TikTok sensation A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder star Emma Myles on why watching Love Island was key to the role

Pip is trying to track down a killer in new BBC TV crime thriller A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, but the American actress playing her was more concerned with tracking down an English accent.

“Finding it was one of the biggest challenges during filming,” admits Emma Myers, who stars as werewolf Enid Sinclair in US drama Wednesday and now appears as English schoolgirl sleuth Pip Fitz-Amobi in the six-part A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.

“When I met the producers, they said, ‘If you can do a British accent the part is yours,’ but it hasn’t come easy. I found I could do this exaggerated Essex accent, after tuning in to clips of Love Island, but the part of Pip requires a standard southern English accent, which is why I got a dialect coach. I’m still not sure I’ve got it right. I shall probably watch the show on mute when it comes to TV!”

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder is based on the novel by Holly Jackson, which has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Set in and around the fictional town of Little Kilton in Buckinghamshire, Pip has time on her hands during the summer holidays so decides to take on a most unusual school project.

Emma Myers and Zain Iqbal

She turns detective and reinvestigates the murder of Andie Bell, a student at her school who supposedly suffered a violent death at the hands of her boyfriend Salil “Sal” Singh. He appears to have left a suicide note before taking his own life.

But was it really like that – or did somebody kill them both?

Pip teams up with Sal’s younger brother Ravi (Zain Iqbal) to carry out enquiries, but may be risking her life.

“She gets warned off the case because she’s clearly upsetting people by investigating what happened,” explains Emma. “On a camping trip with friends, she discovers a note under her pillow which reads ‘Stop Digging, Pippa’. She could be leaving herself in grave danger.”

Emma, 22, says she has huge admiration for her character’s tenacity and determination, and also admires her skills as a detective.

Anna Maxwell Martin

“She’s so smart. I think I’d last about a week as a private detective. I would either confront somebody about the crime they’d allegedly committed and get threatened with a gun or I’d go down the breaking and entering route and end up being arrested. Either way, it wouldn’t end well!”

The series, which also stars Motherland actress Anna Maxwell Martin as Pip’s mum Leanne, was filmed in the West Country last summer, in temperatures and conditions that weren’t always ideal.

Emma, who hails from Florida, says she had to wear a thick overcoat for most of filming because she felt so cold. Shooting would sometimes take place in front of hundreds of onlookers, such is the success of the novel on which the show is based and excitement around the TV series.

Asha Banks

Asha Banks, 20, who plays Pip’s best friend Cara Ward, reveals fans of the book were very clever at detecting where they were going to be filming.

“We had fans of the book travelling from America to watch us film and we were baffled as to how they knew where we would be because such information isn’t made public,” she says.

Emma, who is currently filming season two of Wednesday in America, adds, “There was a point at which we thought there must be a spy in the camp because people just knew to come all the time.”

The actress admits such a large, public presence did make her feel a little uncomfortable. “It could be jarring. You felt like you were doing a play, not recording a TV show.”

At least Emma and the production team found a way to deal with a disobedient dog, if not an impromptu audience.

“Pip has a pet, Barney, who is played in the show by Hector the terrier. I don’t think Hector had acted in a TV drama before. He was quite nervous about responding to commands, and for the scenes where I am taking him for a walk on his lead, he would quite often pull me so hard I would get yanked out of shot of the camera!”

“We had to come up with a solution – so when you see me with a leash in my hand, I’m probably pretending the dog is on the other end of it and the first assistant director is just out of shot, moving the lead up and down!”

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder launches on BBC iPlayer on Monday 1 July and will air on BBC Three later in the summer