A tour de force, Emilia Fox has become the heart and soul of Silent Witness. An executive producer on the BBC drama, the award-winning actress, 50, is getting back to business as forensic pathologist, Dr. Nikki Alexander.
© Robert Wilson / BBCRevered as one of Britain's brightest stars, Emilia – a member of the Fox acting dynasty – lent her talents to Pride and Prejudice (1995), The Pianist (2002), and Henry VIII (2004), before signing on to Silent Witness in 2004.
21 years later, the TV favourite remains a scholar of the Lyell Centre, learning from her co-stars and marvelling at the drama's continued evolution. "The show is fascinating, it's been running for 28 years," Emilia told HELLO! in a roundtable interview.
© BBC Studios / Robert WilsonComprised of 10 episodes, the latest instalment features two new additions, with Maggie Steed and Francesca Mills joining as department head, Harriet Maven, and crime analyst, Kit Brooks, respectively.
Back on the case, David Caves has also reprised his role as Nikki's love interest and shiny new fiancé, Jack Hodgson – but after years of dating, will they finally get their happily ever after? Emilia remains coy, but she has dished on some conflict with their wedding.
"I think the interesting dynamic is that Jack… he's got his mind on working out what a good wedding will be for them, and Nikki's a little bit in denial about it, like the organisation of wedding preparation and what kind of wedding they're going to have at this stage in their lives," Emilia explained.
© Photo: BBC"They're two people who've been great friends and who have loved each other and supported each other in different ways. Then they've admitted their love for each other and come together and now they're seeing whether they can work together and have a relationship. This is the next stage of commitment."
There's no doubt about it, Nikki and Jack are far from your average TV couple, something that Emilia finds "fascinating".
© BBC Studios/Robert Wilson"It's a high risk, you know, committing and being married to someone that you have been friends with for so long and have such a long relationship with because you want it to be like that always. Also, Jack lost his dad recently and he's got his niece, but Nikki's got no family around her. Jack has been her everything and that's a wonderful thing, but it's a great vulnerability too."
© Photo: BBCReflecting on Jack's unconventional proposal, which saw him pull a ring from an evidence bag in season 27, Emilia noted: "We wanted to make something special for them [the audience] and the proposal worked.
"We were very conscious of that, but also conscious around wanting to make it different and thoughtful. I think it deserves it – their relationship – but who knows what could happen at the end of that, whether it goes right, whether it goes wrong," she teased. "But it was definitely fun to talk about."
