Anastasia Hille

In The Missing (2014), Celia Baptiste would like her husband to stop. Tchéky Karyo plays Julien, the retired detective whose patient attention makes another attempt at the search seem worthwhile; Hille has to make the objection worth hearing. We felt for Celia, because the detective we are pleased to follow is also a husband who will not leave work alone. Her concern belongs in a drama interested in what waiting does to people. We can want him to carry on without dismissing her.

Hille's screen work is only part of a career with substantial leading roles in theatre. She played Isabella for Cheek by Jowl in Measure for Measure (1994), then moved into film and television from the late 1990s, with Gillian in The Hole (2001) among the early film parts. The stage work continued, including Lady Macbeth in Declan Donnellan's Macbeth (2010) for Cheek by Jowl. Rupert Goold directed her as Dr James in Lucy Prebble's The Effect (2013), and Katie Mitchell has been a repeated collaborator. That substantial theatre work makes us reluctant to judge her capabilities by the supporting jobs television gives her.

In The Fear (2012), she plays Jo Beckett, the wife of a crime boss. Wives, mothers and professionals under pressure recur in her work, and her strength in such parts is emotional restraint. The reservation is about the opportunities this casting offers. A woman who wants the leading man to stop is easily treated as a nuisance, however sensible the objection. We would like more screen parts in which she gets to make the decisions that everyone else must live with.

The limits are visible in The Missing, too. Its first series gives the effects of waiting proper attention; the second becomes so intricate that we start admiring the plotting when we should be worried about the people. That shift leaves less room for the kind of quiet concern that makes Celia worth noticing. Start with the first series, and give her objections the same attention as Julien's next lead.