The Devil’s Hour star Jessica Raine on making the transition to eerie dramas

"This is a character I feel like there's quite a lot of me in."

Most people know her as the star of Call The Midwife and while were used to seeing Jessica Raine in a drama setting, her latest series goes a lot deeper and darker than we expected. Starring alongside Peter Capaldi in The Devil's Hour, the gripping six-part psychological thriller is something that will truly have your jaw clenched from the get-go. In the series, Jessica's character Lucy wakes every night at exactly 3.33am. Nothing in her life has made sense for a long time. But the answers are out there, somewhere, at the end of a trail of brutal murders. The series is described as: "A contemporary thriller about Lucy, who is woken every night by terrifying visions at exactly 3.33am: The Devil’s Hour. When Lucy’s name is inexplicably connected to a strong of brutal murders, the answers that have evaded her all these years will finally come into focus." Chatting with Her.ie about the new show, Jessica reveals that while she loved getting the opportunity to play this role, because while it is quite the thriller, it's far a period drama. "This is a character I feel like there's quite a lot of me in and I didn't have to do a lot of research because it's not a historical part. I asked Johnny, 'do you need me to do anything to prepare?' and Johnny, our director, said 'no, actually it's a very reactive role, there's lots of stuff happening to you and you have to make sure you're massively in the moment while we're shooting'. So that was music to my ears," Jessica said. "For my personal research, I always make a playlist and when I'm travelling around London on the bus or on the train, I've constantly got my headphones in and I've got shuffle on and then during the shoot I can go to that playlist and if there's a particularly joyful or difficult scene, I can plug in to that song that is sort of like a mainline to my emotions, an IV to feeling." Working alongside Peter, the two have both starred in Doctor Who but never at the same time. With Jessica appearing alongside Matt Smit's Doctor, Peter took over that role from him and their paths never crossed until The Devil's Hour. "We've never worked together before, the nature of the show is that his character is hunting Lucy down in quite a terrifying way. You're never sure why until the final episode so we were kept apart during the shoot except for episode 6 where there's a real showdown between Lucy and Gideon. We were in a windowless cell for 10 days shooting this scene and it's just reams of monologue for Peter, he had to work really hard," she said. "It's a face off and it's just so much fun watching him that close up because Gideon is quite deranged, he does some really awful acts that you might say were evil but then he comes across very sad and gentle sometimes and at the toss of a coin quite menacing, you just don't know where you stand with him. It was a really challenging 10 days but I loved working with him because Peter really gives it his all." As this is a new genre of work for Jessica, she admitted her dream is to do it all. The Devil's Hour is set to be a three series show, with Jessica herself telling us that we'll see a completely different side to Lucy in season two and three, if it gets greenlit of course. Hoping it does and hoping she can delve back into this character, Jessica says her dream is far from this role. "My dream would be to obviously carry on doing this but also to do one of those really fantastical children's films. A really nuts, far away from myself, loud, I'd be quite up for doing something like that. Now that I've got a kid, I really want to do some children's films." The Devil's Hour joins Amazon Prime on October 28th.