Maya Sondhi drunkenly asked Jed Mercurio for a "dramatic" storyline on ‘Line of Duty’.
The actress’ alter ego, PC Maneet Bindra, was left for dead at the close of last night’s (31.03.19) opening episode of season five and she admitted the storyline – which saw an organised crime group (OCG) turn on her and slash her throat when she was found with a bugged mobile phone – and she’s admitted the shock twist came after she begged the showrunner for more to do.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "The moral of the story is never get drunk with Jed and suggest something.
"Months before he had written this series, we were at an awards do and I was sat next to Jed and I was saying I was chuffed to come back but I said ‘what are we going to do with her because we have to resolve what happened with Hilton? She can’t just carry on working there’.
"And he said ‘We do need to do something’. So I said ‘We could do something really dramatic’.
"Then when he rang me to talk about storylines he said ‘you know that stuff you were talking about that was quite interesting’ so we kind of colluded. I was up for doing something quite dramatic because I just thought you wouldn’t expect it from Maneet because she is just basically paper pushing in the background and giving information and doing searches."
Despite Maneet having her throat slit by the balaclava gang, Maya has teased that it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s gone for good.
She said: "You never know with Jed, look what he did with Keeley in ‘Bodyguard’, the whole thing was about the Bodyguard and her and then he killed her off. Craig Parkinson’s character came back in ‘Line Of Duty’ before and with Jed you never ever assume anything because you never know what is going to happen. That is all I can say really.
"It was a night shoot for those scenes we did so I am not gonna lie it was pretty freezing, but the crew are so amazing and clever what they do. We had some of the guys that work on ‘Game Of Thrones’ that were dealing with the blood, it is so exciting when you see the final thing and the finishing shots, you think that was worth lying around and getting cold for."