Lily Rabe reveals why she almost turned down starring role in crime show Tell Me Your Secrets

In Amazon Prime's new crime show Tell Me Your Secrets, Lily Rabe stars as Karen, the former girlfriend of a killer who is suffering from memory loss and trying to make a new life under the name Emma. "She's been in prison, and she has to take her first steps into the world as this completely new person," says Rabe, who we see as Karen in flashbacks. "I don't want to give too much away but it was so wonderful playing both women. Karen is someone who had such a wide open heart. Then, because of what she's been through, [she becomes] someone who's afraid of absolutely everyone and feels as though she will never feel another moment of safety again in her life."

Tell Me Your Secrets also costars Amy Brenneman as a grieving mother, and Rabe's real-life partner Hamish Linklater as a rapist seeking some form of redemption. But Rabe reveals that her main reason for signing on to the project was the show's creator Harriet Warner, best known as a writer on the U.K. drama Call the Midwife.

"I'm someone who loves a thriller, I love a mystery, and so many of them are from the U.K.," says Rabe. "The script hit a very sweet spot for me as a reader. But, listen I had just had a baby, I had a newborn, and I wasn't incredibly eager to leave home and I knew the shoot would be a painful and deep and completely consuming experience. So, I went into this meeting with Harriet thinking, I'm just very excited to be sitting down with a wonderful writer, and tell her how incredible I think she is, and then walk away and not do this job. I sat down with her and it was five, 10 minutes in, she got up from the table to do something, and I was texting Hamish under the table: 'Oh, f---, I'm going to have to do this job.' It was just so many expletives! I knew instantly that I had to work with her and that I had to play the part that she had created. I found her sensibility so unique and I wanted to just dive in to the waters of it. It felt frustratingly like something I knew instantly I couldn't walk away from."

Tell Me Your Secrets premieres on Amazon Prime Video this Friday. Watch the trailer for the show, below.

Related content:

• Tell Me Your Secrets photos reveal Amy Brenneman and Lily Rabe in new thriller series
• Rich people suffer beautifully in The Undoing: Review