This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

Alice and Jack’s relationship could be described as anything but ordinary. Love’s unpredictable agenda has these two unfortunate lovers fielding the whims of the heart in a world attuned to normalcy. They’ve tried being together but found it almost as unsustainable as being apart. After years of separation and reunion, collision and avoidance, Alice and Jack have settled on being a part of each other’s lives, without officially being together.

By Episode Five, Alice reveals to Jack that she wants to become a mother and raise a child on her own. While in a fertility clinic with Jack by her side, they impulsively take matters into their own hands. And much to their delight, it’s a success.  

CLIP

Jack: Hello. Are you alright?

Alice: So funny. Your guys can swim.

Jack: Wahoo!! Alice! Comhgairdeachas! Comhgairdeachas!

Alice: What are you saying?

Jack: That’s Irish for congratulations.

Alice: Jesus, that takes so long to say.

Jack: I know, I know.

But as we’ve come to expect with this bittersweet love story, every tender moment experienced by Alice and Jack always brings with it an unexpected guest, an inevitable heartbreak that follows in its wake.

CLIP

Dr. Feldshue: So, we did the standard 10-week workup, and I need to tell you that it showed some genetic abnormalities that could be indicative of an illness.

Alice: What kind of illness?

Dr. Feldshue: They could be indicative of cancer.

With Alice’s terminal cancer diagnosis confirmed, Jack frantically tries to find a cure. Love might be eternal, but life is, alas, not. Their life together swiftly evaporating, Alice and Jack decide to live in the now… rather than dwell in the past or future.

CLIP

Alice: Jack.

Jack: Yeah?

Alice: You wanna go somewhere?

Jack: Sure, yeah, where do you want to go?

Alice: You know where.

Jack: Cuba?

Alice: Our roof.

This week, lead actor and executive producer Andrea Riseborough brings us inside the mind of Alice, and to the heart of her tragic relationship with Jack, as this beautifully complex love story comes to a close. 

Jace Lacob: And this week we are joined by Alice & Jack star and executive producer, Andrea Riseborough. Welcome.

Andrea Riseborough: Thank you. Thank you very much for having us.

Jace Lacob: Alice & Jack is a love story unlike any other that I’ve seen. It’s got a rather unusual structure to it, an unusual nuance. It’s heartbreaking and messy and funny and sad. How do you feel it captures that messiness, that whirl of emotions that modern love has?

Andrea Riseborough: I think Alice & Jack does capture modern love, but I also think that for such a very long time we’ve seen love reflected in a way, by my industry particularly, we’re particularly guilty of it, in a way that is aspirational perhaps, with protagonists at the center who have impossible moral standards. And those things are right and good and give us hope, as do the happy endings and linear timelines. But I think that love can look like so many different things in life and for so many people it looks like complication, confusion, estrangement, awkwardness, hysterical laughter. And no matter how much you sort of attempt to control it, it’s something that’s so beyond your control.

So I think perhaps that the thing that I love most about this piece is that love is sort of sprawled out in all of its glory, in all of its messy glory. And the modern elements of it in this piece begin really with the way that Alice and Jack meet, which is online, which is a whole new way of connecting with each other in a way that, so many people now meet their partner for the rest of their life is on an app.

Jace Lacob: So I want to drill down a little bit into what you just said. This is constructed not as an arthouse film, but as a six episode narrative for television, which is sort of a different beast in a way to a lot of your past projects. What was it specifically about that first read through Victor’s script that really leapt off the page to you that made you say, this is the thing I want to invest all of these years, because they have been so many years of your life, developing and acting in?

Andrea Riseborough: Alice’s candor and the reasons behind it. And I think just that in and of itself was so unique and Jack’s earnestness. It was a story that I think probably like any great book or any great story, it creeps up on you. It’s something that really, upon reflection, you can’t quite stop thinking about. There’s something in it that resonates so deeply.

And that’s, that’s really the best way that I can describe wanting to explore the character and to explore their relationship. But more than that, I think the possibility that I saw, that we all saw, of pairing together this really dynamic, fast paced, witty, often very witty dialogue of Vic’s, with a beautiful cinematic aesthetic. The idea of those two things together was very exciting I think to all of us, and that’s what led us to really hunting down Juho Kuosmanen who is a director of independent cinema and has made two glorious films; Compartment Number 6 and The Happiest Day in Life of Olli Mäki. And we were all huge enthusiasts of his work, so off we went to try and persuade him to direct something episodic. So that was a great fortune.

Jace Lacob: Domhnall reportedly said that he needed to take almost a year off after shooting Alice & Jack to shake off the character of Jack. Did you feel similarly about Alice? Was she kicking around in your head for a long time after you’d wrapped?

Andrea Riseborough: Certainly. I don’t think it’s so much Alice who was kicking around, but more the gravity of what she’d been through. And that’s just not something that leaves you for quite a long time. I have no regrets about it because I absolutely loved the next two things that I did, but I then went shot back to back on two different projects and two different films. So, I took I think a month that I was able to take off and thank god for that. And then went and then went back to work. But she’s still with me now, you know, I mean it they don’t go anywhere.

Jace Lacob: I would think they’re always there, years later still kicking around in your head.

Andrea Riseborough: Yes, and also I mean, we are our own tools. So, we bring so much of ourselves to them and I often feel like I play lots of characters who might seem very different from me externally for whatever reason in terms of physicality or voice or whatever, but I always feel incredibly close to them. And I felt incredibly close to Alice.

And it was a really unique experience in a sense that Vic, as he got to know Domhnall and I, writing more and more for us and using parts of our lives. And that was psychologically a confusing experience, to be honest, because I had not played somebody who externally looked, I suppose, a lot like me in many ways. I mean, obviously, I’m not a business tycoon, so that was a difference. But just in terms of the area she’s from, her physicality, very, just very basic things. Her life was so different to my life, but I felt in many ways confused because she was very different to me. And also there were parts of my own life that had crept into the script.

Jace Lacob: I do have a random question here. Both Alice and Jack’s names have literary connotations. They’re explorers of the unknown. They’re falling or climbing into their respective fairy tale narratives. Do you see Alice & Jack in some way as being a fable about ordinary people being drawn into something extraordinary, the sort of magic of love?

Andrea Riseborough: Yes, I think that’s such a beautiful way that you just put it. As we all know, no matter how mundane life might look on the outside, what’s happening inside is so extraordinary and feels like a roller coaster, especially if you’re invested so deeply in loving somebody. So, as much as they’re estranged for a large portion of time, as much as they can’t necessarily live out what looks like a functional relationship, Alice and Jack are both thinking of the other consistently.

I think when Alice meets Jack, hope is born inside of her. For the first time she believes in mankind and goodness and his honest earnestness. So it’s a hugely pivotal moment for her to see her quippy candor being absorbed by somebody who’s actually taking her in, rather than just thinking this is okay because it’s only temporary, but who’s actually genuinely embracing her and all the many years of her life that came before this one that they’re now living in.

Jace Lacob: Alice is forced to be in the same space as her abuser, her father, and she refuses to acknowledge him or even look at him and he ends up dying at the grave of Alice’s mother muttering, “I’m sorry.” And that sense of heaviness, the trauma that she’s been carrying around with her on her seems to evaporate when she throws Randall’s ashes into the sea. And after that, there is almost like a delineation between the Alice before and the Alice after that scene. There’s a lightness to her, a sense that she can finally let go. Is it relief that she feels here, or something even more profound or deep than that?

Andrea Riseborough: I think it’s an unspeakably vast amount of things all being felt and processed at once, to the point where I think when you’re experiencing those sorts of things in life, that you can’t always be very conscious about it or be able to mentally articulate it at the time. And there’s a reason for that, because those moments where you lack awareness, I think, protect you in some way.

But certainly after that death, there is a freedom and I suppose it’s almost like a freshness. There’s a clean slate of some sort. She was really able, I think, then to see life for what it’s worth, for its preciousness, how brief it is, to prioritize those things that are important, to love unabashedly. So it is a real change in her that she is, I think, for Alice, not thinking too much about. That’s not because she’s not a thinker, but because she’s a very, very intelligent doer.

Jace Lacob: Alice forms a rather unexpected relationship with Celia after Jack’s daughter goes to her flat to confront Alice about her parents’ marriage and they connect really quite beautifully through the medium of dance.

CLIP

Celia: I need to know whether I can trust him, if I should love him.

Alice: Oh my goodness. You know, Celia, life just isn’t tidy. And it’s just really easy to judge people. But your dad is the best person I know.

Celia: Really?

Jace Lacob: What does Alice respond to within Celia and what does she see within this girl that shifts her into a maternal role?

Andrea Riseborough: Well, I think in Celia, Alice sees the devotion and the commitment of Jack. She sees what a beautiful, fiery soul he’s been part of creating and raising. And those moments with Celia are precious. I think it was less maternal for Alice, because I don’t think she would dare even to step on Celia’s mother’s toes, in a sense. At the time we were doing it felt more in a really lovely way, it felt a little more like I was an older sibling. And perhaps that’s because in so many ways, Jack helps Alice grow up. They learn to be adults through their love for one another in their own ways.

MIDROLL

Jace Lacob: Interestingly, Alice and Lynn, Celia’s mother, never meet through Alice and Jack, though the entire time I was watching, I kept hoping that you and Aisling Bea would have a scene together. Alice is at Celia’s recital, but she’s in the wings and Lynn is in the audience. What do you make of the narrative choice to keep these two women completely apart? Does it sort of mirror what’s actually happening within Jack?

Andrea Riseborough: I don’t know. It’s a good question. That would probably be an internal question for Domhnall, whether it was mirroring anything that was going on for him inside. But I think it’s very true to life, isn’t it? As an example, when you watch a romantic comedy, a sort of quite big, broad, Hollywood romantic comedy, the audience needs the payoff of having that scene where Aisling’s character, Lynn, really just gets to lay into my character, Alice, for the huge fallout and heartbreak that Alice and Jack’s love has caused, and that’s not something that happens here. Does it in life? Of course, sometimes, but certainly not always. So it’s wonderful here to see it reflected in that way, that they’re still estranged.

Jace Lacob: Episode 6, the back scratching scene in hospital, is absolutely beautiful. It’s intimate without being sexual. This moment of profound physical connection between these two.

CLIP:

Alice: Can you come closer?

Jack: Yeah.

Alice: Can you scratch my back?

Jack: Yeah.

Alice: Okie dokie.

Jack: You alright?

Alice: Mmhm.

Jack: Ready?

Alice: Mm. I think this is the thing I’m going to miss the most.

Jace Lacob: What does this moment mean for Alice and what emotion is embedded in this sense of touch with Jack?

Andrea Riseborough: I think one of the things that she’s not had, one of the things that she didn’t have, is touch, is loving touch as a child, I mean. And then also into adulthood, because touch was really with a different agenda. And so, the ritualistic, meditative, almost repetitive scratching that she enjoys so much like a cat, that Jack is able to give her, it’s so many things, but it’s almost a reparenting as much as it’s giving a marker of consistency. Through that very simple act, she feels real and worth scratching. It’s just like the most blissful, blissful ecstasy.

Jace Lacob: The pleasure of vulnerability, almost.

Andrea Riseborough: Yes, and the trust. Alice doesn’t understand trust before Jack. The bliss of leaning into relying on the consistency of somebody else, it gives her faith in humankind, I think.

Jace Lacob: We’re told that Alice and Jack happened upon each other in Cuba, and that’s what brought them back together. But the narrative withholds the Cuba sequence from the audience until the moment of Jack’s death. It’s what he sees when he closes his eyes. And then we finally get to see those Cuba scenes, and they have this beautiful lightness to them. Something has changed within both of them. And we get another backscratch scene again. What changed for them in Cuba? What settled within them and what did they let go of?

Andrea Riseborough: I’m not sure entirely what a vast change of scenery does for you. But I think probably all of us can relate to it having quite a significant effect. And so, for a moment in their journey together, have this very beautiful holiday romance. It seems almost out of space and out of time, but it’s intimate for so many reasons, because Alice is watching Jack work closely. It’s a different type of connection that they’ve not had before.

And the weight of the city, you know, London is almost its own character in the piece, and neither Alice nor Jack are from London, which is interesting because London is made up of many people who are not from London, and a few people who are. But the vastness and the loneliness of a city that is so chaotic and full of life, brimming with life, those sort of frenetic, lonely, busy feelings are all left behind when they’re in Cuba. And their love lets itself breathe. As I said, sort of out of space and out of time in a different situation.

Jace Lacob: The series ending finds Celia between their two freshly dug graves before going through Jack’s things in his storage unit where she finds all sorts of Alice and Jack items including the “We’ll Meet Again” letter. What do you feel viewers should take away from this ending? Is it a tragedy or are they finally eternally together fulfilling Alice’s line, “Whatever happens, I think we’re going to see each other again.”?

Andrea Riseborough: I think this is an absolutely beautiful love story. You saying that back to me, it’s quite, not upsetting, but it’s inspiring. It’s inspiring, their love, because it transcends everything. It transcends everything, and it is stronger and more undeniable than anything in life. Which, for those of us who’ve had the great fortune to experience it, is exactly how love feels. It feels like the most, the most exotic of roller coasters.

Jace Lacob: I mean, there’s a reason we say falling, or mad, all these things about love. It is a madness, a sickness, it’s bliss, but it is yeah, a rollercoaster. And I think this captures the messiness, the awkwardness, the beauty, the pain, the sense of loss of complexity that love is capable of, and reminds us of the very shortness of our lives.

Andrea Riseborough: Yes. And I think, I think more than anything, this piece is for all of us who’ve experienced how odd love can look. And love is something that belongs to every one of us in our own way. And it often looks like confusion and estrangement and conflict and all of the things that we’ve talked about. And it’s been such a joy to see people respond to that and to see in their eyes that they felt those very same things that Alice and Jack are feeling and they’ve been in that same mess. Because great love stories, they look like all sorts of different things and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t carry on exploring the many vast numbers of different types of love stories that there are between so many different types of people.

Jace Lacob: I was going to say, you spent five years of your life developing this, as did Domhnall Gleeson. Does it have the feel of a passion project for you, and how does it feel now that it has actually been sent out into the world?

Andrea Riseborough: I feel a great deal of passion for really every character I’ve played and every everything that I’ve been part of. So it’s always a huge amount of passion from me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be serving the piece to be in it. Personally I think that’s an essential. But the development of it was, since the beginning when Vic Levin, our creator, Michael London, our producer, and I, as we first were on board and then a little while later, it was about a year later, Domhnall came on. Although Domhnall and I had read the piece at the same time. The process from beginning to now, and it will continue to go on, I know it will because I’ve had this experience before, it’s such a wonderfully creative, satisfying, fascinating experience developing a story and thinking about all the different components that might piece together to make something quite unusual in a sense, but perhaps people may not expect it to be so unusual until they sit with it for a while and perhaps watch it and then they feel compelled to keep watching it.

The many different people that we’ve worked with along the way, Juho Kuosmanen, which was a huge honor, Hong Khaou, which was an incredible honor. Brilliant producers all along the way. Just the wonderful conversations. And lots of people coming together and being curious about life and about love and how to share that story was just something I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I feel very grateful for it. And it was a real gift and a pleasure, you know?

Jace Lacob: Andrea Riseborough, thank you so very much.

Andrea Riseborough: Aw, thanks, Jace. That was so lovely.

With that, we say goodbye to our star-crossed lovers who did the best they could with love’s uncompromising whims. And we now turn our attention to another difficult relationship, that of the British Postal System and the hundreds of sub-postmasters accused of false accounting and theft. Alan Bates has remained steadfast for years, but there are roadblocks at every turn. 

CLIP

Alan: Hard to believe it’s eight years since our first meeting. Even harder to believe that finally, 555 of us now, ready to tell our stories to a court.

Michael: That’s all fine and dandy Alan, but how are we going to pay for it?

Join us next week as we talk with writer Gwyneth Hughes once again about adapting this incredible real-life story for the screen, and what the future might hold for these wrongfully accused sub-postmasters.