Maria Doyle Kennedy is no stranger to captivating audiences with her dynamic performances, whether on stage as a singer or on screen in some of the most compelling roles in film and television. In her latest venture, she takes on the beloved role of Tannie Maria in season 2 of Recipes for Love and Murder, a series that blends cozy culinary delights with the intrigue of a murder mystery.
Maria shares her journey of embodying the kind-hearted agony aunt turned amateur sleuth, her connection to the richly layered character and how food becomes a universal language of comfort and connection in the series.
You’ve had such a versatile career across film, TV, and music. How has playing Tannie Maria been a unique experience for you?
I was attracted to her initially because I thought she was so interesting. I thought she was a complicated and real person and then of course there’s her food. I never really thought about that before or certainly hadn’t played anybody like her. Food is a language for her and she uses the process of cooking to think. It’s almost like a meditation and it slows her down. Even though she’s busy and she’s purposeful, that’s not distracting to her, it’s actually calming and soothing. Through cooking, she’s able to process her own thoughts.
She’s a little bit emotionally damaged and sometimes she doesn’t communicate very well but she does through food. She takes the time to enjoy the process which sometimes we don’t do in real life. We’re busy and we’re trying to feed ourselves and our children. They’re all hungry and it has to happen within a certain time. You might enjoy sharing a meal with people but you’ve rushed to get to that part. She uses that as a way of communicating with herself and then sharing of the results is a way of communicating with other people. That’s something really different and something that I hadn’t ever really thought about before. It’s made me feel different about cooking myself. It’s made me slow down and try and enjoy the process. It’s also made me be a little bit more experimental and to try put different things together.
I’ve fallen completely in love with Tannie Maria, I think she’s just fantastic. I think she’s a bit mad and a bit guarded. She’s middle-aged but she’s still incredibly innocent in some ways and I found that very interesting. I love her!
Tannie Maria is such a unique and layered character. How did you initially approach portraying her, and has your understanding of her evolved as the series progressed?
I started trying to figure out how to communicate her. She’s quite guarded even though she’s very friendly, helpful and warm. At the same time helpfulness can be the sunny side of control. Sometimes she’s helpful in order to keep people away and she would be helpful towards them but did not reveal very much of herself. So, that’s what I was trying to figure out in season 1. How to play her in a way that was truthful to and expressed that but also that you cared about her. I didn’t want her to shut people out through that guardedness or that lack of being able to communicate sometimes.
She’s kind of eccentric and naive and a bit damaged from the relationship that she’s been through before. That was my big thing, trying to bring people in but still maintain that side of her character. She got somewhere by the end of season 1. She began to trust again and she creates this incredible bond with the other two women – Jennifer Steyn’s character Hattie and Kylie Fisher’s character Jessie. Through that, she really learns that it is possible to reveal a bit and to let people in and that there’s actually strength in doing that.
It sounds a bit contradictory but there is a strength in being vulnerable and I think opening herself up to trust was where she got by the end of season 1. She’s going into season 2 with that, with the hopes of maybe a relationship with Khaya. She’s a middle-aged woman with no real experience of relationships. She’s got to try and learn all of that. That’s the big thing I was thinking of in season 2. She’s opened up a little bit but there’s something kind of childlike about her as well. She’s just doing a lot of these things for the first time and that’s really interesting to figure out how to do that as a middle-aged character.
Food plays such a central role in the series. How do you relate to Tannie Maria’s love for cooking, and do you have a favourite recipe or dish from the show?
The thing I’ve got the most comments about after season 1 was her incredible cake. It’s extraordinary. I like to cook but I’ve got four boys they’re always hungry. Most of my cooking is a little bit more practical. You know, to get them fed. We always like to eat together and we make an effort to do that in the evening.
I’m not much of a baker but I tried to do more baking after season 1. I tried to make the cake since but it didn’t go well. It was a bit of a disaster but I’m going to keep trying. She’s made me feel like experimenting a bit. I’m going to keep going and try to be a better baker. That’s the main thing I’m taking from her.
In the words of Tannie Maria, “every layer of flavour adds more depth – it just keeps getting more delicious”.
The dish being served is a multiple murder investigation – and it’s the ‘amuse-bouche’ for the second course of Recipes for Love & Murder, coming to M-Net (DStv Channel 101) on Thursday, 23 January 2025 at 8pm.