Call The Midwife stars Megan Cusack and Ella Bruccoleri opened up about their off-screen friendship and the surprising moment they were starstruck.
The actors, who play midwife Nancy and Sister Frances, spoke to Lorraine Kelly on her ITV daytime show earlier today about their friendship – including revealing they box on set between takes – and how much they love the show.
With a whole host of megastars appearing on the series over the years, it was Peppa Pig they were most starstruck by – 10-year-old Amelie Bea Smith who voices the porcine cartoon had a part in the latest series.
Ella said, “Megan went wild.” Megan explained, “Amelie was on set and we’d been working with her for like a week and it was her last day or our last day working with her, and one of the crew said, ‘Do you know she’s Peppa Pig?’ I was like, ‘What?!'”
Ella added: She’s so unassuming as well.”
“Did she not come on set and say, ‘Excuse me, everybody bow down, I am Peppa Pig?'” asked Lorraine.
“She could have done that,” said Ella. “She could so easily have been precocious, but she is so humble. Megan said: “I went over and I was like, ‘Were you really going to leave and not tell us that you are Peppa Pig?’ and then she was like, ‘Do you want me to do some of the lines?’ and I was like ‘Yes please!'”
Megan talked about her life as part of the Cusack acting dynasty, saying her parents Niamh Cusack and Jeremy Irons encouraged her to consider other professions.
“There’s enough of us already, really!” she said when Lorraine asked about her going into the ‘family business’. “My parents were always like plumbing, electrician, hairdresser because you’re always in work – and I was like, ‘No, let me give this a go’
“You do grow up thinking it’s a magical world and then you’re hit with the reality that it’s full of rejection, but lots of it is still magical.”
Ella revealed that people are shocked when she does something naughty, explaining, “I think people think I am Sister Frances – that happens when you’ve played a character for a while. I think people expect me to be like her and her being a nun – when I swear or do naughty things, people think, ‘How dare Sister Frances?’ but I don’t think I’m like her at all in real life.”
Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV and ITV Hub
To watch the show in full visit itv.com/hub
