How aligned is the series with true events?
It’s all based on facts – police videos, police reports, conversations with Chloe, other evidence. Our job was really just to show the emotional truth behind that.
How did you go about preparing to play Chloe? Did you meet her, and did you have access to psychologists or police resources related to her case?
I watched every single TV appearance Chloe made, and I also watched some police videos that I was given access to, including one where she went back to the farmhouse where she was held captive, and that was really informative. We then recreated that video in the series.
As an actor, you try and gain mannerisms, the voice and the character – but it wasn’t until I actually met Chloe that I felt like the character came together. It was being able to talk to her in person that allowed me to fully understand her a bit more.
What did you guys talk about?
We spoke about lots of different things – we did speak about what happened to her in 2017 and we about the media. But we also had conversations about her favourite music, her favourite biscuit, where she likes to do her shopping. And all of those things added just as much to the performance as finding out what happened to her at the time.
What’s so great about Chloe is that she doesn’t want to be defined absolutely by what happened to her. So being able to talk to her about things outside of that was so great. And it really allowed me to jump into the character with nothing held back.
The series also draws on how Chloe’s job as a glamour model made some people question her story, as well as how she reacted to her trauma – what do you hope it does for conversations around victimhood and believing women in particular?