With the much-praised return of BBC's Doctor Foster, Suranne Jones is enjoying a career high at the moment. But the tv star revealed in an interview this week that she has recently endured horrendous heartbreak behind the scenes.
The famously private actress, 39, opened up to The Mirror about the devastating impact of her mother's death, which happened in Decemberlast year.
Her beloved mum, Jenny Jones, lost her battle with a long illness, just 10 months after the birth of Suranne's son in March 2016. Suranne shared, "Becoming a mother and then losing your mother is quite...well, they both change you profoundly and you have to give yourself time to understand what's happened with that."
It's unclear which illness Suranne's mother's died of, but when Suranne was a teenager, her mother Jenny battled with breast cancer, so it's possible that this is the illness recurred.
Of the difficult time all those years ago, Suranne admitted, "I wasn't very helpful when it happened to mum. I was a moody teenager with problems of my own.
"It was a huge shock when my mum was diagnosed. She was 49 when she found a lump in one of her breasts and sensed something was wrong. At the time we did a breast cancer campaign together. I still do a lot of charity runs."
But she also shared just how much losing her mum has made her realise her bravery - "At the time, it didn't occur to me that I might lose her. Now... I can really appreciate how brave she was. Mum's illness brought our family closer and made us realise what an amazing person she is."
But despite the devastating news, Suranne later spoke on an episode of This Morning about how rewarding she's found being a first time mum to her 17-month-old son.
After welcoming her child with husband Laurence Akers, she said, "I love being a mum. It is the best. I always knew I would. I met Laurence [husband Laurence Akers] at Sally Lindsay's wedding.
"He was friends with her husband. A year later, we married and a year after that we had a baby.
(Suranne in the second series of Doctor Foster)
However, the actress admitted that combining her work life with her growing family had proven a challenge in the last year - especially as her son had been suffering from a worrying illness.
Explaining the challenges of her tricky work life balance, and pairing family with filming the second series of Doctor Foster, she said, "My son was six months old. We tried nursery. But he had hand, foot and mouth and then we had to bring him on set. It was full on,"
Despite the difficulties, The Doctor Foster star even hinted that another addition to her brood could well be in the works soon.
Live on This Morning, host Phillip Schofield joked about Suranne's plans to add to her family. He said, "We were chatting in the break. I would say it's going to be difficult until Christmas next year."
Speaking to Suranne, he continued, "I think we are looking at sex in November of next year. That works.", to which Holly also jokily added, "Put it in the diary!"
