Parental guidance

ACTRESS FIONA SHAW AND DIRECTOR REBECCA LENKIEWICZ TELL LYNN RUSK HOW NEW FILM HOT MILK EXPLORES MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS AND PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS

- LYNN RUSK

"I HAD the easier job - it's much easier to play the selfish person," reflects Irish actress Fiona Shaw.

The TV Bafta Award winner, 66, is speaking about her role as Rose - a mother with a mysterious illness - in Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy's 2016 novel.

Set against the scorching backdrop of a Spanish summer, the film follows Rose and her daughter Sofia, played by Sex Education's Emma Mackey, as they travel to the coastal town of Almeria in search of a cure from a local healer.

Confined to a wheelchair and suffering from chronic pain, Rose is entirely dependent on Sofia - whether it's to leave the house or simply fetch a glass of water.

An increasingly frustrated Sofia hopes the clinic will restore her mother's mobility and, in turn, grant her the freedom and independence she desperately craves.

Fiona, who won a TV Bafta for her role as Carolyn Martens in Killing Eve, praised her 29-year-old costar for helping shape the emotionally charged dynamic between the two women.

"Emma had to decide, in each scene, how she would cope with her mother's behaviour - but the mother just continues on. She isn't thinking about the effects, and that's the problem," Fiona explains.

"They're not two people at loggerheads. I don't think the mother is at odds at all. She adores her daughter, wishes she wouldn't visit her father, and wants her to focus on her studies.

"She can't see that she's the reason none of those things can happen properly. And that blindness is a nightmare for the other person - but Emma had to carry that.

"We would laugh about it, but she had to play the scenes. I just had to play Rose - she had to play the reception."