As the title of this post suggests, this is a podcast of an interview with Clare Holman who played Laura Hobson in both Morse and Lewis. Thank you to a blog reader, Marti, for telling me about this interesting podcast.
Morse, Lewis and Endeavour
Welcome to the Morse Universe
Interesting podcast indeed.. As is the one with Kevin Whately on the same page: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/podcast-book-club/podcasts/lewis-is-this-end-lewis-kevin-whately-speaks/
Both of them precious…
Hi Marietta. I created a blog post a few weeks on the Kevin Whately podcast.
I must have missed it then. Sorry.
Thank you. I loved how Clare holman brought the character to life. Your two parter on Dr Hobson is one (two?) of my favorite posts.
I just listened to the Podcast (whatever such may be) yesterday. It was quite interesting and illuminating. I gather that Clare Holman brought her own ideas to the part, to help make the character more interesting and believeable, that is, as an independent, capable professional woman with a soft side to her personality. Her own personality seems to somewhat resemble the character’s, for example, ambition; you don’t become a successful actress without drive, energy and ability. It makes one wonder to what extent the Laura and Robbie characters are, to some extent, reflections of the actors’ own personalities.
Reading between her words, so to speak, I gather Ms. Holman may have convinced the writers and producers to round out her character further, especially as the series seemed to be winding down. She, like Kevin Whately, was concerned, though, about the stories becoming “sopey” if they began living together, e.g, with her going off to work while he played the role of house husband (not uncommon in real life).
In one of his interviews, Kevin Whately said that a permanent relationship seemed unlikely, given the 20 year age gap between the characters. In actual fact, their ages were never stated in the series, that I can recall; when it ended, Ms. Holman was 52 while Mr. Whately about 65; not a huge gulf for many couples.
Both she and Kevin Whately pointed out that they liked each other and worked well together. I think that this factor, some form of chemistry and mutual respect, is necessary for prolonged screen romances to work.
Anyhow, I hope that Clare Holman continues to find decent roles for as long as she wants them.