Video: THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA Cast Unpacks Their Roles

So I play two characters. I play Veronica and Joan

Veronica is the mother of four young girls in 1950s Blackpool. She runs a guest house

I also play Joan, who is that eldest daughter, coming back in the 1970s

and she has been in California for about 20 years and is coming back home for the first time

So what I really love playing about those two is simply the extremes, you know, how different they are

Veronica is very in control of everything around her, and she is doing everything from a very, very loving desire

to keep her children safe. But it's a style of mothering that in this day

age we don't recognize very much. So to be able to go into that person who just seems to be so in control of her world

and then watch her, how she deals with the loss of control that she has to face is just fascinating

And then getting to play the repercussions of that is just, I mean, that's amazing

That's a dream come true. It's like this full circle arc. Absolutely

And I think that there's something very, very true to family relationships there, which is that

that idea of what your parents do in how they raise you for good or for ill

that you become a product of that, that there is no escaping that, that you are the formed version of what the decisions your parents made

and the subconscious ways in which they brought you up. Okay, so I play Gloria Webb

and our Gloria is a little bit of a tough one to law She may have she got a few scratch knees from the past and she become the sort of you know the veneer of the tough cookie

She's a really hard, determined, practical, mildly aggressive woman. When we meet her, and then of course during the course of the play

we find out why she is the way that she is, and, you know, she may or may not have a little bit of a broken heart

I play Ruby Webb. She is one of the web sisters, the four Webb sisters

She's the second youngest. And she is the sister who, she's very sensitive, but she covers that with sarcasm and humor

And she sort of bats problems away. And you kind of realize over the duration of the play

that Ruby is the most sensitized, but you would never know it to begin with

And she's the one that wants... She adores her older sister Joan

She's completely mythologised her and she just wants them all as sisters

to just come together and use this, the kind of the sad situation of their mum being ill

She wants to use it as a way to kind of get closer, which some of the other sisters don't want that

But Ruby does. I play Gillian Webb, who is the youngest of the four Webb sisters

By the time we meet Jill in 1976, she's been caring for their mum

who is very unwell with cancer. She's been doing that for quite some time on her own

in the house where the four of them grew up. So she's never left

And when we meet her, we realize that there's a lot of..

She's kind of trapped in the past, and she is the one who's probably most invested

in unlocking the mysteries of their shared past, and she has to convince one by one each of her sisters

that they have to go there and they have to deal with it So she might seem kind of It seemed kind of mousy and quiet but I think she really brave because it brave to look that stuff in the face and to try and deal with it So I play young Gloria and I love her very much

She is, I would say, quite complex, slightly challenged, but very, very passionate

and is kind of just throughout the play in the pursuit of love

and care from her sisters and her mother. I play young Jill, who's the youngest, so not really many problems when she's younger

She just loves her sisters, loves to dance and sing. I say she's quite like introverted when she's young

She just loves her reading, loves her crosswords and everything. Yeah, she's gorgeous to play, yeah

So I play young Ruby Webb. She is the second youngest of the Webb sisters

She's fun, she's full of life, she's so bubbly, and she just exerts happiness everywhere

So Aphelia Loverbond plays the adult Ruby Webb. And collaborating with her has been incredible

She is the sweetest human I've ever met. We just have an understanding with each other

that goes without saying. We've loved talking about all the different nuances

that we've created and magpied off of each other as well. One part of the rehearsal experience that I really, really valued

was we got to watch each other a lot, which helped massively with building our characters

we've spoke a lot about how Ruby laughs. That sounds silly, but she has such a distinct laugh that just exerts joy everywhere

and we both try and find that in the play. And I play young Joan, and I'm the eldest of the four web sisters

Joan is very cool, calm and collected, and I think a lot of things come naturally to her, this ease

and this kind of effervescent personality, but she also has such a strong bond with her sisters

and such a strong, deep love for them that she will do anything to protect them and make sure that they are happy and safe And I have the absolute privilege to playing a younger Laura Donnelly which I mean what a compliment But I think it the same with me if I just felt so lucky

I think being able to watch her has given me so many ideas

and so many things to take away and put into a younger version of her of how we see her end up where she is

But yeah, it's just been such a, it is a masterclass of just watching her at work

and do her thing. It is just an incredible privilege and an honour, yeah

I play two characters. I play Dennis, who's married to the character of Ruby, who's played by Filia

who's a simple man, that's all I'm going to say about him. And then I play a character called Jack Larkin

who's a sort of struggling comedian in the 1950s kind of musical tradition. So that's a lot of fun

A lot of bad gags. My two characters, I play a Mr. Potsu, is surely the best piano tuner in the world in the 1970s

And he knows it. He fully believes that. In the 1950s, my character is called Joe Fogg

He lives in the house. He plays music. He works with the girls and plays music with the girls and loves being a part of that family

I play Penny, who is a nurse, and I also play Biddy, who is a maid. And Penny is an end-of-life care nurse, and I think that that is an amazing profession, an amazing thing that not very many people can do

So I'm excited to be able to bring life to that story. I play Bill, who is father to two of the children in the show and husband to Gloria

played by Leanne Best, who's a whirlwind. So keeping her in track is a challenge

But what I love about Bill would be he's an oak of a man. It's somewhat old-fashioned, but he's his dignity

That's what I like best. I play Luther St. John, and he's kind of the stirrer of the plot

So he comes in and changes everything, and then their lives move forward after that moment

So it's always fun to play that kind of role