Kika Mirylees
Plays
Julie Johnston
“What has been nice for me this series is that Julie Johnston has developed from just the funny double act of the two Julies. Her tragic family circumstances unfold, and we meet her children, who once again will be ripped away from her. They were very upsetting scenes to play with the two children, whom she hasn’t seen for years - the pain of them looking up at you. There was so much to get across to them, in such a short time. It was all very emotional”.
“The thing about my character is she’s not very bright – she can barely read and write. Since the two Julies met, they have worked as a team as prostitutes. My Julie has always been led by the other Julie (Victoria Alcock), who is the driving force behind the team. But they are co-dependent on each other”.
“For me, playing Julie, has been very much against the type of character I usually play on television - which is great. I usually get to play upper class wealthy women and the only way I could even get an audition for the role of Julie, was by sending in a video of me playing a ‘working girl’. When I was seen for the part, I arrived not as myself but as Julie, which helped! Victoria and I did a workshop together as the two Julies and we just clicked – little and large. I think it would have been impossible to play our characters if we hadn’t got on as friends: as all their scenes and lines are always together. We get on as people and now actually finish off each others’ sentences when we are just Kika and Victoria!”
“Victoria and I share a passion for horses. I own two horses and am a fanatic about the country where I now live with two house rabbits. I had always wanted to do something in the countryside and ten years ago, I suddenly realised that I could own a horse. Within a week of buying the magazine Horse And Hound, I was the proud owner of Perdie who is a very strong and fast horse! I also own a superb Danish Warmblood called Aluna who is 16.3 hands. I do dressage and cross country, although I do not enter big competitions”.
As if that were not enough, Kika is also a professional practitioner/therapist in the alternative Bowen therapy. “I Bowen the girls on the Bad Girls set! I have recently trained in Bowen for my own horses, as it is very important to me. I do work all the time and see patients at weekends and when not filming”.
Kika Mirylees’s television credits include: Doc Newton in Red Dwarf, Lucy Harcourt in Class Act, Angela Snow in The Darling Buds of May, Andrea in Canary Wharf and Flora Meinnes in Strathblair.