Keeley Hawes: Bodyguard fame was like weird anxiety dream

The actress played controversial home secretary Julia Montague in the BBC’s hit drama series, opposite Richard Madden as her troubled bodyguard.

Hawes told ITV’s This Morning that the world “really, really” changed for her when Bodyguard aired in the UK while she was filming ITV series The Durrells in Corfu.

She said: “Usually people will recognise me from The Durrells or Line Of Duty or whatever it may be, but I came back and it just was on another level.

“It was like a weird anxiety dream.

“I made a terrible mistake – it was my son’s birthday and we’d booked to go to Thorpe Park, so I walked straight into Thorpe Park at the height of Bodyguard and was sort of trapped on rides.”

She motioned that people were taking pictures of her while on rides at the theme park.

The series followed Madden’s character David Budd and his relationship with Hawes’ Montague, who was killed halfway through the series by a bomb.

Some fans of the Jed Mercurio-penned show still believe that Montague did not in fact die in the shock twist, and that she could make a comeback.

She recently appeared in the Bodyguard Comic Relief sketch, adding fuel to the fire.

Hawes told This Morning’s Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield: “It’s extraordinary – you can be blown up on screen and still people would be fine, people would just accept it if I walked back in.”

Willoughby said that she believes the character is not dead, to which the actress said: “I mean, I just don’t know what to say any more.”

Schofield then pushed her on the topic, asking if she is “genuinely dead”.

Hawes smiled and nodded, saying “yes”, before laughing.

It has not yet been confirmed if Bodyguard – which saw 17.1 million tune in for the finale, and which has also been a hit in America – will return for a second season, but Madden has hinted that it could happen.