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BAFTA nominated actor Rakie Ayola’s career boasts a wide spectrum of roles in film, theatre and television spanning three decades. As well as Anthony, Noughts + Crosses, Alex Rider and Grace, Rakie has starred on stage in Strange Fruit, On Bear Ridge and Harry Potter And The Cursed Child. In The Pact, Rakie plays DS Holland, investigating the case of the mysterious death alongside Max.

Tell us about The Pact? How would you describe it?

The Pact is a six-part drama about a group of women who agree to something they wish they hadn’t. We learn the twists and turns of that fateful decision.

Can you tell us a bit about your character?

She’s a brilliant and quirky detective. Pete McTighe has allowed us to see these little human touches from her every now and again. I’ve got the sense that she’s someone you wouldn’t expect to be a high-ranking police officer. She’s incredibly empathetic. She is good at detecting and putting two and two together. She probably wasn’t a brilliant ‘bobby on the beat’; she would have done what she needed to do but that’s not where her strengths are. Her strengths are in detecting… understanding the kind of person that would commit a crime and why they would do it, then looking into that.

What attracted you to the role?

She’s not just a typical procedural role. In a drama that’s not solely based on solving the crime, you can come in as a police officer and all the dialogue can be very procedural and ‘by the book’. You don’t get to see their humanity. What I love about Holland is that although we only see her at work, we also see her character.

It’s so lovely that our writer has been able to put himself inside the head of a character that’s not one of the core group. Quite often you might have a part where there’s a lot to do, but you know when the writer hasn’t particularly been inside the head of the person

Tell us about DS Holland’s relationship with Max.

He’s married to Anna and is the bridge between the police and the brewery. She’s watching him and being quite honest. She asks Max to use his wife to ask her things. She’s then able to study him at work, watch his face and see in his face that there’s stuff going on at home and he’s not telling her. She’s wily (even when she’s eating her pork scratchings).

Tell us about the wider cast?

It was lovely to see everyone genuinely bonding. Eiry Thomas and I have known each other since youth theatre at 15 years old. This is the first time I’ve worked with her professionally. Jason Hughes and I recently did a play in Cardiff called On Bear Ridge. I’ve actually been friends with Jason for about 30 years. Then I met Julie at a very wet Glastonbury Festival in 2007. We didn’t meet again until The Pact. It was lovely to sit in the make-up room and catch up. It was a lovely, fabulous job, despite Covid.

How was filming in Wales?

I am from Cardiff and I can’t believe that it took The Pact to get me to the area around Merthyr Tydfil. It’s so beautiful. The heart of Wales is just phenomenally beautiful and I think that it’s shown off really well in The Pact. I think the scenery is another character.

What do you hope audiences will take away when they finish watching The Pact?

It occurred to me while watching television at the end of last year that a lot of contemporary telly that features women is about women dealing with the negative aspects of sex; buying sex, selling sex and trading sex in some way. I’ve got no problem with sex, but I found that fascinating. Women do talk to each other about stuff that’s not sex, divorce or people cheating on them. You can find interesting, deep, fruitful, complicated stories with groups of women at the heart, like The Pact, where we do all keep our clothes on.