Hi Martina, congratulations on Things Like These. What was it about Veruca James that made you want to be part of this project?
Thank you! It’s such an honour to be part of this project. I’ve played the role of a mother in a few other projects, but Veruca was most certainly different. There was something about her that really stuck with me from the moment I read the script. She wasn’t written as someone who had all the answers— she was simply doing the best she could with what life had thrown at her, and that really moved me. Even while I was playing her, I could feel her pain, but also her strength. What really got me was that underneath all of that strength, there was a part of her that needed care too. I think that’s something so many of us can relate to. We spend so much time taking care of everyone else that we forget we’re human too.
In a lot of ways, I saw myself in Veruca—minus the children, as I don’t have any of my own. I understood what it felt like to carry things silently, to keep going even when life feels heavy, and to still find the courage to show up. That’s probably why playing her felt so personal. She wasn’t just a character to me; she definitely felt like someone I knew. And in some moments, she even felt like a version of myself.
Veruca carries so much emotional weight while trying to keep her family together. How did you prepare yourself to portray someone living with so much unspoken grief?
Life, honestly.
What’s interesting is that the timing of this project lined up with a season in my own life that was filled with grief and a lot of personal reflection. Over the last few years, I’ve experienced loss in different ways, and 2025 was especially challenging. By the time we started filming in January 2026, I felt like I was finally in a place where I was ready to let go of some of that weight. But before I could release it, I wanted to honour it. I wanted to let those experiences inform my work and allow myself to lean into Veruca’s emotional world. In a strange way, the last few years have become an unexpected teacher. They’ve deepened my understanding of grief—not just as something that follows the loss of a loved one, but as something that can come with the loss of relationships, dreams, versions of myself, and seasons of life I thought would look different. That gave me a much deeper well to draw from as an actor.
Not being a mother myself, I couldn’t rely on that lived experience. Instead, I leaned into what I do know—the feeling of carrying emotional weight while still trying to be present for the people around me, finding the strength to keep showing up when my own heart is heavy, and learning that vulnerability can be just as powerful as resilience. Those emotions felt universal to me, and they became my way into understanding Veruca.
One of Veruca’s biggest struggles is avoiding difficult conversations. Did you find that aspect of her relatable in any way?
Yes, absolutely!
There was a season in my life when I silenced and suppressed a lot of difficult things I was carrying. I convinced myself that if I just kept pushing through, everything would eventually work itself out, or disappear. But years of avoidance eventually caught up with me, and it led to an emotional, mental, and physical breakdown. It wasn’t until I started going to therapy that I learned how to lean into the hard conversations instead of running from them. I began to understand that vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s actually where healing begins. That season changed me in so many ways. It not only transformed how I saw myself and the people around me, but it also led me back to my faith, where I found a deeper and meaningful sense of peace, purpose, and healing.
It also shaped the work I do outside of acting. I started a business built on the belief that we shouldn’t have to suffer in silence. At the heart of it is creating spaces where people feel safe enough to be honest about what they’re carrying, ask for help, and know they don’t have to navigate life’s hardest moments alone. It’s rooted in vulnerability, because I’ve experienced firsthand how much freedom there is when we stop pretending we’re okay and start telling the truth.
Because of that, I have so much grace for Veruca. I never saw her as someone who was avoiding difficult conversations because she didn’t care. I saw a woman who was trying to protect the people she loved with the tools she had. Sometimes we avoid hard conversations because we’re afraid of what they’ll change, what they’ll uncover, or because we think we’re protecting the people around us from more pain.
That’s what made her so human to me. She’s flawed, she’s trying, and she’s carrying more than anyone realizes. I think so many people will see themselves in her because, at one point or another, we’ve all chosen silence over vulnerability. Her journey reminded me that healing often begins with the conversation we’ve been avoiding the most.
The series explores themes like resilience, family, love, and loss through a very unique blend of dark comedy and absurdism. What do you think makes this combination so powerful?
I think this combination is powerful because it’s true to life. Even in our darkest moments, life can still be funny. Laughter is a way to get us through grief sometimes, and sometimes the most absurd moments happen right in the middle of heartbreak. This series gives people permission to hold both at the same time.
I also think humour has a way of opening us up. It softens us enough to receive conversations about grief, loss, and healing that might otherwise feel too heavy. One moment you’re laughing, and the next you’re unexpectedly emotional—and I think that’s where the story really lands. It reminds us that joy and sorrow aren’t opposites; they often exist side by side.
That’s what makes this series so powerful. It’s honest. It doesn’t try to simplify the human experience or tell us how we’re supposed to grieve. It encourages us to witness these characters as they navigate life the best way they know how, and I think there’s something incredibly relatable in that.
Without giving away any spoilers, was there a particular scene that challenged you the most emotionally or technically?
There was one scene where the weight of everything Veruca had been carrying finally comes to the surface, and her children are on the receiving end of all the emotions she’d been trying so hard to contain. That was, without question, the most emotionally challenging scene for me.
Even before we filmed it, I had conversations with our collaborative director, Tobi Martin-Flemming, because I was wondering how I would lean into the emotional places the scene required. There were certain words and moments of escalation that felt uncomfortable for me, and I remember sitting with that for a while. I prayed about it, wrestled with it, and ultimately decided that if I was going to honour Veruca’s story, I had to trust the process and fully surrender to the moment.
When we finally filmed it, something shifted. It stopped feeling like I was performing and became something much more instinctive. The scene unlocked emotions that I think I had been carrying myself, and it became an unexpected moment of release.
I remember checking in with cast and crew to make sure everyone was okay. It was more about reading the room and seeing if anyone needed a moment, a breather, or even just a bit of space before moving on. A lot of us were kind of processing it together in real time, so those small check-ins felt important—like grounding each other after something that hit a lot deeper than expected. That was the kind of care that we experienced on set.
It reminded me that storytelling can do more than entertain—it can create space for people to feel, reflect, and sometimes even to release emotions they’ve been holding onto themselves.
Veruca is trying to protect her children while dealing with her own pain. How did you approach balancing her strength with her vulnerability?
I approached Veruca by thinking about how those two things—strength and vulnerability—aren’t really separate in her case. For me, her strength doesn’t come from being emotionally distant or unaffected; it comes from the fact that she’s still standing and still trying to protect her children while carrying a lot of personal pain. That tension felt like the clearest entry point into her character.
So instead of switching between strong and vulnerable moments, I tried to let them exist at the same time because I believe vulnerability is strength. Even in scenes where she’s being very controlled or decisive, I looked for what she’s holding back underneath that. And in moments where she’s more emotionally exposed, I didn’t want her to feel like she loses her footing completely—because I don’t think she ever does. There’s always that protective instinct running through her, even when she’s unraveling inside.
What helped was focusing on her as a mother first. That instinct to shield her children shapes everything she does, even when her own grief or fear is overwhelming her. It creates this constant push and pull, like she’s managing crises externally while also trying not to collapse internally. I found that the vulnerability actually makes her strength more meaningful, because it’s not effortless, but it’s something she’s actively fighting to maintain.
What was the atmosphere like on set while filming such emotionally intense moments mixed with dark comedic elements?
Even before we got to set, there was a sense that we were all holding something delicate. A lot of conversations happened ahead of time, and it wasn’t just about the scenes, but about how people were actually feeling about them. Because the material goes to some heavy places, there was this unspoken agreement that nobody would be left to just push through on their own. Everyone was checking in with each other in a pretty natural way.
We were also asked to create playlists for our characters, and that ended up being more helpful than I expected. It became a simple way to tap into the emotional world of the role before stepping into a scene—almost like a reset button that helped me land in the right headspace.
What surprised me most was how normal it all started to feel. We were just trying to stay honest in the moment, and sometimes honesty is heavy, and sometimes it’s funny in a way you don’t expect. In between takes, there was a lot of very ordinary human stuff—jokes, people sitting in silence, someone offering a snack, or just talking about life in general. That kind of simplicity really held everything together.
After spending so much time playing Veruca, was there anything about her journey that changed your own perspective on grief or family?
Yes, I think spending time with Veruca shifted how I think about grief, especially the way it doesn’t follow a clear path or a template. What I found through her is that grief can be very functional on the outside—people can still show up, make decisions, care for others—but internally it can be completely unprocessed or constantly evolving.
It also made me reflect more on family as this very imperfect, sometimes messy system of love and responsibility. Veruca isn’t experiencing grief in isolation; she’s still actively parenting through it, which complicates everything. I think I came away with a deeper appreciation for how often people don’t get the luxury of stepping away from their roles to grieve properly and that they have to carry both at the same time.
What do you hope audiences take away from Things Like These after watching the series?
I hope audiences leave with a sense that the story isn’t really about neat answers, but about the emotional complexity people carry behind closed doors. Things Like These is interested in what happens when ordinary life collides with extraordinary internal experiences and how people keep functioning, loving, and protecting each other even when they’re struggling in ways that aren’t always visible.
With Veruca, in particular, I hope viewers can sit with the idea that strength doesn’t always look clean or composed. It can also look like survival in real time—messy, contradictory, and constantly shifting; and it’s that instability, for me, that makes this story feel so human. I also hope there’s a kind of empathy that extends beyond her specifically, into the audience’s own understanding of the people around them. We rarely see the full picture of what someone is carrying.
The series doesn’t try to resolve everything, but it does try to make space for feeling all of it.
Finally, if you could describe Things Like These in just three words, what would they be and why?
Three words for me would be: Human. Duality. Love.
Human, because that’s the lens everything is filtered through—no one is simplified, and everyone is carrying something.
Duality, because joy and sorrow coexist. One doesn’t cancel the other out; they often arrive in the same moment, sometimes unexpectedly.
Love, because underneath it all, that’s still what brings people back to each other, even when it’s complicated or painful.
