Former Coronation St actress Sacha Parkinson stars in The Crash, a new BBC Three drama about a group of close friends who are involved in a fatal car crash. Sacha tells us more about the new role...
After playing Sophie's girlfriend Sian in Coronation Street, tell us about your new role in the two-part drama, The Crash...
"I play Kate, a university student, who comes home for the Christmas holidays to meet up with her best friends and her boyfriend Tom (Lewis Rainer). They all head off to the pub one night in two separate cars and end up in a fatal car crash."
How did the story affect you when you read the script?
"When I started reading the script, there were lots of lovely scenes with all the friends together having fun and some lovely romantic scenes with Kate and her boyfriend so I was thinking, 'Wow! This is exactly like me and my friends!' Then the crash happens and you realise that your whole life can change in a matter of minutes. It's so scary."
So how soon does the crash happen in the storyline?
"The crash happens quite early on in the first episode and then it flashes back to six months earlier, so you're able to appreciate who everyone is and what their relationships are. I loved filming all the nice scenes with Kate and her friends out having fun. We all got on really well and it felt just like when I'm with my three best friends from school."
After the crash, your character, Kate, is trapped in the car and has to be cut free. Was it hard filming those scenes?
"Yes, because until then, the atmosphere on set had been really light, but it totally changed when it came to filming the aftermath of the crash. Everyone had important stuff to do so we all withdrew from the group to concentrate on our own individual stories. It's such a weird feeling when you see people you know really well lying on the ground covered in blood. Even though you know it's only make up and prosthetics, it's still really shocking."
Has filming this drama made you more aware of the dangers of driving?
"Well, I only passed my test two months before I started filming this! My mum and dad have obviously been on at me to be really careful when I'm driving. But doing this and reading all the statistics about the number of young people dying every year in RTAs, it really does make you think. I remember when I was at college, I was often in cars with people who'd just passed their test. I'm actually really lucky that nothing bad happened. Unfortunately, a lot of young people aren't so lucky."
