Helen Cutter's back in Primeval - and she's still intent on making Nick's life a misery, as actress Juliet Aubrey explains... What do you think about your character, Helen Cutter? "I love playing Helen! It's been so good to get back to her as she's such a great release. It's such fun getting to play someone who really genuinely doesn't care about anyone other than herself. I was known for so long as someone who was playing rather more saintly characters so it's wonderful to play someone who is downright bad! I mean, she's really bad... and she's going to get worse." How did we leave Helen at the end of series one? "She was rather enjoying the fact that Cutter was grappling with two startling emotional bombshells: the realisation that Claudia has never been born, and that his loving wife has been conducting an affair with his best friend, Stephen. He wasn't having a good time of it all - but Helen was quite clearly revelling in his devastation and popped back through the anomaly positively rubbing her hands in delight." What's Helen's attraction to Stephen? "Stephen is a means for her to get to Cutter. By being with Stephen, she can learn what's going on and manipulate the situations through him to her advantage. All she wants is to get to Cutter. Together, in her eyes, they could really change things – they could change the present and the future. She doesn't believe she is evil as she is removed from everyday life as we know it." In terms of Helen's look for series two, she seems to have turned into Lara Croft... "It's great gear isn't it? We wanted to make her more practical but didn't want to make her look too frumpy. She's all straps, packs and knives with some strategically placed tears in her clothing. I love it! As for the hair, I like having it short. I can imagine her sitting by some pre-historic lagoon, cutting her hair with that big old knife." Have you had to do many stunts for series two? "Not huge stunts as such, but she is always running around which I love. It was great when we were filming in Fuerteventura, as one of the sequences is of Helen trekking across this incredible landscape. Apparently, when we were there, the weather was the hottest it had been in years. I remember thinking ‘OK, so this seemed like a good idea back in the dressing room in cold wet rainy London'. I still loved it though." What do you make of the Helen Cutter action figure? “It's a defining moment in one’s career: a Helen doll! Someone gets an Oscar and I get a doll. It just makes me giggle. It's great, and quite exciting, really. It was bizarre enough when I went into stores when the DVD was out and there was these big cardboard cut-out of me costume. That's also really strange."
