In The Flatshare, a television adaptation of Beth O’Leary’s bestselling novel of the same title, Tiff, a lovable, recently-heartbroken millennial, finds an elusive, affordable room of one’s own in London’s notoriously-difficult housing market, but it comes with a catch: she tag-teams in the flat’s one bed with night shift health worker, Leon, whom she has never met. It’s a tantalising premise, and one that Jessica Brown Findlay – best known as Downton Abbey’s Lady Sybil Crawley – more than does justice to.
Arriving to speak to me on Zoom, it’s clear that Jessica has adopted Tiff’s trademark wardrobe of bright-coloured, patterned clothing. For our interview, the then-eight-months-pregnant actor wears a turquoise peasant tunic with a diamond pattern on the collar. She’s speaking to me from a bedroom, though presumably one she shares with her actor husband Ziggy Heath rather than a complicated swapping arrangement.
While she’s doing publicity for The Flatshare, Jessica was speaking to me during a period of well-earned rest before giving birth – since filming wrapped in late May 2022. She has since announced the arrival of her and Ziggy’s twin baby boys on 5 November, which she announced earlier this month on Instagram – the birth following a gruelling four rounds of IVF which she spoke openly about on International Women’s Day this year.
Hello Jessica! You're giving me absolute Tiff energy today in your bright turquoise top.
I know. It's actually really ‘her’! That's so funny.
That settles it: you're the perfect person to play Tiff, both on-screen and off! What was your favourite part of portraying your character?
I enjoyed playing someone who comes in hard nosed. It’s not that she’s cold… she clearly has a lot of vibrancy, but at the point you are meeting her in a moment of chaos in her life. It’s that feeling of when you think everything is working out, but it’s actually falling apart. I enjoyed that side of Tiff because it resonated with myself and girlfriends of mine when we were talking about that kind of storyline. Generationally, it feels like the first generation where you’ll make a phone call to a parent and they're like, “Oh my God, are you engaged?” But it's like, “No, I've actually moved out… on my own. And I’m starting again.” There’s an exhaustion and insecurity to that, but also a freedom as well.
"We're trusting our story to someone else."
Tiff and Leon have a very unusual flat-share arrangement. Did you think there was almost a comment there on the UK housing market – specifically in London, where The Flatshare is set – and how ridiculous it’s all got?
What I think it speaks to massively is the relentlessness of cities –of being a young professional in a city now, and how it doesn’t mean what it meant 30 years ago. It doesn't look like a Nora Efron movie anymore. Maybe that’s what Tiff imagined it might be. It's important to note though, that Tiff is someone who is choosing. She wants her independence and to live in what feels like her own space after this breakup. And she doesn't want to go home and she doesn't want flatmates but those things are options. She's choosing this: it's not circumstantial, it's by choice.
Absolutely. Because there's that conversation with her friend very early on in the series where she’s like, ‘You could be in a flat share!’ And she says, ‘No, I want to be alone with my feelings right now.
Yes, she’s stubborn. But there’s something really joyful about that stubbornness.
You sort of answered this question as soon as you got on the Zoom call, but one of the most endearing things about Tiff is her dress sense and her love of bold colours and all of that. How's that rubbed off on you?
Massively. I took home as much of Tiff’s wardrobe as I was allowed. Charlie Jones, our costume designer, is just an incredibly talented woman. She brought that strong sense of self of Tiff, that vibrancy and colour, into the story. I loved her big shoes and skirts and tights throughout the winter (she knows, with a good coat, you can wear anything underneath!) and the amount of rings she wore… we were constantly accessorising things.
What was your favourite piece of clothing of Tiff’s, and were you able to take it with you when filming ended?
I only took a couple of T-shirts and a dress and a pair of shoes, so it was very restrained considering how many wardrobe pieces we had to pick from. But my favourite outfit was the beautiful blue suit she wears in one scene… that was amazing, but it definitely couldn't just come home with me.
One of the sweetest things about the story is how Tiff and Leon is how they fall in love via leaving each other Post-It. Do you think there's something to be said still for that sort of old-fashioned letter-writing element playing out?
I'd never seen anything like that, and visually it works so beautifully. It helps when you take tech out of it… because that makes it feel like you can contact someone any time of the day, right? On the phone, you can call at the wrong moment. You can be texting when they're at work, et cetera. So the idea of having a form of communication that is based in this one space suddenly feels very intimate. The last person to touch it was that person, it’s their handwriting, the way they express themselves… that nuance has a huge romanticism to it. It's definitely something that resonated for me, as I’m a big letter writer. There was a period where I was away a lot filming on location, and I’d send postcards or letters to friends and family. I started doodling on the envelopes too. It’s so nice receiving a letter – it feels like it’s the only nice thing that can come through your door, amongst all the bills you get sent.
And how turning thirty was like a ‘whip’ to get her "sh*t together."
One of the not-so-sweet elements of The Flatshare is Tiff’s relationship with her toxic ex. She’s obviously out of the relationship, but there’s that lasting connection and a sense it might intensify. How was that to portray?
When you first meet Tiff, she's someone who is naturally incredibly warm, trusting, loving, optimistic, but she's been blindsided by what's happened with Justin. Then a very quick turnover of 24 hours later, he's got a new girlfriend living in their house, and she's looking at pictures thinking, suddenly someone's in my life. That completely flummoxes her. For a while, you feel frustrated that she keeps relying on this person's approval or attention because he's clearly not a good guy. But slowly, without giving too much away, you start to discover this is not just that she's hopelessly hung up on this guy… he has made it that the only way she can feel loved is via him. She's lost that sense of self, which is why all those other relationships, whether they be work or personal friendships, are dissolving around her because she can't give them the real focus that she would normally. That kind of controlling behaviour is a massive red flag. When you realise that the reason she's acting the way she is is because of that, you start to really empathise with her decisions rather than feeling frustrated and annoyed by her.
Would you term it as coercive control? Is that how you were phrasing it on set?
Yeah, I think it's coercive control. It's a form of emotional abuse whenever you are being cut out or shut out from your friends or family. He’s gaslighting her and controlling her life, and she doesn't know it. So this maddening feeling that she's having is real – and then she realises why.
It’s such an important theme – and it does seem like it’s only in the past few years that we’ve talked about it in a more nuanced way. And it all started with Love Island [which popularised the discourse around “gaslighting”]...
I was listening to a podcast about reality TV, and they were talking about how our attitude towards that kind of behavior has changed to the point of which now there'd be intervention. Whereas before it was like, this is standard entertainment. In The Flatshare, it’s woven in to a buoyant story that comes from a rom-com base. It breaks down a lot of romantic comedy tropes that are actually quite toxic. Which I found really interesting from the very first time I read the scripts.
Yeah. It's almost like the books of Marian Keyes: it’s sold as light but there's so much more below the surface. And how is it working with Anthony Welsh, who plays Leon?
We'd never worked together, but it was before, but it was wonderful. We rehearsed at the beginning, which was great because it took about eight weeks for us to do a scene together. So much of their lives at the beginning are completely separate [Tiff & Leon don’t meet for a large chunk of the book], so we'd like ships in the night when we were filming. He’d finish a scene, then I’d go in and do one.
Did the production team conspire to keep you apart?
I think it was purely schedule based. But it was very interesting to play that, to not really know what it was like. Because, when I was in the flat, it felt like my flat, Tiff’s flat, and he said the same. When he's in it, it's just his place. So when we first met and did a scene in the flat together, I was like, “What are you doing here?”
All six episodes of The Flatshare are now available to watch exclusively on Paramount+ UK, which is also available to Sky TV customers who have Sky Cinema.
