“I’ve never been to a place where I felt so isolated – I thought it was magical!”: Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Tom Edge and Jake Lushington on Vigil season three

BBC’s Vigil is back for a third season, with more twists and turns than ever. This time around, DCI Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) and DS Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) investigate a murder in Svalbard, with possible links to Russia and China. Following a special screening at the BFI Southbank, the cast and crew sat down to discuss the show’s thrilling return.

This season, it’s Kirsten who is thrust into the heart of the action in Svalbard while Amy investigates in the UK. Leslie opened up about the progression of her character’s arc, and the consequent shift in her dynamic with Amy. “I think within her there is a kind of urge, not just to prove to herself, but also to the love of her life, that she can do it and that just because she is a mum, she is still back to who she was prior to motherhood, and she’s a very good detective.”

“Amy can be a pain in the butt,” said Jones. “She does think that she knows best. I mean she’s a high rank…Day one, going back, it’s difficult because as the story progresses you have two women who are identified by their career and have been for so long and that really want to better themselves and grow.”

Series creator Tom Edge agreed, stating, “To turn the dynamic of the two lead characters on its head and to continue to explore that relationship – it’s a joy.”

Jones noted that, as Amy and Kirsten grew closer, so did she and Leslie. “Rose has been through two pregnancies in the seasons. We bonded over that because they’re big life experiences,” she reflected, with Leslie joking that Jones “held her hormones”.

“Certainly, it comes down to the fact that Suranne is utterly divine!” Leslie said of the pair’s chemistry, adding, “I feel for me that the bond between them has grown so much by this series, because I’ve been able to chill with you more.”

The series was filmed on location in Svalbard, which proved a more enjoyable experience than producer Jake Lushington had expected. “It had brilliant support for film crews because Mission Impossible had filmed there, because loads of other things had filmed there,” he explained. “So, actually, when we investigated it, it wasn’t as hard as I think we all thought…Apart from the polar bears and people with guns stopping the polar bears from biting us if they turned up! Actually it was really, really exciting and efficient and pleasurable.”

Leslie, who is hardly new to filming in frosty locations, quipped, “I have never been to a place where I felt so isolated – I thought it was magical!”

Vigil is by no means a simplistic espionage thriller, exploring, as Edge put it, “a theme of divided loyalties and complex loyalties.” He continued, “And that can be whether you are your own moral agent in a situation or if you’re an officer with people in your charge, but in [Amy and Kirsten’s] case you’re also parents to children in common and partners in all senses. So I think there’s push and pull between your loyalty to institutions, to nations, and to your conscience.”

“It was a different way of looking at what’s happening,” added Lushington. “Not just about climate crisis, but also about power struggles between huge countries, including Britain. And who’s in the right? And who’s in the wrong?…Is it easy or hard to tell that? And I think that that is really important for us to think about these days, because the good guys, the bad guys are quite hard to sort of identify.”

Antonia Georgiou

Vigil season three is released on BBC iPlayer on 30^th August 2026.

Watch the trailer for Vigil season three here: