How does an actor know they’ve made it? For Katherine Devlin, who plays Annie in BBC drama Blue Lights, the answer is going back to her home town of Cookstown in Northern Ireland and getting contacted by her local gym.
“The message on Instagram was, ‘Hey, word on the street is you’re back in town. You’re more than welcome to come in to the gym for a complimentary PT session to get you back into shape for season three.’” She laughs. “I politely declined. I said, ‘I’ll be grand.’”
This is one illustration of just how successful Blue Lights has become. The series, which first aired in 2023, stars Devlin as one of three police recruits to the Belfast force, alongside Siân Brooke and Nathan Braniff. It’s won a Bafta and critical acclaim for its gritty stories of Northern Ireland life in the aftermath of the Troubles.
I had a chat with a career adviser when I was 16 and brought up the idea of acting. I remember them looking at me as if I were mad
It’s also Devlin’s first major acting role. Born and raised in County Tyrone, she always wanted to be an actor. “I just didn’t know the route to get there. None of my family come from that background,” she says.
None of the folk in Cookstown did either. “Wanting to be an actor isn’t talked about,” she adds. “I remember when I was in school it was very much deemed as this fantasy. I had a chat with a career adviser when I was 16 and brought up the idea. I remember them looking at me as if I were mad. They were very much, ‘Sorry, what do you mean? Maybe go into being a drama teacher?’”
But Devlin made it work. She did a foundation course at Dublin acting school The Lir, and then spent a year working back-to-back shifts in a sushi restaurant in Dublin, “drinking a lot, partying a lot, having a lot of fun”.
Then it was back to the grind, via the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, from where she graduated in 2021. A bit part followed in historical drama Vikings, before she scored her role in Blue Lights.
“I didn’t think that I was going to ever play a cop, to be honest,” she says. “Then I remember sitting there reading the character description of Annie and having a funny feeling about it. I just remember thinking, I know this person. I know girls like that.”
With season four due to start filming early next year, there’s not much time to rest. “There’s pros and cons naturally with it being a quick turnover, but one pro is it feels a bit easier to step back into Annie’s shoes,” she says. “It always just seems like you’re going back to hang out with your friends, which is really lovely.”
Do they have a WhatsApp chat group? “We have several.” She pauses and laughs. “I think there’s about six now, but yeah, we get up to badness.”
Blue Lights season three is streaming on BBC iPlayer now
