Of the actors cast in the four leading roles, only Gina McKee was a native of North East England, and she was from Sunderland rather than from Newcastle. McKee related strongly to many of the characters and story elements in the scripts and was very keen to play Mary, but the production team was initially uncertain whether it would be possible to age her up convincingly enough to portray the character in her 50s. McKee was concerned that she would not be given the part after an unsuccessful makeup test where efforts to make her appear to be in her 50s resulted in her resembling a drag queen.