Suranne Jones: 'Filming The Crimson Field made me cry'

(Image credit: BBC/Todd Antony)

Suranne Jones was moved to tears by her new role in BBC1's First World War drama The Crimson Field.

The series is the 35-year-old actress's first period drama and sees her play spirited nurse Joan Livesey, who joins the staff at a field hospital in northern France which cares for those who are injured at the front.

The Crimson Field has been meticulously researched and is filmed on a purpose-built set in Wiltshire, and one scene in particular made her feel very emotional.

"I don't want to sound too silly about it, but there was one day where they said, 'Action' and there was one of our supporting artistes had pretend blood on him. But he couldn't actually see where he was going because he had been bandaged up and he was just left wandering and no one had told him where to go," Suranne tells TV & Satellite Week.

"It was weird, but I started crying and I grabbed this poor guy’s hand and he was just happy for me to guide him to a bed. It just really made me wonder, should a big disaster happen, how would I react? I like to think I'd roll my sleeves up and get on with pretty much anything and in the show there is all this horror coming in, but they group together and support each other."

The Crimson Field premieres on Sunday on BBC1.

Caren has been a journalist specializing in TV for almost two decades and is a Senior Features Writer for TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and What’s On TV magazines and she also writes for What to Watch.

Over the years, she has spent many a day in a muddy field or an on-set catering bus chatting to numerous stars on location including the likes of Olivia Colman, David Tennant, Suranne Jones, Jamie Dornan, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi as well as Hollywood actors such as Glenn Close and Kiefer Sutherland.

Caren will happily sit down and watch any kind of telly (well, maybe not sci-fi!), but she particularly loves period dramas like Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and The Crown and she’s also a big fan of juicy crime thrillers from Line of Duty to Poirot.

In her spare time, Caren enjoys going to the cinema and theatre or curling up with a good book.