Lauren Lyle has had a Brat summer. If she wasn’t partying or sharing unapologetically glamorous photos on Instagram, the Scottish actress (and, I find out, former competitive gymnast) was gracing the pages of fashion magazines and living her “Sex and the City era,” as she calls it.

Even now in the colder – and markedly less ‘Brat’ – autumn months, there is still a seductive confidence to Lyle that emanates through my laptop screen. And rightly so: having starred as Marsali in the time-travel series Outlander, Lyle took on the leading role as Detective Sergeant Karen Pirie in ITV’s eponymous murder series, the second season of which aired in July this year. Not only did it win her Best Actress in Television at the Bafta Scotland Awards in 2023, but Lyle was also voted the nation’s Favourite Scot on Screen.

This month, Lyle revels in playing a deliciously freaky female lead in the form of Mia – an anaesthetist and addict who seeks answers for her sister’s death in BBC’s The Ridge. Set in New Zealand, the six-part series follows Mia as she assumes the role of detective in a small, tight-knit community on the other side of the world from her native Scotland. Lyle is a proud Glaswegian herself (and, it transpires, born in the same small town just outside Glasgow as my own family), though she describes New Zealand as a “second home,” having spent part of her life there during her teenage years. The series is breathtaking: not only in its gasp-inducing plot twists, but also in its stunning cinematography of the country’s mountainous landscapes.

In conversation with 1883, Lauren Lyle talks candidly about the mental toll of playing Mia in The Ridge, the show’s emphasis on folklore, why Scottish culture is having its moment, her favourite art exhibitions, and more.

Hi Lauren, how are you? How’s your week going?

I’m good. I feel like I’ve just had a mad party girl, Charli XCX summer. I’m calling it my Sex and the City era. It’s been busy. I’m about to start a play, so I’m really excited for that. I’m working out loads and getting really injured because I didn’t work out at all during the summer, so I’m going to the gym at the moment, and I had to get a massage afterwards because my whole right side of my body is fucked. So I’m good [laughs]. I’m having a nice cocktail every week.

I joined a gym a few months ago and I’ve already injured my neck and shoulders. It’s rough.

I’ve always worked out – I was a gymnast when I was a kid, and I competed for Scotland and Britain. I was a runner, and I played hockey, and I do lots of yoga, but I’ve always worked out. I think because I haven’t worked out all summer and I couldn’t while filming The Ridge, now all of a sudden I’m like, well, I’ll just jump straight back in.

I just finished watching The Ridge this morning, actually. I absolutely loved it.

Oh, amazing, thank you!

It’s obviously a really dark crime thriller, and it touches on deep subjects like abuse and addiction. But then I’ve seen you in previous series such as Karen Pirie and Toxic Town that also touch on heavy topics, so I wondered what drew you specifically to this script?

Probably two things. One, it was set in New Zealand, and I used to live in New Zealand. I went to high school for part of my life there, and to get a script that came through that was like someone from Scotland that also went over to New Zealand is like nothing I’ve ever seen. And I can’t pass up the opportunity of going over and being in my second home.

Secondly, it was how weird it was. It was so strange – for example, my character Mia. I love that she was an addict and she ends up becoming quite evil. That, as an actor, is an exciting prospect – to do something that’s so extreme. She’s not really a good person. She’s out to find justice for her sister, but she’s not bothered about doing the right thing to get there.

I wanted to do something like that because Karen [Pirie] is a good person and she’s doing the right thing. And Marsali in Outlander was someone who was quite bad, and then she turned good. So being a bad person was fun. And also learning how to be an addict; that was really interesting. I enjoyed the challenge of that.

I read that you spoke to former addicts and anaesthetists for the role. How long did the preparation process take, and how much of an influence did that preparation have on your performance?

I spoke to a lot of different addicts. Some were on opioids, and learning the extremes of what they would go to to get drugs was fascinating. Some of the stories were about vomiting up drugs and then picking the drugs out of the vomit so that they didn’t lose those pills – things like that. And I was shocked to hear that when you’re an addict, you’re so good at hiding it and making excuses that people start to believe you. That was really useful for me because it meant I was able to think, right, Mia’s manipulating everyone. And she’s an anaesthetist – one of the highest on the list of medical professionals likely to be addicts because of their close proximity to drugs. So that was really interesting.

I also had people around me at the time who experienced drug addiction, so I was able to check in with them a lot. When she starts going through withdrawals, that was all quite useful to touch on. It was the first character I really took home with me because you couldn’t help it. I’m not a method actor, but I really took home Mia because I would be so frantic and jittery all day that I just had to have baths in the New Zealand summer all the time to calm myself down, and go to saunas.

It does seem like a very physical role, even down to the tiny quirks. For example, Mia has a habit of laughing hysterically at the most inappropriate times. How much of that was directed and how much was just improvising?

Some of it was me deciding that’s what would happen, though it was insinuated that it would go that way in the script. But the best part about the job was that normally you’re often told to tone it down or bring it right back. And on this set, they would be like, “Go weird. Really push it to something crazy.”

I think she’s manic at times. She’s a woman on the edge all the time, so for example, when the bats are in her room and she starts manically laughing, that was me. I just decided that she’s completely lost all inhibition to try and hide things. And I wanted it to be that she’s strange. I wanted it to feel like a different character and lean into the strangeness of the script. I kept having the word ‘freaky’ in my head.

Yeah, I had ‘unhinged’ in mine.

Exactly. And the way that she has sex – she really uses her body to manipulate you, and I love the power that held. [The characters] Mia and Ewan were both doing it, and they both didn’t know that the other was doing it. I enjoyed using my body more for the nudity stuff with Robyn Grace, our director. She was wonderful – she was so amazing and supportive as a director, so I felt really safe, and I was therefore happy to show more. And I also thought, you’re the hottest you’ve ever been, you might as well show yourself.

There’s also a gothic element to the series, like folklore and witchcraft. Where did that inspiration come from?

Oh, I’m super into witches – what witches wear and are like. One of my first ever jobs was at The Old Vic doing The Crucible, and I did loads of research into witches. Then the film that freaked me out the most as a kid was Roald Dahl’s The Witches – it gave me nightmares for five years.

I have a real fascination with them now, and they’re real folklore in Scotland. There’s something about being from a place that has such insane gothic history. When you’re from there, you really feel it. And in Māori culture, there’s folklore within that, and we leaned into it. Often we’d be filming on Māori land, so someone would come and do a blessing before we worked every day. Someone would tell us a story about their family, their history, or how colonisers had taken the land from them. Then the white crew as well, who weren’t Māori, were all speaking in Te Reo, which is the Māori language; they were speaking back the terms they’d all learned and known. It was really moving to be a part of. I loved it. So for the rest of the day, you were aware of your history and the land that you were on.

And then there was the ‘Grey Man’ element to the script. It went away for a while, and I insisted that we put it back in. Someone said people wouldn’t get it, but that’s one of the things that drew me to the script. It’s a strange undertone of there being something else going on, and the mystery of these hills and the mist as well.

You mentioned you used to live in New Zealand, as well as Glasgow. What’s your favourite thing about New Zealand, and what could they – or indeed any country – learn from Glaswegians?

My favourite thing about New Zealand would be the quality of their cafés and their beaches. And their attitude to get up early to get a chicken sandwich – I would go to Honey Bones, this amazing café.

I was there on my own; it was actually quite isolating. I felt like I was living a bit like Mia, because although I’d lived there, lots of my friends had left, so I felt quite on my own a lot, and I was working on set a lot more than the other actors were. So I got really close to the crew. But then you’d get an amazing quality chicken sandwich and then go to the most stunning beach that’s an hour out of Auckland you’ve ever seen in your life. I loved their respect for nature.

What could the world learn from Glaswegians? I think we’re notorious as such friendly people, though one thing I don’t love about Scottish people – and New Zealanders do the same thing – is they’ve got tall poppy syndrome. If you get a bit too famous, or you get a bit too big for your boots, everyone’s like, oh, simmer down. They put you down a peg. And I wish that we didn’t do that so much.

But then, on the flip side, I like that Glaswegian people are inherently quite grounded and therefore relatable – and a really good night out. I think we’re really good at celebrating and making people feel a part of something. I’m so proud to be Scottish, but specifically Glaswegian. It’s got amazing arts and culture; the rave scene of the UK came out of Glasgow. That’s something people forget. Scotland has given so much to the UK in terms of culture. So I think people could sort of learn from that a bit.

When my friends think of Scotland, they think of Edinburgh. They forget there’s this amazing city one hour west – it isn’t all castles and shortbread shops.

The way the media presents Scotland really pisses me off. It’s sort of like lovely little tartan and old people. The amount of incredible people, like Lewis Capaldi, David Tennant, James McAvoy – these amazing, cool people have come out of Scotland. Ireland’s having a moment right now, with lots of great people coming out of it, and I think Scotland deserves that as well.

Jack Lowden actually shouted me out on Instagram the other week because I was on Radio 4, and they called Karen Pirie ‘tartan noir’. And I don’t really love that term, because I think it boxes something into being a bit condescending and makes it smaller than it actually is. It’s a British show on a huge British channel full of British people. With Doctor Who, you don’t call it an English show; Sherlock is not an English thing. It’s just British, and it’s condescending how we describe things coming out of Scotland. These shows are made for a universal audience with universal themes.

Another one of the themes in The Ridge is activism – Mia’s sister, Carrie, being an environmental activist in New Zealand. Are there any particular issues you consider yourself an activist for?

With a lot of things that have been going on around the world at the moment, the way that innocent people everywhere have been subject to war. At the moment, I’m finding it really hard watching the people of Palestine being bombarded and destroyed, and it’s just so heartbreaking watching people be trapped. I try to speak up a bit. And it’s really scary to speak up about it initially, because you also want to say that you want the hostages released, and you see absolutely horrific footage and things of what’s happening to them as well.

Also issues concerning women and girls. There was a really cool charity at one point that would give out free period products. And something in Scotland that’s amazing is that we’re the first country to give free period products to women or people who have periods. Something I get so passionate about is the injustice of just existing as a woman in the world, and how much we are not recognised for dealing with the things that we deal with, and the fact that you have to go to work bleeding. Some people get such horrific experiences with periods and are expected to just carry on with their day. If you’re homeless, how the hell do you deal with that? So stuff like that really gets me fired up, and then I’ve got to try and refrain from getting angry.

I have a little cat now, and I never thought I’d be someone who would advocate for animals, but I give money to Battersea Dogs and Cats, and animal shelters – so there’s that as well.

Oh my gosh, a baby cat – a he or a she?

A very rare ginger girl. Only 20 percent of gingers are ever girls. They’re always boys. She is actually really special. She’s called Lava, and she’s my daughter. Every single interview I’ve mentioned her, and I feel like a freaky cat lady. And I never thought I would be that, but she is genuinely the light of my life.

I went to a jewellery event last night for Amber Anderson, a brilliant actress, and she designed a little trinket box. It’s teeny, and you can put something special in it, and they seal it forever like a time capsule. I put some of Lava’s tummy hair in mine so that I’d have her tummy hair forever. I genuinely don’t know what I’ll do when she dies, but she’s made my life 10 times, 100 times better.

I’ve seen on your Instagram you’re quite an art lover. What’s been your favourite exhibition this year?

Probably the one you saw [Herbert Smith Freehills Kraimer Portrait Awards 2025]. The best part about it was that it’s all amateur artists. And it was just gorgeous, some of the stuff they were doing. Art is not always about being schooled into it; some people are just naturally gifted. And I find the National Portrait Gallery is my favourite in London because there’s something about the walls.

You know what I also loved? The Yoko Ono and John Lennon exhibition; it was a dual one at the Tate, showing a lot of Yoko’s work and then their work together and how they would send world leaders their pieces. They would send world leaders a seed of some kind to plant and promote peace. It was so fascinating how they were genuine activists alongside art.

Oh, and one of my favourites was the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy. I went not realising you could buy some of the art, and I was running around trying to buy some, but they were all sold. But I managed to get a signed poster, so I now have Marina Abramović’s signature in my house. She’s so cool. Watching her see her ex in that exhibition she did – you know the one I’m talking about?

Yeah, where she opens her eyes and sees her ex sat in front of her and they look into each other’s eyes? I can’t watch the video without tearing up.

Some of my exes – I wish that might happen to us at some point!

Whereabouts did you hang her poster?

I’ve got this bookshelf where I’ve got the clapperboards from Karen Pirie and The Ridge, and my pop dolls that have been made of Karen [Pirie] and Marsali from Outlander, and then Marina’s poster is framed under those – then the BAFTAs are on the other side [laughs].

Lauren, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you. I hope you have some nice plans this weekend?

I’m having some days off as I’m doing rehearsals for a play soon. It’s called Most Favoured at the Soho Theatre; it’s starting in December, and it’s about two people at a Travelodge who have just had a one-night stand and start revealing the real reason to each other why they’re actually there. It’s a bit sexy, and it’s very, very funny.

I did wonder if you wanted to return to more comedy at some point, especially as there are some comedic moments in The Ridge.

Yeah, I just want to laugh. I’m really mischievous and I just want to giggle. Having done some heavy stuff – and it’s good to have variety – I have funny bones, and I think if I’m going to do comedy, [this play] is it. [The playwright] David Ireland’s so funny and a brilliant writer, so I couldn’t say no.

.I can’t wait to see it. Thank you so much again, Lauren. Have a lovely weekend.

You too, thank you so much!

The Ridge is out now.

Interview Anna Jane Begley

Photography Alexandra Cameron