Now the undisputed head of the Wallace Corporation, Marian has learned quickly that heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Increasingly isolated from those around her, Marian is at a point in her life where she feels like she has no one to trust – and she might be right. After season two, her once solid and lifelong friendship with Ed Dumani is in tatters, and with her son Sean locked up, she has to rely on his troubled younger sibling, Billy.

But when it seems things have hit rock bottom, the floor opens up and gives her further to fall. Now it’s up to her sink or swim instincts to kick in and keep her in the position of the most powerful matriarch in the criminal underworld.

Speaking ahead of the series launch, Michelle Fairley talks about Marian’s headspace, working alongside new director Kim Hong-Sun, and what lies ahead for her character.

The season begins with a shipment of cocaine that gets spiked, and it’s finding out who is responsible and the repercussions. That starts the tendrils coming out from that as they start to infect different characters within the production.

At the end of season two, Marian is pretty much a single figure on her own. She’s basically disgraced herself within the gang community. She has alienated herself yet again from her family. Her son is in prison and she bears quite a heavy responsibility for her other son having lost most of his arm, which seems crazy! So she’s a pretty lonely figure at the end of season two and needs to start to build her life back up again so that she can start to get her strength and her power and her position back.

She also has completely fallen out with the Dumani family as well. There’s been a massive breakdown in loyalty there, that is years of friendship destroyed. But in terms of the professional world that they move in, they still have to continue to associate. But there’s a lot of hidden levels and meanings behind the associations, or the non-association, really.

Yeah. Well, the, the relationship between Marian and Ed Dumani is one that has been cemented for years and years and years, and the gradual decline, breakdown, annihilation of their friendship and their trust in each other is, for me, one of the saddest things for Marian, because Ed, apart from her children, he was her rock.

The fact that the abandonment, the rejection and the betrayal have sort of added to Marian’s scar material inside her body, there’s a lot of resentment there. It’s this gradual disintegration of not trusting and not being able to trust and seeing somebody that you absolutely loved and adored, you help bring their kids up, and the disintegration of that friendship, for Marian, is huge. For me it just encases how separate and lonely this woman has become.

He was fantastic. Full of energy, great ideas, and his directness is very much appreciated. He’d say things to me like, ‘don’t be like a penguin’ and I knew instantly what he would mean, you know? (laughs) I absolutely loved working with him. He was brilliant, very open, and interestingly, there’s quite a strong cultural difference with some things.

In one scene we were shooting in Marian’s house, and it’s a posh house. It’s got massive radiators that cost thousands, and in Korea, Hong-Sun said, you would not show this. He wanted to put towels over the radiators and hang Marian’s clothes up by the windows. I’m like, ‘no, this is not a doll’s house.’ It’s, ‘no, too much white. And you wouldn’t show this in Korea.’ And I’m like, she has a walk-in wardrobe, why would she be hanging her clothes by the window? Just these tiny things. But I find him very inclusive and energetic and full of life.

New characters, more death, and more blood.