Kitty Kalesky is the executive producer of four-part ITV drama Playing Nice, which is produced by Banijay’s Rabbit Track Pictures, the label set up by Kalesky with James Norton. Studiocanal is also producing.
The shoot for Playing Nice got underway in Cornwall in November 2023. Filming locations included St Ives and Padstow, as well as Mawgan Porth beach and Park Head, Cornwall and lasted into early 2024.
The series is directed by Kate Hewitt. Producer is Nick Pitt. DoP is Marc Wolff. And production designer is Darryl Hammer.
Playing Nice launched on ITVX on 5th January.
The following interview with Kalesky was conducted by ITV.
Can you give us a brief outline of what the series is about?
This is a show about what it is to be a parent, and what it is to find yourself in a marriage when a bomb goes off in it. In a really immediate sense, it’s about a baby swap. Two couples who discover in the pilot episode that their two and a half- three-year-old sons were swapped accidentally at birth in hospital.
What initially drew you to this project?
It’s about human beings. It’s about parenting. It’s about what it is to have parents. It’s about what it is to have children. It’s about class and wealth, and it’s incredibly thrilling. It’s a psychological drama with incredibly thrilling genre elements. And that’s what I want to watch at home.
Why did you want to adapt this book in particular for the screen?
I fell in love with this book when I first read it because it captures everything I like in a psychological thriller on TV. It’s about family. It’s about a very specific community and what happens when a metaphorical bomb goes off in the middle of it. And it was hooky. It was constantly moving ahead with good guys and bad guys, and this sort of knottyness of what it is to be both a good guy and a bad guy, all at the same time.
How did the screenwriter Grace get involved and what was that process like of
developing the script?
It’s been such a wonderful process working with Grace Ofori-Attah. We brought her
the book after we optioned it and were working with StudioCanal and ITV. She also
fell in love with the material. I think it’s not irrelevant that she spent many years as a
psychiatrist in the NHS, so she understands psychology, she understands character
and she’s really interested in thrillers as well. It was a really happy balance of all of
those things.
How much research went into the sort of various practices that we see in the
series. Was it important to you this felt rooted in some kind of reality?
It was definitely important that it felt rooted in reality. I think whilst the situation that our characters find themselves in is incredibly rare, it happens apparently 30 times a year in the Western world, which, given the billions of people in the Western world, is not very much. But for those 30 families it’s obviously soul-destroying. And so, we did do research to not malign the system because it’s there to protect children, and that’s really important that we make that clear, but also to prove how couples or families can feel trapped in their situations.
And can you tell us a bit about the casting process for this?
Yes, Fiona Weir, our casting director, has been a complete dream to work with.
Obviously, James was attached as Pete from a very early stage and he and I worked
together, and we fell in love with the book together and in love with the scripts as they were evolving. And then we have the wonderful Niamh Algar as Maddie, Pete’s partner, James McArdle and Jessica Brown Findlay as our Lamberts.
I couldn’t be more grateful for this – the three other cast. Obviously working with James, it’s a dream team, and they were all in our mind’s eye as we were starting discussions with Fiona, and working with her as our casting director, made the process such a delight. We just feel so lucky to have all four of them.
What do you think the four of them bring to their respective roles, would you say?
What kind of unique qualities?
I think all three, and I should talk about James Norton, as well. But to start with the
other three, because I work with James, all three of our other cast- lead cast members
have brought such texture, such depth and such kind of originality to roles that could otherwise be much more skin deep. So, to start with, Maddie, you know, her postnatal depression historically and the anxiety that she’s living with having discovered this horrible thing that happened in her past is bubbling inside of her. You can kind of almost taste it when you watch Niamh portray her on screen in a way that could otherwise have been kind of cursory. Her past is coming up to haunt her, and very few actors, I think, can do that as beautifully as Niamh does.
James McArdle has brought real heart and humanity to a role that could otherwise be “moustache-twirling” and 2D as a villain. You don’t forgive him. You despise him for what he did in the past and what he’s doing now. But you understand it more.
And Jessie, who’s playing Lucy, you can see her trembling in every scene, and yet, she has such ferocity, such strength at the same time. Again, I think so many other actors wouldn’t have done that role justice, and she really does.
How has it been working with James Norton as the lead in this project and also
as an executive producer? What’s that sort of experience been like for you?
I love working with James Norton, so much. He is the most extraordinary producing
partner and actor and EP on set. I mean, I think I can speak for everybody, the cast
and the crew, he is a leader, he’s a friend, he’s a collaborator. And I can speak
personally for this project and for all of the projects that we work on.
He’s somehow managed to both be, you know, opinionated, articulate, forthright yet
never the loudest voice in the room. He always defers to me or to others who he feels
know better or better to speak to a particular issue. But when he cares about something he’s really passionate about it. And, obviously, he is one of the great actors of our generation. The project is very lucky to have him and I’m very lucky to work with him.
How would you say the series is different from other sort of crime or domestic
drama?
I think what makes this project really special is that it manages to marry thrills. It’s
proper genre. It’s a thriller or kind of a domestic thriller, and yet it’s also psychologically driven. At its heart, it’s about four characters in turmoil and it’s about marriage and it’s about parenting and those are all themes that everybody watching at home cares about because it’s what touches us all. And that, to me, is what makes it special. It’s not just investigative, or detective work, or pure crime, it’s a tragedy. It also has the criminal elements and the thriller elements that kind of keep you leaning in for more.
How has it been shooting in Cornwall? Was it important to you to work with local
crews?
It was incredibly important to work with local crews, because when you know the
land, you’re going to be best at the job. And also, because it’s very important to support the local area wherever you’re shooting. The book is actually set in London, so us relocating the story to a breathtaking part of the country felt really important to kind of elevate it both aesthetically and in terms of its themes.
The story is about being on the edge. It’s about getting in too deep and, not to mix metaphors too much, but Cornish people do literally live on the edge of our country, and they are surrounded by water in a way that our four sort of feel like they’re drowning. So, thematically and visually, it felt really important to embrace the local
area.
What are some of the challenges of shooting on location?
There are many challenges to shooting on location. The obvious ones being weather.
We’re shooting in the autumn, going into winter. So, if you need daylight, you’ve only got a finite amount of time to do it because we’re losing hours every day. If you need it to be sunny, it’s probably going to rain. We’re also working with children, obviously, so looking after them is really important. Keeping them warm, keeping them feeling safe, and then it’s just about literal locations. You know, you run out of time in a particular place. You’re not building sets. They’re not your own. You’ve got to protect people’s homes, whether it’s an art gallery or a hospital corridor -it’s a more delicate process.
Tell us about the look of the series. Who’s been involved in developing that side
of things?
The look of the series has been inspired by and led by Darryl Hammer, who is our
production designer, and obviously, Kate Hewitt our brilliant director. We feel so
incredibly lucky to have Darryl on board. She is from South Africa, and I think there’s
something really useful about having a person who runs, especially an art department, be removed somehow from, you know, whether it’s the local area or even the country as Darryl is.
She can come in, she can read the script, she can immerse herself in the story and
think what is going to work best for this visually, what is going to elevate this most?
Rather than being tied to convention. She’s done the most beautiful job in painting a
picture of Cornwall – it’s very authentic.
It feels textured, it feels real, and yet also, kind of, otherworldly somehow. There’s
something breathtaking everywhere you look in Cornwall because of the cliffs, because of the beaches, because of the sea, because of the skyline. And she has, as well as a phenomenal DoP, Marc Wolff, brought that to life.
What would you say are some of the main themes of the series?
The main themes of the series are what it is to be a parent, wealth and class and
whether one’s wealth and one’s class influences the kind of parent that you are. Of
course it doesn’t, but it asks that question, whether marriage can sustain heartbreak,
tragedy and emergency.
The strength of marriage is another theme. Nature versus nurture and postnatal
depression, whether that affects your ability to mother. Again, it doesn’t, but women
question themselves in really fundamental and quite frightening ways.
What journey do you hope audiences go on when watching the series?
I hope that when watching the series, audiences are desperate to know more because
of the twists and turns bedded into the plot itself. How did this swap happen? Was
someone responsible? If someone was responsible, is someone going to be punished
for it? So, there is a kind of a story engine, that drives us forward and thrills us. If
someone is punished, how badly is a child or an adult going to feel the consequences
as a result of all of this?
Our show opens in a really frightening and mysterious way. And then beyond that,
because of the themes of the series, nature versus nurture, what it is to be a parent,
questioning who we really are deep down. That being universal, I think will also propel the story forwards. We want to know what happens to these people, and we care about these people. How the things that happen to them happen, is really important to us.
If you could describe the series in three words, what would those be?
Gut-wrenching, propulsive and human.
Pippa Considine
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