Jo Joyner opens up about motherhood pressures ahead of release of new thriller Little Disasters ‘Can feel resentful’
Psychological thriller Little Disasters landed on Paramount Plus recently, with the six-part series based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Vaughan.
The thriller stars Jo Joyner, best known for her role as Tanya Branning in EastEnders. In a recent press interview, Joyner talked about the pressures of motherhood.
The series sees Jess, played by Diane Kruger, rushing her baby daughter Betsey to A&E with an unexplained head injury, leaving friend and doctor Liz (Jo Joyner) in a nightmare dilemma.
Police and social services quickly become involved, with Jess and Liz’s friends Mel (Emily Taaffe) and Charlotte (Shelley Conn) also embroiled in the drama.
A synopsis for the show reads: “Each of the women harbours judgments about each other, but these ultimately become judgments about themselves, all secretly whispering the same insidious question: Am I a bad mother?
“In a desperate search for the truth, everyone comes to question what really happened to Betsey, and what Jess’ family is truly hiding.”
Speaking to GB News and other media, Joyner talked about her character and drew on her own experiences of being a mother.
“Liz spends her life thinking Jess is getting it all right and that actually, I suppose, with some women that can feel a bit resentful,” she reflected.
The actress continued: “I mean, we did have a mother at my school who, when their kids were little, I would call ‘mother of the year,’ to my kids, who would then go, ‘stop it, mum, she’s lovely.’
“And I’d go, ‘She is lovely, I know, she gets it all right.’ But actually the same mother is the one that I relied on to tell me it was sports day, or, you know, Book Day, or the things that I was always missing because I was working.
“And I think they have that dynamic with Jess and Liz, where they really support each other and hold each other up, but equally, somehow it makes them feel less at times as well.
“And that’s really magnified when they’re in the Provence, because Liz’s parenting style is maybe a little bit more relaxed.”
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The Ackley Bridge star later added: “I asked myself what I would do [in Liz’s situation].
“And it’s a difficult one, isn’t it? Because we’ve all got friends who are fabulous mums, and you know, Jess is to Liz, the mother of the year she would like to be.
“She would aspire to be as good and kind and caring and thoughtful and remember everything and all the things that Jess is, and yet it doesn’t make sense. The injury doesn’t add up.
“And Liz has worked so hard to become a doctor and to get where she is. It wasn’t her natural line from birth, you know, and she cares about her career a huge amount, sometimes too much.
“And so there’s kind of… There is no dilemma, really, she’s always going to make that call, I think, because, on a professional front, she has to.”
Kruger also opened up on the series, sharing the “difficulty” of the tense drama. Her character also experiences intrusive thoughts in the series, adding to her stress.
Discussing how it felt to film the heightened scenes, Kruger replied: “It was difficult at first. I remember I wasn’t quite clear how we were going to film that, you know, how do you visualise a thought?
“So I had to rely a lot on camera doing that work for me, it got easier over time to then kind of snap in and out of it.
“It was challenging, also because the way we shot the show, we had to go back and forth so I felt like, for me, that was tough, but it got easier over time.”
Little Disasters is available to watch on Paramount Plus.