Sheridan Smith is preparing for the new ITV drama Two Birds, where she plays a troubled police officer in Australia. According to multiple reports, Smith is on a strict eating plan and has signed up for a £2,350 bootcamp programme to play Constable Izzie Cronwell. The character Izzie Cronwell flees the UK for a new life in Australia after the death of her husband. According to Metro - Main, Sheridan Smith described the role as "the most different to me" and said she has to undergo gun training, combat training, and learn to ride a motorbike, which she has already fallen off twice.
Smith also spoke about her next project at a screening for her thriller The Cage. The Cage is a thriller starring Sheridan Smith and Michael Socha, written by Tony Schumacher, who also wrote The Responder. The Cage launches Sunday at 9pm on BBC One. In The Cage, Sheridan Smith's character Leanne is a desperate single mum who works at a casino and sees an opportunity to steal cash to support her kids and her grandmother with dementia. Michael Socha's character Matty is in financial trouble and unwillingly has to move a stack of cocaine.
I'm not very good at gambling, but the job I'm doing next is the most different to me.
According to Metro - Main, Michael Socha described the tone of the show as something they thought about a lot, emphasising the heart and warmth in Tony's writing, and said they wanted to make it warm rather than gritty or dark. He also noted that Tony's writing combines realism with heightened escapist elements. According to Metro - Main, Sheridan Smith praised Tony Schumacher's ability to write amazing characters that are flawed, complicated, funny, and sad, and said his writing is fun to play as an actor because it reflects real life.
The exact release date for Two Birds has not been announced, and further plot details beyond the basic premise remain unknown. The duration and specific activities of the bootcamp programme are also unclear, as is the full cast list for Two Birds.
I've got to do gun training, combat training, and learn to ride a motorbike, which I've fallen off twice already, in Australia. That might be a gamble.
The tone of the show was something we thought about a lot, actually. The main thing that comes through with Tony's writing is the heart and the warmth. We didn't want to make it gritty, we didn't want to make it dark, we wanted to make it warm.
There are two sides to Tony's writing that are both amazing. One is the realism; you believe in the characters, you believe in the world, but then at the same time, he's able to heighten that reality into something a little bit more escapist.
What Tony does amazingly is that he just writes amazing characters. On the page, straight away they're flawed, they're complicated, they're funny, but there's sad moments too.
Tony's writing is fun to play as an actor because that's what life is, we're all – especially me – flawed. He's just a genius [to be able to] do the heavy stuff and then make it funny, and pull the rug from [under] the viewer.