‘Coldwater’: How Casting Indira Varma & Eve Myles Changed the Story

In the latest episode, now streaming on Paramount+ as of February 6, Fiona (Indira Varma) grapples with the aftermath of her husband, John (Andrew Lincoln), telling her he murdered someone. At first, she struggles with accepting she’s been with someone capable of that kind of violence, but the more she thinks about it — and insists John not go to the police — the more she realizes it doesn’t add up and that it had to have been next-door neighbor Tommy (Ewen Bremner). After all, what neighbor helps to bury a body? Meanwhile, Tommy’s wife Rebecca (Eve Myles) begins spreading rumors about John to make him think he’s the killer and turns the town against his family.

Below, creator David Ireland unpacks those key differences in Fiona and Rebecca and more.

It feels like Fiona’s really the voice of reason on the show while Rebecca’s the voice of chaos in a way, from the way that Fiona deduces that it was Tommy who killed Angus, and then Rebecca started spreading rumors about John and the town turned against them. Would you agree?

David Ireland: Yeah.

Can you talk about formatting the show with that?

Well, it sort of came as a surprise to me, I guess, because I didn’t really know what way it was going to go when I was writing Episode 1. I think it was just — particularly when we had Indira Varma and Eve Myles join as part of the team because I think I’d already written two episodes before we cast it, and I thought, well, when you’ve got two actors of that caliber, you really don’t want to waste them. You want to have them do as much as possible. So it was really making them a part of the story, an important part of the story, rather than just have them as background characters to give them important objectives.

And I think it’s just interesting to have — I mean, it’s kind of like the whole story of the series, it’s watching, in the case of Tommy and Rebecca, two very bad people, two evil people who have a very happy marriage. And with John and Fiona, it’s two very good people, very decent people who have a very unhappy marriage.

Rebecca has a comment about how she’d have Tommy sort out John and Fiona knowing he killed Nathan, but he still likes John. Does she think that he’s incapable of being able to kill John?

I think she knows Tommy well enough to know that he’s got a very twisted relationship with John and that it could go either way and that he is a bit obsessed with John. And I think at that point she’s reminding him of where his loyalties lie, that their marriage comes first and that his friendship with John is secondary.

Is she at all worried about that, the fact that maybe John could edge her out in Tommy’s mind?

I think possibly, but she’s more worried that Tommy’s going to do something stupid. I always liked the idea that Tommy was a bit stupid, that Rebecca was really the brains in the marriage and that Tommy thinks he’s really smart, but he’s not really. He just operates on instinct and just does what he wants, whereas Rebecca keeps him under control and really keeps him in line.

Coldwater, Fridays, Paramount+

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