EXCLUSIVE: The Iris Affair’s Niamh Algar endured ‘frightening’ underwater scene on first day of filming
Niamh Algar had a baptism by fire on the set of her gripping new Sky thriller, The Iris Affair
The Iris Affair star Niamh Algar has recalled the “frightening” underwater scene she filmed on her very first day on set.
Irish actress Algar portrays the titular Iris Nixon in Sky’s new thriller from Luther creator Neil Cross, a brilliant recluse on the run from her former employers.
After solving a fiendish, global treasure hunt devised by wealthy investor Cameron Beck (played by Tom Hollander), she’s hired to crack an impossible code that would grant them access to an advanced supercomputer created to solve the world’s biggest problems.
However, Iris soon discovers that the computer’s creator Jensen Lind (Kristofer Hivju) feared it could have world-ending consequences, so she takes his cryptic cipher on the run and hides out in Italy.
Iris and Cameron’s cat-and-mouse game leads to several nerve-wracking encounters with mercenaries, bounty hunters and the police throughout this thrilling eight-part series.
At one point, Iris is forced to make a split-second decision and dive into a body of water to escape her pursuers, holding her breath for dear life.
Speaking exclusively to Reach, lead actress Algar revealed the risky sequence was one of the very first scenes she shot.
“Probably the first day I worked with Tom, that was the worst day of my life!” she initially joked.
“‘She joked’, when you write this,” Hollander chimed in, before adding: “You have to get very upset in episode eight.”
“[Iris] does get upset in episode eight,” Algar agreed, then remembered: “Probably the first day for me, filming, you know when they say ‘We’ll do stunts at the very end just in case’ because, you know, make sure you don’t kill the actor.
“Then, at the end, they’re like, ‘Ah, sure, go on, let ‘em get on the motorbike, it’ll be fine’.”
Despite productions commonly saving the most hazardous scenes for the final days of filming, Algar was actually thrown headfirst into one of her most physically demanding challenges of her career almost immediately.
She went on: “My first day, I had to go underwater in this harbour and there were all these tiny little crabs everywhere. They were everywhere.
“But I had to go underwater and open my eyes and look up and there was a drone flying above.”
Not only did Algar have to hold her breath while opening her eyes in the water for a key shot, but the producers made sure it was physically impossible for her to float back up to the surface.
Sky has cut the price of its Essential TV and 300Mbps fibre broadband bundle, but the deal expires on October 15.
“In order to stay underwater, especially in the sea because you keep floating, they had to put weights around my waist and then they had to pull me down," she explained.
“That’s frightening,” Hollander said, as Algar went on: “Yeah. And you kind of forget that you have a limited amount of oxygen and you’re trying to act and they’re trying to get the shot.
“That was day one. But the first day of filming is always tricky. It’s scary, because you’re trying to figure out who the character is and everyone’s speaking a different language because we shot it all in Italy, obviously. And you don’t know everyone’s name yet.”
Thankfully, Algar quickly got to grips with her latest sensational lead role and countless Sky viewers are expected to tune into the new thriller over the coming weeks.
The Iris Affair premieres Thursday, 16th October at 9pm on Sky and NOW.