not keep going because I’m not going to my family home at night. It’s like an exam – there’s never a point where you feel you’re finished. Then the minute I walk through the door, I’m completely free to be at home.”

Both stars have proven their acting chops in primetime dramas, with Eve starring in Victoria, Torchwood and most recently Hijack with Idris Elba. Katherine has had roles in Mr Bates v The Post Office, The Long Shadow and Innocent, but admits that many of the dramas on her resumé haven’t delivered two strong lead female characters quite like Sophia and Jeanette.

“I’ve been in a few things –which it would be unethical for me to mention, but I feel I can say this from the inside – that haven’t delivered what they promised,” Katherine says. “I’ll have been promised what they have given us in The Crow Girl, but it doesn’t materialise.

“The promise will be two female leads who start off on the back foot with each other but come together, and it’s not going to be a trope. In one project, it was eluded to but wasn’t seen through in any great depth. And sometimes they just forget that they promised to do that.

“But The Crow Girl is the first time I’ve been in this genre, with two women at the helm, which has been seen through thoroughly to the end.” Eve adds, “Myself and Kate are the beneficiaries of women pioneers who spoke out and asked, ‘Where are all the female parts?’ They led that movement, and it’s a continuous movement, but we feel very lucky to be at the turning point of that.”

The Crow Girl arrives on Paramount+ on Thursday.