Reunion star Rose Ayling-Ellis shares why working on BBC's upcoming revenge thriller was "refreshing" compared to some of her other roles.
Ayling-Ellis, who stars alongside Bad Sisters' Anne Marie-Duff and lead actor Matthew Gurney, spoke to Digital Spy of her experience working on the bilingual British drama that features British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken English, stating: "It was refreshing, something that I felt like I could really relax and be in my element.
"A lot of the crew everywhere were deaf actors. There were just so many of us, to the point where the hearing crew and the hearing people were learning so much about awareness that they had to be almost on the same level. They even started signing to each other."
She went on to add: "It didn't make me feel different."
Reunion is centred around deaf ex-prisoner Daniel Brennan (Gurney), who, having recently been released, sets off on a path for redemption whilst seeking the truth about the events that led to his arrest.
Eddie Marsan, who also stars in the show, celebrated the storytelling, telling Digital Spy: "When characters are on the periphery of stories, they can only be binary. They can only ever be saints or sinners or whatever. If you put them in the centre of the story, then they become complex, and that becomes drama.
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"They're no longer somebody with a disability, somebody who's deaf. They're human beings, and that's something we all identify with."
Marsan went on to praise Gurney's performance, saying: "When you see [Gurney] sign, he's really expressive, but as an actor, he's got this incredible ability just to think thoughts and not do anything, and we know what he's thinking. And that's by someone who has to communicate physically all the time.
"But he trusts and has confidence to know that if I just think the thought, they will know what I'm thinking, and that's a brilliant achievement."
Ayling-Ellis shared that she "hopes so many [people] will watch it and feel like 'this is my story that's been represented on TV.'"
She continued: "It means so much to me because what I'm hoping is that it becomes popular and then it becomes well watched, and then there'd be demand for more stuff at this."
Reunion will premiere on BBC One on Monday, April 7, at 9pm.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
