Bouncing back

Sian Reeves, Alex Kingston, Christine Bottomley, Vinette Robinson in Hope Springs. Photo / Supplied

Actress Sian Reeves doesn't know how it feels to be a victim of domestic violence, but she certainly knows what it means to be powerless. Two years ago, the star of Prime's new fast-paced drama Hope Springs, which starts tomorrow, was almost paralysed in a horrific accident during a stage show rehearsal.

Falling through an open trapdoor onto a steel ladder left Reeves, 44, with a punctured lung, broken ribs, and scars that will never heal. For 10 agonisingly slow months the British thespian was forced to lie still, a wretched experience which gave her plenty of fodder to play battered wife Hannah in Hope Springs.

"It makes you feel worthless because you can't do anything," Reeves says. "I brought a lot of that to Hannah, that worthlessness and all that awful loneliness that you feel inside. Everyone had to go to work and to school and you're just in the house lying down and trying not to move, passing out with the pain."

Battling depression and rapidly deteriorating confidence, Reeves, best known for her TV roles in Cutting It and EastEnders, was ready to throw away her hard-forged career.

"You know, I was angry, I was really angry, and sometimes it still comes out," she confesses. "It just stopped my life completely. I had no money coming in, was in constant pain and really quite angry all the time, really impatient with my daughter and my guy, and couldn't do anything. I had managed to build myself up to quite a good position in this business, and I thought it was all over because of some idiot's mistake."

Even after regaining her mobility Sian was still languishing in misery, convinced she would have to train in a new career. And then the producers of Hope Springs offered her a lifeline, right when she needed it most. The show, also starring ER's Alex Kingston, follows a female quartet of former prisoners hiding from their troubled pasts in a remote Scottish Highlands town called Hope Springs.

Sian temporarily relocated to Glasgow to play Hannah, a meek, haunted woman who served time for attempting to kill her abusive husband – a role which tested the accomplished actress physically as well as mentally. "We had to get up early to film anyway but I'd get up earlier and do all these stretches each day to try and help the pain, because you're standing in different shoes and sleeping in a different bed," she says.

"My left hip is collapsing when I put weight on my right foot and that's because all those muscles have just stopped working, so I've got to start strengthening them again. "Wearing a bra has been the hardest thing for me, because it's right where the injury was, in the upper rib cage. I managed it but I was a bit ratty at times."

She couldn't have asked for a better comeback role and, just like Hannah, Reeves has grabbed the chance at a fresh start with both hands. The chatty brunette, mother to 13-year-old Bessie, says she's acutely aware of the social responsibility that comes with such a juicy character.

"I play a lot of slaggy-type comedy girls so it was quite good for me to play a very quiet person for a change, and someone who's got a lot going on inside," she says. "It was really difficult actually. I hope I've pulled it off.

"I did some research because, even though it's a comedy and a drama, there are real people who've been in this situation and I wanted to be true to them. From the books I was reading, these women were very frightened, very timid because they don't know when the abuser's going to come back and punish them. And you think, why don't they just get out of that situation and leave? And it's because they get so psychologically abused that they don't think that they're worth anything.

"I had this bad accident and you do start to lose faith in yourself and think that you're no good. It's very easy to do." Reeves' accident has become the point of reference for a life which has been irrevocably changed. BA (before the accident), sweet-natured Reeves' glass was always half full. AA (after the accident), it's probably only a quarter full.

"Everything's quite black and white and I can't stand anyone being a bit lordy and having airs and graces," she says. "If anybody's rude about working, like taking the costume and make-up people for granted, I just lay into them! And I stick up for myself a bit more now." She continues: "It's made me a bit more aware of dying, which isn't very nice. I've written a will and I'm very worried for my daughter all the time. I was a bit of a cock-eyed optimist. To have a bit of that slashed away is perhaps good, to make me more thoughtful about things."

Hope Springs was so well received in the UK that there are whispers of a second season. But even if that doesn't transpire, the confidence boost from working again has reignited Reeves' passion for the industry. She and her long-time partner Jeremy, a producer, have won the rights to make the non-fiction book Fragments of Love into a film. She's also co-written a private investigator series, and penned a children's book during her recuperation.

Reeves confesses she still feels terrible for snapping at Jeremy and Bessie during the dark times. "I often say sorry for being a cow," she says. "My daughter's a nice girl, she really is, she's been lovely. And my guy has been an absolute hero for putting up with me. I probably owe him a motorbike as a thank you."

* Hope Springs debuts on Prime tomorrow at 8.30pm.