'You get awards and have that second album fear' - Lauren Lyle is back as TV detective Karen Pirie

“And The Doc Martens. I just start marching about everywhere. The Carhartt trousers with the belt, the Fred Perry polo shirt with a popped collar... And the haircut. Straight away, when I put the fringe in, it’s like ‘we’re back!’

The double BAFTA Scotland winner takes the lead once more in one of ITV’s most-watched dramas of 2022, in three new 120-minute episodes that see the detective investigating an unsolved kidnapping that takes us back to the dark days of the Miners’ Strike of 1984. When a man’s body is discovered in the present day, secrets are revealed and the past comes to life.

With Karen promoted to Detective Inspector, the series written by Emer Kenny and executive produced by Simon Heath and Emma Luffingham at World Productions, Emer Kenny and Val McDermid, opens with Pirie’s team in the thick of a present day mystery with its roots in the past. Back on board are sidekick DC Jason ‘Mint’ Murray (Chris Jenks) and DS Phil Parhatka (Zach Wyatt), Emer Kenny as River Wilde and Rakhee Thakrar as podcaster Bel Richmond and new cast members including James Cosmo and Saskia Ashdown as DC Isla Stark.

Today Lyle, who hails from Glasgow, is Zooming from her London home where she’s sweltering in the heatwave, a Dyson fan blasting through her flat where the door is open to her balcony, causing her to break off occasionally to make sure her ginger cat hasn’t gone kamikaze. Despite the temperature, like Pirie, the actors is a breath of fresh air, which might explain why the launch episode of season one won an audience of 6.6 million viewers, and the series averaged 5.9m across each episode. It also won Lyle BAFTA Scotland Awards for Best Actress in a Series and Favourite Scot on Screen.

Read More - Lauren Lyle brings Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie to life

Why does Lyle think Karen Pirie is so popular?

“Because often we see detective shows and it’s a middle aged man who has a drinking problem, hates his job, is going home to a divorce, and that is just not what she is at all.

“She’s really funny. She loves her job, she’s good at it. I think people enjoy that. The way she speaks to her bosses as well. People come up to me and say ‘I wish I was brave enough to say that to my boss’. I think it’s a nice look into a young person at work. You don’t see twentysomethings, early thirtysomethings, and what it’s like to be a young person in a job where you’ve really got to grit your teeth through some things and do as you’re told - and not want to do as you’re told,” she laughs.

“Also we don’t just get a case, you’re getting the whole life of this woman, especially in Season Two. She’s dealing with problems with her boyfriend, and just wants to go to the pub and hang out with her friends. Which is what I want to do,” she laughs.

“She fancies a boy at work and they’re not allowed to tell anyone, so what do you do? It is so relatable and many people go through dealing with that and I don’t think we get to see it very often.

“Because each episode is two hours of television you get so much room to breathe and Emer [Kenny] Trojan horses in a young woman, with humour and character, just trying to live her life.”

The double timeline element of the plot takes the viewer back to the 1980s, a time before Pirie and Lyle were born, to the era of Margaret Thatcher and the Miners’ Strike, a time of seismic political and social change and events that changed the social and physical landscape for ever.

“Mint says ‘we’ve all seen Billy Elliot’ - but I think people haven’t seen [on screen] what actually happened in Scotland and what a horrible impact that had, how people were destitute. You see it in the North of England, but it happened in Scotland as well.

“And it’s interesting to think about how much has not changed, like the way Scotland is used for its oil. It’s interesting to see that’s something that’s always gone on and not a lot’s changed. Scotland’s quite a politically left, activist country and I love that we’re putting that on display because it’s often seen as a forward thinking country in the world and it’s nice to delve into parts of that and how people have really suffered for good things here.”

Karen Pirie also brought Lyle the chance to work at home in Scotland, after 13 years living in London.

“I’m so proud to be from there and also to be doing work that puts it on an international stage.As I’ve worked around Scotland more I think I’m going to get myself a place I can always come home to. Every time I come home and hear the accents I think this is where I’m from, this is me. To go home and hear a Scottish accent warms your bones.”

Being promoted to inspector brings Pirie new responsibilities and pressures. How does Lyle think she copes with her new role?

“She’s quite a reluctant new boss. She’s always wanted this authority, to tell everyone what to do and call all the shots and now she’s got it she really doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s really got to step up.

“I think that’s exactly what happens. As an actor too, you’re really looking for the leading role, the big job and then you get it and you’re like ‘ oh my god, now I’ve got to do it, what am I going to do?

“I really understood how intimidating it can be. It was intimidating to stand in front of a whole room of 30 extras who are supposed to be your team, all men and older than you and tell them what to do. There is something about leading a show and having to stay quite true to your opinions and thoughts and not doubt yourself just because you might be getting some looks around ‘do you know what you’re talking about?’

“I’ve certainly experienced in my life and my career where I’ve been patronised because I look younger. And I’m hugged more, like I’ll watch two men have a handshake and then I’ll get a hug. It’s so strange the way women are treated when in positions of power. People kind of don’t know what to do with it and get very awkward with it.”

Not least Pirie’s exasperated boss, DI Lees, played by Steve John Shepherd, who describes her as ‘blunt, blinkered, obsessive, rude and brilliant’.

“Yep, that’s it, blunt to a fault, rude, but brilliant. That’s what the bosses don’t understand. Her boss is awkward with her and doesn’t know what to do with her sometimes, and she doesn’t know what to do with him either.

Either way, Pirie will do what she wants.

“Karen knows she’s going to have to break some rules, but she loves her job and really is doing it for the best reasons. She’s not just trying to break rules because she doesn’t care, it’s a lot more three-dimensional. She does care, almost too much, so she’ll do all she can for the case and the victims to her own detriment.

“It’s not about breaking the rules just to be badass, it’s breaking the rules because that’s the only way to do the right thing.

“Also she’s having to deal with a relationship at work where she’s just young and fancies her boyfriend and wants to kiss him but isn’t allowed to? I know lots of people that deal with that exact issue, and I love showing that on screen.

“I just don’t see the show as a detective show. I see it as a character study of this woman that’s trying to do a job that’s really high-powered and pressured and also trying to go to the pub on Friday.”

While Pirie grapples with her new role, for Lyle, was playing the lead easier second time around?

“I was worried because you get awards and have that second album fear. But there were things I was less worried about, for example the police jargon, which I slipped back into.

“And the first series there was so much adrenaline because we’d all just come out of COVID and it was my first time leading a show and being part of something brand new is so exciting. Season Two, it’s like woah, we’ve got to do that again, and elevate it.

“It felt like a bigger show, like there was more money behind it, more pressure, we’re going further afield and doing more action. So it felt bigger, and more intense, and we had to step up to that.

“But Season One because we’d just come out of COVID we worked and also partied and this time, with new cast as well, I wanted everyone to have a good time, so I strived to have a fun set, get ice-cream vans and doughnuts on Fridays, which was great. I just want to have a good time at work as well. I want it to be a show where all the crew want to come back.”

Speaking of which, does she think there will be another series, given there are several of Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie books to inspire the writers.

“I hope so. I think everyone wants to do another one.”

In terms of new cast members, including Saskia Ashdown, James Cosmo, Frances Tomelty, John Michie, Mark Rowley, James Fleet, and Julia Brown, what was it like working with James Cosmo?

“Aww, what an absolute babe. I was nervous. I was like ‘he’s going to be intimidating’. He’s done so much work and has a lot of gravitas, and the minute you go and say hello to him, he turns round and goes ‘hellooo! And he’s got the smileyest teddy bear way and he’ll talk to you about any job he’s done and he’s not precious at all. He just knows exactly what and who he is. And he’s very funny, very funny.”

Until the camera rolls and scary and intimidating is called for…

“There was a scene where the director went to him and said really, really give it to her this time, really make her shit herself, because you’re powerful, and I didn’t know he’d been told to do that, and he was right in at me and I was like ‘oh my god Karen’s being torn apart here’. It was brilliant.”

Read More - James Cosmo interview

Inspired by the Val McDermid books and written by Emer Kenny, what difference does it make that it has a strong female slant?

“Yes, the books are written by Val [McDermid] who sold the rights and Emer Kenny writes the show. It makes a big difference because Karen is written as a woman who actually knows what it’s like to be scared walking home at night. Her male counterparts, bosses, the men, Phil her boyfriend, don’t really have that same fear in the same way. Karen, Lauren, knows what that feels like and Karen therefore cares so much more. Emer writes it from a place of really understanding those things.

“And that she screams and shouts in the car when she’s frustrated and does all that, I love that we see that because I do that, and I think a lot of women do and you never see it. We never see that’s how people release frustration and it makes me really proud that we show it and let that breathe, her female rage.”

“Also Emer will take inspiration from things going on in our personal lives and weave it in a little bit, so it’s really relatable.”

Read More - Val McDermid interview

As well as working on Karen Pirie, Lyle spent two months filming a new six-part series in New Zealand at the beginning of this year, for BBC Scotland and Sky New Zealand Originals. Called The Ridge, she stars as a Scot who arrives in New Zealand and is drawn into a web of secrets and lies.

“The Ridge is a very strange, psychological kind of horror at times, a thriller. Jay Ryan who is a big Kiwi actor and I lead it and I play a bit of a psychopath and drug addict, a bit of a crazy person. I’m an anaesthetist who is getting in trouble at work so runs away to New Zealand to my estranged sister’s wedding. But the sister goes missing and turns up dead - that’s not a spoiler! - and I go on the hunt for what happened. I’m also embroiled with this very Succession-type family and lots of bad things happen. So it’s fun, but also very intense. It’s a really good show and really wild.

“We stayed in Auckland and filmed at all these incredible locations all around the North Island, with amazing beaches, which was wonderful.”

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Lyle has also been on our screens recently in the acclaimed Toxic Town (Netflix) and The Bombing of Pan Am 103 ( BBC and Netflix) and appeared in Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden’s feature film The Outrun, opposite Sean Bean in Broken and in BBC’s Vigil. Her big TV break came in Starz’s Outlander as Marsali MacKimmie Fraser, after she learned her trade on the job in various acting roles rather than at drama school after heading for London at 19.

Sam Heughan interview

What is it she looks for in a role?

“It’s not necessarily about what the role is, it’s about who are the really cool people to work with? Toxic Town I knew I’d be working with Rory Kinnear and Aimee Lou Wood, and all these absolutely unbelievable actors, from Skins, Game of Thrones, Sex Education. Everyone was playing something kind of fun, and also I liked playing a posh person.

“Outlander was just a huge turning point for me in my career, an absolute no-brainer to say yes. Marsali was the daughter of the baddie as well which I loved, something spicy. And The Outrun, again it was Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden, so…

Read More - Jack Lowden interview

“They said we’re writing a film and would like to write a part for you in it. I was like, what Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden like my work, that’s crazy. They’d seen me in Vigil and Outlander so ended up writing me into The Outrun. Obviously you’re never going to say no to that.

“It was heavily improvised as well and I loved the idea of being so creative and really working my muscles there. It’s doing theatre on camera, so I loved that.”

“I would really like to do something a bit like Succession, really posh people being absolutely horrible to each other all the time. I really want to do more film, accents and someone different to myself. And maybe something funny next, because a lot of what I’ve been doing is quite dark and when I’ve been doing Karen I loved being funny.”

With a growing list of credits, is there any advice she follows as she looks forward to the next challenge on the horizon?

“I think the biggest thing that changed the way I approached the world and being an actor was not putting so much weight into having to be everything. The minute I started going to the pub more, seeing my friends and making time for a holiday and giving up on the day a little bit, everything changed. Finding real life to live has made me a much better actor and a more interesting and happier person.

“I went so hard when I started and didn’t have a lot of fun and now that I’ve made a lot more time for fun - if that’s just going round the corner and sitting outside with mates - it’s changed my life.”

Lauren Lyle stars in Karen Pirie Series Two on ITV, STV, ITVX and STV Player from Sunday 20 July.