EW: Let’s start before Broadchurch. What was each of your all-time favorite mystery show?
ANNA GUNN: We always said Cagney & Lacey was our inspiration. That was something that made us laugh nonstop, not because this is like Cagney & Lacey, though we could be a team like that—
DAVID TENNANT: And I’m playing Tyne Daly.
GUNN: Yeah, I’m the blonde and you’re the brunette. So that’s my ridiculous answer.
TENNANT: I’d go with Murder One. That was such a novelty because it was one story told over a number of episodes, like Gracepoint.
GUNN: That was great.
Is there anything you see actors doing in detective shows that you tried to avoid?
GUNN: I interviewed a couple different people and went on a ride-along. They pointed out clichéd things on TV shows, and I think the major thing for me was that so much of being a good detective is watching and listening very carefully and less about putting overt pressure on a suspect. It’s not really the way that’s done in the real world. So much of it was really about watching and listening and being an observer rather than cliché about the hard-boiled detective strong-arming anybody.
TENNANT: Because the story is as much an emotional story as it is a procedural story, and as much about people as murder, hopefully you avoid cliché by being true to that emotional life.
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