Former No Angels actress Sunetra Sarker joined the cast of CASUALTY in December 2007 as doctor Zoe Hanna. Her ruthless character embarked on an affair with Jessica’s husband Sean which last series was exposed as she saved Maggie’s reputation during a coroner’s inquest. holby.tv talk to Sunetra about what’s in store for Zoe this series…
How does the series start for your character Zoe?
Zoe is still very selfish, very righteous, very rude and self-centred. She also loses her position of Clinical Lead at the beginning of the series which she’s pretty gutted about and she doesn’t have anyone to talk to it about because, ofcourse, she’s lost her friend – Jessica – because of her actions. She still feels bad about that and losing Clinical Lead, no-one knows who’s going to get the job at the beginning so there’s a question mark over that.
How have her recent actions affected Zoe?
She’s quite happy to be out of the hospital to begin with because she doesn’t want to be around everybody because they know her business. She feels like she exposed herself at the end of last series so she’s on a journey of trying to be responsible and be a better person – work out who she wants to be and she’s started to look more as to how to be a grown up.
How does Zoe react to Nick Jordan’s arrival?
Zoe is very much with Adam in that they don’t like this new person who’s turned up. He comes into resus and starts overuling both of them, telling them off like naughty school children which neither of their characters enjoy as they don’t enjoy being made a fool out of. They’ve decided they don’t like him but both deal with it differently. Zoe decides to keep her head down and take a wide birth but Adam chooses a different route. I think ultimately Zoe has a professional liking for Jordan as he’s good at his job but she’s obviously still smarting that he took her job.
What else is in store for Zoe this series?
Zoe gets involved with a patient and unwittingly gets quite attached with a mother and daughter storyline. Zoe’s not very maternal and is unsure if she can have children. We do find out during the series if she can or can’t and because she’s not very good with children, in her head anyway, she accidentally comes across a story that she has to be part of. She finds out she can get on better with children than she thought as a result. She gets put inside situations where she has to be an adult with a child and has to think and act responsible. For me that’s quite an interesting part of her to find out.
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I like massages at any opportunity – any breaks, any days off, I go to the relaxation centre! I also like eating out.
Do you get on well with the rest of the cast?
We leave in opposite directions when we leave the warehouse!!! Every now and again we hook up and have a meal – when everybody’s in we can arrange something like that. It’s a fun group and there’s nobody who wouldn’t take part in a wind up. All of us have quite good sense of humour. Michael French is good for a giggle. I play a few little games on set to keep us from being too bored when we’ve got hours and hours on Set. And everyone takes part in favourite films or pop quizzes. Gillian’s very good at crosswords – she keeps us going with questions or jokes every day. Tristan’s a bit boring, he likes to go on and on about facts that none of us are interested in! He’s very intelligent!
Tell us a fact about yourself that we may not know…
I collect Coca Cola things. My first job was in a Coca Cola commerical and they gave me all this free stuff. I was only 15. So I started a collection and people used to come into my room and before you know it everyone gets things for me. I haven’t had to buy hardly anything! I’ve got the whole encylopedia of Coca Cola!
