Doctor Foster star Suranne Jones returns to BBC TV on May 19 in the Gentleman Jack, based on the life of Anne Lister, a 19th-century industrialist, described as "a gender-nonconforming entrepreneur."
A feisty character, Lister once oversaw the digging of coal mines in Halifax, Nova Scotia and in her personal life endorsed same-sex marriage.
Speaking to The Guardian, Jones said, "She wanted to marry a woman she loved and she talked about that in her diaries from the age of 16. That was amazing to me, that she knew just who she was."
The actress is perhaps best known for her role as the small town GP Doctor Foster in the hit drama series, for which she won a BAFTA award. Some 10 million viewers tuned in to see the so-called Dinner Party Scene in a climactic revenge episode, as the doctor exposed her husband's infidelity.
The 40-year-old actress was born into 'a happy, working-class background' in Oldham in England. She left home at 16 to tour in musicals and work in drama education. "I would get home for little moments, to drop in, get my clothes washed, then go again."
She was holding down two bar jobs when she won a six-month contract on Coronation Street in 2000, playing Karen McDonald. 19 million viewers were tuning in to watch the soap four nights a week at the point, she was 22.
Jones spent four years with the popular soap and later starred with Lesley Sharp in Scott & Bailey, which she devised with Coronation Street’s Sally Lindsay.
The years 2015 to 2018 were particularly busy for Jones, what with Doctor Foster and theatre commitments. She played a mother whose daughter has been abused in a London West End production of Bryony Lavery’s harrowing play, Frozen, but she withdrew from the latter production in February 2018. She had suffered 'some sort of collapse backstage, mid-show' as The Guardian reports it.
"I look back and go: wow. I’m not surprised it affected me along the way," the actress said, recalling that frenetic time, and saying that "something had to give."
