Piglets star Sarah Parish on how new transformation left co-stars unable to recognise her

ok.co.uk:

ITV’s new sitcom Piglets follows six hapless wannabe coppers as they are licked into shape by the police force’s most incompetent officers.

Sarah Parish and Mark Heap play no-nonsense Superintendent Julie Spry and total-nonsense Superintendent Bob Weekes. Between them, they oversee the “piglets” – and all their disasters.The new recruits are Steph (Callie Cooke), Leggo (Sam Pote), Geeta (Sukh Ojla), Afia (Halema Hussain), Dev (Abdul Sessay) and Paul (Jamie Bisping).The Crown star Rebecca Humphries plays head of admin Melanie, while police trainers Mike and Daz are played by Ukweli Roach and Ricky Champ.The normally glamorous Sarah Parish looks almost unrecognisable as Julie Spry without a scrap of make-up and a short grey crop. “I always want a physical expression for each character, but it’s especially the case for somebody like Julie because Piglets is such high comedy and I knew I could really go to town with her,” says Sarah. “When we met up for Piglets we tried on lots of wigs, and as soon as I put Julie’s on I knew that was the one, it was exactly how I saw her in my head.Then the make-up artist Jody Williams suggested fake teeth, so we went the whole hog.” It's not the first time that Sarah has donned fake teeth for an acting role. "We went to a brilliant place called Fangs, where they make teeth for TV shows," she says. "I’ve worked with them three times before, including when I played a big red spider in Doctor Who, so I'm used to working with prosthetics. "Out of all the teeth that I've used from Fangs, Julie’s were actually the most natural and easiest to speak with.