'Jumping into the ocean in the dark, not being able to see what’s under there, I couldn’t think about it, I just did it. But inside I was freaking out.' Scottish Bafta winner Abigail Lawrie makes waves with new TV drama No Escape

From a school play at the Edinburgh Fringe to working with Tim Roth, David Tennant and Michael Sheen, the Aberdeen-born actor is making waves with No Escape, her new TV drama set on a yacht in The Philippines

Aberdeen-born Abigail Lawrie stars as runaway Lana in Paramount+ thriller No Escape, which is set on a luxury yacht in The Philippines. Pic: Joseph Sinclair

Grey skies and gloom, headlines, deadlines and relationship woes getting you down? How does escaping from it all to sail around South East Asia on a luxury yacht, partying on board all night then dropping anchor at tropical beaches fringed by palms to laze away the hangover sound? Like a slice of paradise?

But think again, as nothing is as perfect as it seems and there really is No Escape, as the title of the new Paramount+ series starring Scottish BAFTA winner Abigail Lawrie hints.

“It was beautiful, amazing,” says Lawrie, now back in her London base after spending several months filming in Bangkok and The Philippines. “I doubt I’ll ever do a job like that again, because we filmed on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Even I was jealous watching it, and I got to be there! I thought my god I’d love to be back there in the sun with that tan,” she says.

“It was such a unique experience. I’ve never done a job like it. We shot for about seven months in Thailand and most of it was on a boat in the middle of the sea which was just mad, and beautiful. Some of the locations we were in were just unbelievable. We flew between Phuket and Bangkok and shot in a studio in Bangkok and on the streets. I’d never been to Thailand before so it was a huge experience, amazing.”

Alongside Rhianne Barreto (The Outlaws), the 26-year-old Aberdeen-born actor plays one of two friends, Lana and Kitty, who seek refuge on a yacht to avoid their problems in the UK, but it turns out their troubles have only just begun and not everything in paradise is plain sailing.

“No Escape grips you straight away, is immediately enthralling, with lots of secrets and dangers to be revealed as it unfolds, and lots of twists and turns. That’s what I liked about it when I first read it and I think viewers will too. It offers escapism because of the story and locations and the vibrant look of it all. I hope people are hooked and want to binge it.”

Adapted from the novel No Escape by Sunday Times bestseller Lucy Clarke, No Escape takes the viewer on a sea voyage from one cliffhanger to the next in the seven-part Philippines-set that also stars Susie Porter and Jay Ryan.

No Escape: (l-r) Joseph (Narayan David Hecter, Heinrich (Elmo Anton Stratz), Aaron (Jay Ryan), Lana (Abigail Lawrie), Kitty (Rhianne Barreto), Denny (Sean Keenan) and Shell (Colette Dalal Tchantcho) Pic: New Pictures Ltd/Paramount Global

“The character I play, Lana, doesn’t say a lot at first; she’s a bit of a watcher and an observer, and that was really interesting to play. Also fewer lines to learn!” she laughs, “I also liked the relationship between Kitty and Lana, because it’s a really complex friendship so yeah, I was hooked straight away.”

After discovering acting as a teenager, Lawrie, who won a Scottish BAFTA for best actress in 2021 for her performance alongside Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks in Sky Atlantic crime drama Tin Star (2017–2020), first performed in public in a school production at the Edinburgh Fringe when she was 14. She was still a student in 2015 when she made her professional acting debut in the BBC adaptation of JK Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy and then hit the stage in Sharman Macdonald’s play When We Were Women. With more work on offer, Lawrie opted for learning on the job rather than drama school and went on to appear on the big screen in Our Ladies, and on TV in Tin Star and the award-winning Murdered For Being Different. More recently, before heading to Thailand to film No Escape, she appeared in another JK Rowling adaptation, Strike: Troubled Blood.

Arriving in Thailand Lawrie threw herself into the role of the risk-taking Lana, quite literally, as one sequence required her to jump from the yacht into the ocean and swim in the middle of the night.

“It was so scary, my heart was beating, there was so much adrenaline. I had to jump off the boat into the sea first and we could only do one take and couldn’t rehearse it. Once I’d jumped in I had to swim to a barge and then back, so yeah, it was a mad experience. Luckily there was no real strong current, but just the dark, not being able to see what’s under there, I couldn’t think about it, I just did it. I wanted to seem casual, this is fine, it’s not a big deal, but inside I was freaking out.”

Abigail Lawrie and Rhianne Barreto on the run and sailing the high seas in No Escape, from Paramount+ Pic: Paramount+ Nut Jirathit/New Pictures Ltd/Paramount Global

So blue skies, luxury yachts, dangerous secrets, was there anything about No Escape that related to Lawrie’s real life?

She laughs. “To be honest, not really. A lot of it was very, very far from my life. Well, I guess the friendships maybe, because female friendship is a huge part of my life, but a lot of the high drama is very far from real life. Thankfully. That’s a good thing.”

Jumping into other people’s dramas is what makes acting such a compelling occupation for Lawrie, who confesses she was shy as a teenager until she discovered acting.

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Abigail Lawrie as Finnoula in Our Ladies (fourth left), with Marli Siu, Tallulah Greive, Sally Messham, Rona Morison, Eve Austin. Pic: PA Photo/Sky Originals.

“It’s such an amazing part of the job to get to play people who are so different and also learn new things and go to places like Thailand. Living there for months and working with the crew out there, I learned a lot. And the food was unreal, so good. I definitely missed that when I got back because I’m a terrible cook. I would try and make it for myself and it just wasn’t happening.”

But even blue skies and top Thai food can pall and by the end of filming Lawrie was happy to head home to her London base.

“By the end we were just tired, I missed friends and family and my own bed. But before that we were so busy it just flew by and my family and one of my friends were able to visit which was the best.”

Lawrie has experience of working far away from home after filming several seasons of crime drama Tin Star, in which she played Tim Roth and Genevieve O’Reilly’s daughter, in Calgary, Canada.

“Calgary was amazing, the first season of that was the first time I’d left home and lived on my own so it was a huge experience. And again, beautiful, huge landscapes, everything was so vast and big. It was a pleasure to go and live there for so long.”

As with each of the jobs Lawrie has done, Tin Star saw her learning on set from the actors around her and building on her expertise.

Abigail Lawrie with Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks in Sky Atlantic crime drama Tin Star (2017–2020), the role that won her a Scottish BAFTA in 2021. Pic: Sky Atlantic

“Because I’m so young and so new, I’ve learned so much on every job and been fortunate enough to work with some amazing actors. Just being able to just watch - because I didn’t go to drama school or anything, so didn’t have any training - I try and watch how everyone works, when they’re acting and when they’re not, how they are on a set. I find it fascinating. I’ve learned so much, first on Sharman Macdonald’s When We Were Women, and on Tin Star, which we did for three seasons. So four or five years I grew up doing it and it was like going to drama school. It was being chucked in at the deep end and I just grew so much as an actor I think, I hope. Genevieve O'Reilly who played my mum, I learnt so much from her - she’s just brilliant at what she does, and so kind and really looked after me.”

After No Escape Lawrie will be on the big screen in the forthcoming historical feature film, Canyon Del Muerto, directed by Coerte Voorhees, playing one of the first female archaeologists, Ann Morris, and this time she found herself on dry land.

“Yes, very dry land. We filmed in New Mexico. It’s a true story set during one of Ann Morris’s expeditions with her husband Earl, also an archaeologist, to Arizona and New Mexico in the 1930s. We got to go to some amazing places, a lot of native American land that not everyone is allowed to film in so it was a huge privilege. Because of Covid filming was very slow, so I had a lot of down time to explore and it’s an amazing, beautiful place that I never would have thought to go to.”

Playing a real person, as opposed to Lana in No Escape where Lawrie can add her own take on the character, comes with an extra level of commitment to authenticity.

“There isn’t a lot about Ann Morris out there - she published two books which I read but other than that you can’t find a lot of information although there’s a lot about her husband Earl who she worked alongside. She was a pioneer in a lot of ways, an amazing woman and I’m so glad her story is being told.”

“We did speak to a relative of her’s who told us what he knew of her and Earl and that was really helpful. You feel a responsibility to do their story justice, but also I feel like I had enough freedom to make my own interpretation. It was really cool to see photos of her and Earl and get the costumes together because they were amazing and it was a fascinating experience to create that world. I hadn’t done a lot of period stuff before so I enjoyed that.”

“Getting into the minds of people that are really different from you or have lived completely different lives in different times is fascinating to me. I love people and how people’s brains function. And also the people you meet and work with, it can be such a joy.”

Lawrie will also be appearing in the next series Good Omens alongside David Tennant and Michael Sheen, filmed in Edinburgh and Stirling, a welcome return home for her as the only other Scottish job she has had was Our Ladies.

“I’ve got cousins in Edinburgh and we filmed there and in Stirling so I got to see everyone and it was great.

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Was she a Good Omens fan before she got the part?

“I knew about it but hadn’t watched it so it was brilliant to find out about it. I had such a good time. They create such a world, the sets are unbelievable - I don’t know what I’m allowed to say - but the sets are amazing, the costumes are amazing, it was so much fun. I loved doing that. David Tennant is so kind, so brilliant, and so funny with Michael Sheen, that I was cracking up.”

It was also a return to the city where Lawrie first tried her hand at acting in the play written by her drama teacher.

“We had a random time spot, at 9am or something at The Space on the Mile, and we’d get up and perform the play then flyer for the rest of the day. Such an intense month. I think it was the first time I knew people could act as a job, that there were adults doing that. It was just the best experience. I’d love to do it again. I think I’m going to try and go up to the Fringe this year - but to watch and take it all in.”

And if any of the young performers at the Fringe were to ask Lawrie for advice, what has she learned so far that she’d pass on?

“I think just… learn your lines,” she laughs. “Which is like basic, but learn your lines. And keep everything as truthful as it can be and allow the environment you’re working in to make you feel present so that you can really listen to the other actors. Learn to collaborate with people and use your voice on set and if you have your own ideas it’s OK to put them forward. It should be a collaboration with everyone in the crew, the writers, the actors, the director. I love when it feels like everyone’s moving in the same direction and working together and championing one another. But that’s taken time. I didn’t realise at the beginning I could bring my own ideas to things, and it makes it more rewarding.

She also has advice about an actor’s life off set, carving a path in a competitive industry.

“Find something else you’re really interested in outside of it because there are going to be times when you’re not working and you maybe feel a bit at a loss. A lot of people have said to me find a hobby, find something else you’re really into which is really good advice, because you’ve got to look after your self-esteem and having a full life outside is important. That’s what I’ve learnt for sure. There are a lot of things that can sometimes feel out of your control, so the things that you can control, just enjoy them.”

With her career established and the work coming in, Lawrie is looking forward to the next opportunity while still amazed at how school drama classes took her to where she is now.

“It’s mad. I don’t really know what else I would be doing if it wasn’t acting. Probably something really random. I don’t know. I was so young when I started, it just kind of felt like what I wanted to do. I should probably come up with a plan B just in case… I feel really lucky because it wasn’t really a career that I knew could be a career because I didn’t know anyone who did it, so I just always feel like wow, this is really great that I get to do this as a job, because it doesn’t always feel like a job at all.”

No Escape will premiere on Thursday, May 18th as a boxset drop on Paramount+

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