Gemma Arterton on her new series Black Narcissus and playing a suppressed nun 

Virgin Radio

18 Dec 2020, 11:27

We don't want our TV jolly and bright this Christmas, thanks. Hollywood star Gemma Arterton joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about her new upcoming dark mini series.

The former Bond star said of the chilling psychological drama: “Hopefully it will make a bit of a change to the Christmas festivities. 

“It’s set in the 1930s about Anglican nuns who go who set up a convent in an old disused palace in the middle of nowhere.

“It used to be a brothel but they don’t know that, so it has this back story to the palace and the nuns go on their own separate crises. We went to Nepal to shoot in a palace which was amazing.”

On her ‘gentle authoritarian’ character she said: “She’s the sister superior, so she’s in charge of everyone but a control freak. 

“She joined in order to suppress her wild tendencies and as the series goes on you see her softening and unravelling.”

How was playing a nun? “I loved it. It’s very different now in religious orders, it was incredibly strict then. 

“They had to deprive themselves of a lot of things, aside from sexual oppression, there was a lot of stuff you have to let go of - friends and family - but it was fun to play.”