Sheridan Did you have an established long standing relationship with this
before getting involved in this?
Because it does feel like one of those films, a lot of kids.
It was like a rite of passage for a lot of kids.
Oh, massively. I love this film.
We used to watch at Christmas with my mum and dad and I was a huge fan of it.
And when I got the phone call saying that I'd been offered
the role of Jenny Atkinson's daughter in the railway, children return.
I was beyond excited.
I mean, it was hysteria in my house.
So yeah, it's a huge honor to be part of this film.
What does this material, this whole franchise,
if you can call it that, so mean to you?
I mean, it is such a huge part of your life.
The Railway children. Yeah. As a whole.
It has been a huge part of my life.
And it's kind of peculiar because it's it hasn't
it hasn't actually changed my career, although it kicked it off.
I have to say, you know, the film
that Lionel Jeffries made, I did it on television,
then I did the film and that had a huge opening.
But then it was it went away for a long period of time.
And then it came back when I returned to the UK
and I realized it had become a classic in the UK
because in America it didn't really take off. But
it's what is lovely about it is how,
first of all, Nesbit's story has survived through periods of time,
but how this particular return of the three children
looks at a different time, and therefore it looks historically at
in in 1905, which is where
Bobby comes from.
And we have that and then we move to 1945, but we've moved through the first
and Second World War, and that gives it a different kind of feeling
because where we were with the Water Burroughs and 1905 was
it was a world that was innocent and could have happy endings.
And where we are in 1945, it's a more difficult time,
but children give it great hope and that's their adventures that we're enjoying.
And I think it's you know, it's lovely to be seeing children's adventures.
And, I mean, it's one of those films where it's so impossible not to cry.
I mean, not even in this one.
This one, too.
I was the beginning of it when you see these children
being torn away from their families.
But I was going to ask,
do you cry when you watch the old one?
Because you know that scene, a famous scene, because it is one of those
almost like a cliche to say.
It's when they see that everyone goes too.
But do you cry?
I've cried when I've read it, actually, rather than when I've seen it,
because I know what Lionel's done there,
and I think he's done an extremely beautiful job.
And I think part of, you know, when I if I watch the Railway Children,
there's a nostalgic emotional response to it,
which is, oh, you know, it's all that time ago.
And yet it's still, you know, it's it's exists still.
I was sort of taken aback by how impressive the kids were in this.
I mean, how was it what was it like that on set?
But you still just how how are you guys so good at that age?
They're incredible there it is.
It's extraordinary. That's talent.
And what Morgan, the director, did with them, which was let them improvise.
So loads of those lines that were in the film were just off the cuff fluently.
And so they captured the magic that I think,
you know, they're not precocious at all.
They're genuine little group of friends and the heart.
I think, just comes across on the screen, doesn't it?
It was just.
Yeah, and it's lovely to play with because they're so, you know,
they're so into their imagination and creating that world for themselves.
And they draw you into that.
So, you know, as an actor, you,
you, it's it becomes much easier because I just wanted to play with them.
There's it was quite infectious.
The outlook they have absolutely. Yeah.
And because you obviously we've both of playing the character you
she's the sort of she's the sort of Bobby. Yes.
Did you feel a responsibility to impart any wisdom or
did you want to give a bit of space to find her own voice?
I would I would never impart any was because there's nothing I could say
can give her.
What's lovely is just I was hugely impressed just to sit and watch.
I remember that one of the first things I did was actually the scene was the scene
at the very end and just seeing the way she handled that so beautifully
and so emotionally and so honestly, I mean, just completely inhabiting it,
which is, you know, something that you can't teach someone
who tell somebody about and just something I could admire.
And I know it's become a bit of a sort of cliched slogan on the side of mugs
these days, but that kind of keep calm and carry on
spirit, it's something that you that is is prevalent in this sort of title.
And do you think that that's something that is accredited
to this particular subject, that she's our human nature to, to be like
that, to find the calmness and the and diligence and ability
to keep going in the face of quite so striking adversity.
I think Second World War is, you know,
it did ask people to
rely on one another, support one another,
help each other because we didn't know what that outcome was going to be.
And each Christmas was like, we can look forward to Christmas.
The next Christmas is going to be free of this.
And it didn't happen in the years of of the war.
And that adversity does bring a kind of a strength
is that's different I think from from the 1905 one
that a family surviving together because father's away and it's a different thing
I think as a nation we're very stoic in that.
Yeah.
I mean obviously so many films we save from this
a period of stay in the trenches or the war rooms,
but we so forget about the incredible battles being fought on home soil.
And what we see through these films is an incredible sort of strength of,
of and maternal strength, as both mothers and women are back
in England, kind of keeping the country going.
That quite an important thing for you both to explore through this for this film,
what you're touching on two things
that one is just being able to keep things going.
And the women taking on the jobs and making sure things happen.
And the other is just keeping the home front and making sure that the
children are okay, that the
that they live with
some hope and they're in it and they're surviving with some enjoyment
in their lives, even though that they're facing adversity.
And we set about Bobby being a suffragette didn't.
Well that's that's a that's a historical thing
as opposed to. Yes.
For for me, it was very important.
See, Bobby had come from this world where she'd been suffragettes.
You see women's roles change and she would have been through quite a few changes.
And then, of course, Lily is going to be is going to take that further.
She's going to see women's roles change even more and as they could before I go,
because I mentioned how much the original film
and this will make me cry I was the film always gets you guys Tom said
brief encounter and brief encounter us about the 88 stage, which was amazing.
It's come up a couple of times.
So we've seen it's, you know, it's
oh, hello, little creature.
Oh, an old, old film.
any film that just always gets you.
Oh, oh, oh.
There are many the not as they touch one day
this won't be true no we've exhausted by the topic
you know whistle down the wind I thought was an extraordinary film
and that gets me.
I just have to hear the music from that and I'm often in,
but I've got to go with the railway children.
The original Jenny's daddy is just that's that the goose goose
go to, you know, the tissues.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
You were talking to us. Thank you. Thank you.