The Widow on ITV: ‘It was torture’ Director spills all on struggle with filming series
Kate, 45, stars as The Widow Georgia Wells, who returns to the Democratic Republic of The Congo three years after a tragic plane crash when she spots a man resembling her late husband Will (played by Matthew Le Nevez) on a television report.
Georgia’s world was turned upside down when her husband’s plane crashed in the jungle, although is convinced Tom is still alive as his bodied was never recovered from the wreckage.
To depict the background of The Congo, the creative team filmed on location in South Africa, replicating some of the environments as there were safety concerns about shooting the series in the African country.
However, speaking ahead of the projects release by ITV and Amazon Prime, director Sam Donavan explained there were still some challenges the crew faced when it came to filming the eight-part action-packed thriller.
It was absolute torture
Sam Donavan
As the series unfolds, a number of locations were used globally to portray the story, with Georgia’s plot beginning in Wales and Sam explained how the filming locations differed considerably.
Speaking to press, including Express.co.uk, Sam said: “It was very cold in Wales. What I didn’t want to do when I picked the locations in Wales was go for typical kind of green, lush Wales because obviously, we’re showing the green lush rainforests.
“So, I went for the darker hills and the slate to juxtapose that and show the harsh environment she’s living in. It was really cold in Wales.
“Then in Cape Town, in the middle of their summer, it was absolute torture,” the director went on to add.
Producer Eliza Mellor also said of the struggles filming in such intense heat: “Where we shot in the rainforest was very hot.”
However, it wasn’t just the locations which proved a challenge to the creative team as they also faced difficulties in telling a story which switches between past and present time periods.
The Widow was penned by the minds behind BBC drama’s The Missing and most recently Baptiste, Jack and Harry Williams and the brothers explained how they went about creating a non-linear plot.
“It’s more difficult, more difficult storytelling. More challenging because you’re looking at different time frames and different story strands, so, it’s how you get a rhythm and a flow through those without the show, the story, without getting too detached,” Harry explained.
Following Harry’s sentiments, Jack said: “This episode [episode 1] we go back in time and see Georgia’s journey, but actually, over the series you find we do that with different characters.
“So, we’ll have different perspectives from different periods of time, so, it’s not just one time period, it’s actually lots of different time periods to make it even more complicated.”
Harry added: “You dig into each of the characters, so it helps with that side of things,” with one of the stories likely to see the backstory with Georgia and her godfather, Martin Benson (Charles Dance).
Jack explained: “There’s moments in episode 1 shots there which actually come back in episode three from a different perspective so, it all fits together rather satisfyingly.”
Speaking about the all star cast acquired for the series including leading actress Kate, Eliza said: “It was a good coo to get her [Kate] and everybody else, it’s such an international cast, we’re pulling people from France, because it’s set in Congo obviously, we were casting people from all over the world.
“France, Dutch, South Africa and because we were shooting in South Africa, we wanted to cast as many locals as we could there.
“I think it’s an amazing cast that we brought together,” the producer added.
Over the course of the next four weeks, viewers will see all these stories unfold but they were left outraged before last night’s debut episode when the ITV continuity announcer seemed to mispronounce Kate’s surname.
The Widow airs Monday’s and Tuesday’s at 9pm on ITV, with the full series available to stream on Amazon Prime.
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