Taking up 'The Widow' was a gamble, says Kate Beckinsale

Kate Beckinsale says starring in the television drama The Widow was a "gamble" for her as the actor did not know how the story ended when she received the script of the show. The Widow, an ITV show, is the actor's first small screen outing in two decades and in which she plays Georgia Wells, the eponymous widow whose husband Wil died in a plane crash on a trip to Africa.

Three years after Wil's death, she sees a man resembling him on a news story reporting civil unrest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Suspecting her husband may have faked his death, Wells travels to Kinshasa to uncover the truth.

"I was sent three scripts but I didn't know how the story ended, so it was a little bit of a gamble. I was a little bit nervous of that. I thought, 'Hang on... what if I end up not liking it?' In fact, it was terrifying," Beckinsale told RadioTimes magazine.

The eight-episode series is created and written by Williams brothers -- Harry and Jack and it was her trust in the duo that she took the plunge.

"But I am a big fan of the boys, as I call them. When I met them, I could tell that it was bad form to say, 'Please tell me what happens in the end.' In a way it makes sense not to know: Georgia starts out not really knowing what she's doing or where she's going, and I was in the same position," she said.

Beckinsale said the evolution in the industry recently made her confident of taking up the show.

"The industry has changed a lot recently in that you can explore a character in a much more complete way over eight hours than one and a half. That's why a lot of actors are getting really seduced by television," she said.