Northern Ireland

Actress reveals cold feet as TV show starring James Nesbitt returns

The original Cold Feet cast from back row, David [Robert Bathurst], Adam [James Nesbitt], Jenny [Fay Ripley]. [Front row]: Pete [John Thomson], Rachel [Helen Baxendale] and Karen [Hermione Norris]
The original Cold Feet cast from back row, David [Robert Bathurst], Adam [James Nesbitt], Jenny [Fay Ripley]. [Front row]: Pete [John Thomson], Rachel [Helen Baxendale] and Karen [Hermione Norris] The original Cold Feet cast from back row, David [Robert Bathurst], Adam [James Nesbitt], Jenny [Fay Ripley]. [Front row]: Pete [John Thomson], Rachel [Helen Baxendale] and Karen [Hermione Norris]

HERMIONE Norris has revealed how nervous she felt about returning to her Cold Feet character after 13 years because she did not want to undo the affection felt for the show.

Norris is reunited with co-stars James Nesbitt, Fay Ripley, John Thomson and Robert Bathurst for a new series of the ITV drama about three couples which ran from 1997 to 2003.

Absent from the episodes will be Helen Baxendale, whose character died at the end of the last series.

Norris, who plays Karen Marsden, said: "It's that thing in life where you think 'Don't go back, just move forward'. It was so of its time and so loved I felt it may be best left because I wouldn't want to do anything that would have undone that. But this is a very different chapter of life."

The characters, who were in their 30s when viewers last saw them, are now 13 years older and the show will address how Nesbitt's character has gained more hair in that time.

Nesbitt has had a highly publicised hair transplant in the intervening years.

Thomson revealed it was Nesbitt's idea to make a joke about it, adding: "It had to be addressed."

Thomson, who plays Pete Gifford, said he had been overwhelmed by the hunger for new episodes of the show, saying: "The demand for the show is quite incredible. In the last 13 years on a weekly basis a complete stranger would stop me and ask me when it is coming back.

"It's quite extraordinary, I've not been involved in other projects that have that kind of reaction. The hunger for it has always been there."

He added there has never been a better time to bring the show back, saying: "The timing is perfect. The world isn't in a great place as we know and I think there is a great need for nostalgia, to look back on the days when everything seemed OK.

"With everything being so troubled in the big picture, something feel-good and aspirational and positive is nice, I think the timing couldn't be better."

Ripley, who plays Pete's wife Jenny, said of returning to her character: "It was like bumping into an old friend and I was delighted to bump into her. I was very relieved that I still recognised her."

On reuniting with her castmates, she added: "I thought it might be really hard but within a minute it was the same, it was like stepping back in time.

"We had a shorthand when we worked together which is really handy because you normally have to be really polite but we didn't have to do any of the polite shit.

"You can come in and say, 'I've got a blooming headache, the menopause is giving me gip, let's get on with it'. It's like family, you just know each other."

For Norris, the highlight was returning to work with a cast of people her own age.

She said: "I really appreciated being with my generation as an actor and as Karen. I find as a woman I love being older, with the weight of experience you don't have as a 30-year-old and I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Cold Feet will return to ITV this autumn.