Luke Evans and Sarah Solemani on Playing Married Couple in The Party

Luke Evans and Sarah Solemani play husband and wife Martin Gilmour and Lucy Farni in ITV's new five-part drama The Party, based on Elizabeth Day's widely praised novel. Luke, who also serves as executive producer, originally conceived the idea of bringing the book to the small screen, and Sarah was subsequently approached by World Productions, the team behind The Pembrokeshire Murders, to adapt the novel.

Sarah's Dual Role as Writer and Actress

Reflecting on his collaboration with Sarah, Luke said: "The wonderful part of this whole project, of course, is that very soon after she'd written a few episodes, she expressed an interest in playing Lucy." He added: "I thought it was just absolutely perfect. I thought, 'What a brilliant thing. Now we'll have the writer on set'."

"Any changes we want to make, or any conversations we want to have, there won't be any phones being picked up. We can just literally go, 'Sarah, what do you think of this?'" Luke explained. "That is exactly what happened. It was such a rewarding experience. She's immensely talented in so many different ways, and it was just wonderful to see her just fill this character, and also to build this on-screen relationship together. I loved every day I was on set with Sarah. It was really special."

Nicole Kidman's Recommendation

Sarah has since spoken out about her own experience of collaborating with Luke on the project. She revealed: "It was wonderful. I hadn't worked with him before. I was making a show with David E. Kelley, starring Nicole Kidman, and I asked Nicole about him because they had just done Nine Perfect Strangers together."

"I was really blown away by him in that - it was probably the performance that made me think 'I would love to work with this actor'. And so, I asked Nicole about him, and she said he was not only just a brilliant actor, but he was great fun. That counts for a lot. When you're jumping into bed with someone on a production and spending a lot of time together, it's important to have a good vibe on set – and he really had that."

"So it was Nicole's recommendation that made me trust that Luke would be excellent - and he was. He was very grateful for the scripts and really dedicated to making the best story we could."