Sheridan Smith to play ageing porn star in new drama
Adult Material, written for Channel 4, will begin filming next year, creator Lucy Kirkwood said.
Sheridan Smith is to star in a drama exploring British porn, according to the series’ writer Lucy Kirkwood.
Adult Material, written for Channel 4, will begin filming next year and sees Smith play an ageing sex film star.
Kirkwood, who worked with Smith on the writer’s 2008 play Tinderbox, said she wanted to look at the way the porn industry had changed in recent years, as well as culture of complicity and silence.
Kirkwood described Smith as like an “old-school movie star” in an interview with The Observer.
“I just think she’s extraordinary – I’ve worked with her before and have the most enormous crush on her,” she told the newspaper.
She added: “In the beginning I worried that she was a bit young for the role, but I also found it hard to imagine anyone else having her combination of soul and really precise technique.
“The character of Jolene is fairly informed by her, so like Sheridan she’s warm and rude and funny and sharp.”
The writer said she wants the series to encourage audiences to think about porn in a different way.
“It’s a story about women navigating their way through a difficult and constantly changing world and I hope that if anyone is dismissive of porn actresses at the beginning then they will reconsider that by the end,” she told the Observer.
