In the shocking new TV series from the makers of Killing Eve, Thalissa Teixeira plays a detective investigating a nauseating murder – while waking up to
racism within the force. It was harrowing work, says the rising star
![‘They had to pick me up off the floor’ – is Ragdoll this year’s goriest murder drama?](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f0d05eba885db9ada9a9e7983608ef387501ab0b/0_299_4500_2700/master/4500.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=f437179c6e08c8b8e82952631689da0d)
Thalissa Teixeira does not cope well with extreme gore, which made starring in the year’s most gruesome
police drama something of an ordeal. Ragdoll revolves around a nauseating crime scene: a figure sewn together from the body parts of different victims, suspended from the ceiling of a
London flat. When she was introduced to the eponymous monstrosity on set, Teixeira recalls: “It properly spun me out.” Thankfully, the cast and crew were on hand to “pick my limbs up off the floor and stitch me back together”.
Ragdoll – which is written by Freddy Syborn, best known for his
comedy work with Jack Whitehall, and loosely based on the novel by Daniel Cole – is in its own way a similarly outlandish patchwork creation. Teixeira plays DI Emily Baxter, tasked with solving the case, alongside her already-traumatised colleague DS Nathan Rose (The Inbetweeners’ Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and newbie DC Lake Edmunds (Lucy Hale, of Pretty Little Liars fame). Blending the knotty plotlines of Line of Duty with a barrage of surreally bizarre deaths, the show, which launches tonight on Alibi, is a serious meditation on the institutional failings of the police with a very high gag rate, the joke kind and the other kind. This fusion of tones reminds Teixeira of Killing Eve (they share a production company) and she says the show’s creators took inspiration from South Korean films, such as Memories of Murder and Oldboy, that weave humour into their horror.