Character: Samantha Stewart
Actor: Honeysuckle Weeks
Episode: All Episodes
Vicar's daughter Samantha Stewart was transferred from the Mechanised Transport Corps to become a very unconventional driver for Foyle. Bright, cheerful and intelligent, Sam is deeply loyal to her new boss though never completely in awe of him. She longs to play a bigger part in the investigations and is not afraid to offer her opinions on cases. Although her romance with Foyle's son Andrew is now over, the relationship triggered a closer bond with her boss, who is eventually persuaded to let her do more than just the driving.
December, 2007; Publicity Release
Honeysuckle Weeks swapped her sharp uniform for running gear as she trained for the London Marathon during filming of the new series of Foyle's War.
As soon as filming was finished for the day Honeysuckle was pounding the streets in preparation for the big race, which she ran to raise funds for her favourite charity, The Amber Foundation.
Her dedication to the fitness regime paid off when she crossed the finishing line in three hours and fifty five minutes.
"Once you're in that frame of mind that you're going to run a marathon you know you have to train. There's always that niggling feeling in the back of your head that you don't want to embarrass myself by not completing it," says Honeysuckle.
"So I'd get back from work three times a week and go for a hefty run. Looking back at it now I can't believe I did it.
"The good thing about is I could eat biscuits and puddings every day and not put on any weight. I'm sure that is something that Sam would have liked to have done if she'd had the chance.
"I think I was one of the fastest celebrities. I beat Sally Gunnell and Gordon Ramsay and quite a few others, so it was quite fast considering it was my first one.
"It was a very hot day and people were fainting all over the place. But it was a fantastic experience. It was a great feeling to have the crowds cheering you on
"It did feel like being part of an army. We were all running together, and you get a feel of camaraderie, so that you are all doing something and going through a lot of pain but towards the same goal.
"I was running for The Amber Foundation. It's a charity, which my cousin runs, that rehabilitates young men who have fallen into homelessness, or drug addition or alcoholism.
"It takes them out of their situation -they might be on the streets of London- and puts them into a rural setting, and often gives them somewhere to live, like a house boat and a job. It gives them an opportunity you know to start their lives again."
Honeysuckle raised £8,350 with sponsorship from the cast and crew of Foyle's War, along with family and friends. She completed the course so quickly that her family and friends missed her at the finishing line. "They thought I was going to be much slower because I said my running time would be more like four and a half hours, as I didn't think I would do it that fast especially as it was a sunny day. So they missed me basically."
Despite the euphoria of completing the Marathon, Honeysuckle says she won't be running it again.
"It's too painful. I lost two toe nails, even though I got my shoes specially made for me. The nails have just about grown back now but I don't want to lose them again, so I won't be doing the Marathon again."
Honeysuckle plays vicar's daughter Samantha Stewart who was transferred from the Mechanised Transport Corps to become a very unconventional driver for Foyle. Bright, cheerful and intelligent, Sam is deeply loyal to her boss though never completely in awe of him. She longs to play a bigger part in the investigations and is not afraid to offer her opinions on cases. But following Foyle's retirement from the force, Sam is out of work, and desperate to find a new job.
Honeysuckle returned to the role with a heavy heart, knowing it would be the last time she donned the uniform and drove Foyle's car.
"I'll miss my uniform an awful lot and I'll miss the cast. I'll miss the great lines that I have been given to say and of course Anthony and Michael and the crew who have been with me for years from the start," says Honeysuckle, who made her debut in the role in 2001.
"We have become very firm friends. Michael invites us to a party at his home in Dorset every year for a lovely meal.
"I'll miss the stunning locations we have filmed in. We get picked up and arrive in some beautiful country estates. It's not like doing a grim contemporary police thriller where you have to film in multi-storey car parks. The locations are green fields and long country lanes."
"I feel like a sixth former, and I am ready to leave school as it were. But it has been a wonderful experience and I have loved every minute of it. I feel lucky to be part of this show. I have grown up with it really.
"I have learnt a lot from Michael. He taught me stillness; how to concentrate to realise that the actually reality of a scene can be enough to make your performance, work rather than pushing a performance out, just let it happen. I have been lucky enough to hone my character, through the years. I feel like I have got her down now.
"I loved Sam's energy, her vivacity, bravery and the way she is so gung-ho. But she's not very sexy. She is the opposite to sexy; she is desperately proper and emotionally withdrawn. "I haven't tried to change her because that is her character and that's the way she's written. I like the fact I was not playing a sex pot. It's nice to be free to play a character."
Honeysuckle admits she was delighted to see that her character has some romance in the new series when old flame Andrew Foyle returns from the war.
"Foyle's son Andrew comes back and tells her he has been a total bloody fool, and the girl he ran off with didn't mean anything to him. He realises what a big mistake he made and that he really does love her, and he asks her to marry him.
"I think it's time Sam had some romance. I want her to have some good times, I want her to go dancing and let her hair down a bit."
Honeysuckle confesses she won't miss the car she drives in the series, which wasn't the easiest vehicle to manoeuvre around the narrow streets of Hastings.
"It was slightly tricky going round corners in that car because it has no powered steering, you have to turn the entire wheel sharp. That's quite heavy going, and if you're having to reverse during takes it can be quite straining on the old shoulders and arms. Thankfully I didn't have any prangs in it. But the smell of the interior of the car is lovely, it smells of leather and oil."
Honeysuckle has a souvenir to remind her of the series- the gloves she wore at the wheel of the car.
"I couldn't have the uniform. What would I have done with it except wear it to fancy dress parties?!"
Honeysuckle would love to see her character in a new drama, as a sea-side landlady in Hastings perhaps.
Honeysuckle began acting at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She combined acting with studying for a degree at Oxford University. Her other credits include Lorna Doone with Michael Kitchen, the Poirot film Cards on the Table, Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House, the film My Brother Tom, an episode of Where The Heart Is, and most recently an episode of Inspector Lynley.
Honeysuckle has toured as Viola in the play Twelfth Night. In her spare time she enjoys writing. She is currently writing a script for television mini series about one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in history, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Queen Consort of Louis Vll of France and King Henry ll of England. Honeysuckle went to the South of France to research the film, visiting various shrines like Rocamadour.
February, 2007; Publicity Release
Playing keen army driver Samantha Stewart in Foyle's War has rubbed off on Honeysuckle Weeks.
"Since playing Sam I've become more like her. Every character you play brings out resonances of your life, but my friends always laugh when I play Sam.
My voice changes and I become more uppity and proper and brisk in my every day life. My mother also thinks I sound so funny and quaint.
"She's always a joy to play and I have such fun doing this show. I don't have to give information or lists and the work is different every day. One day I spent most of my scenes waltzing with a partially plucked turkey!"
Sam is driver to Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle (Michael Kitchen) but is desperate to get more involved in her boss's investigations.
"Foyle normally tells Sam to get her nose out of the case but in the second episode he has to tell her what's going on because he needs her help.
Foyle is left with a child to look after when his god-daughter disappears and Sam gets put in charge of the boy. She enjoys it - it's more interesting than hanging around with the car.
"The scenes with young Joshua didn't bother me because I get on well with kids. I feel like a kid myself and I love their energy and the way they see the world.
Sam always has something going on. She also gets bombed in the new series - for the third time. I think someone is trying to kill me off!"
Honeysuckle enjoys filming Foyle's War so much that she admits she'll be sad when the series draws to an end.
"I'll be very sad to see Sam Stewart go when the time comes. I think they should do a spin off of Sam in the sixties.
She's very much part of the old English way but she could go all kind of groovy, a bit like Princess Margaret perhaps or Hayley Mills.
"I like the fact that she has values and she's quite charming. She's not a cynic. She's honourable and I warm to that. She likes glamour and I think she'd be quite horrified by this era where anything goes."
Rather than taking life easy between series, Honeysuckle went trekking in Nepal with her boyfriend Lorne.
"It's exhausting, especially at altitude and we were going up with our own kit because Lorne doesn't like taking sherpas.
I lost about a stone over the six weeks we were there but you could be at that height and not do anything and lose weight. Obviously I've put it all back on again now.
Adds Honeysuckle: "I love travel and new experiences because they make life pass more slowly. The whole point of going up mountains is to be a little bit exhilarated.
I don't like danger but I like to have physical exercise otherwise I have too much energy and get ratty, which is why my mother put me on the stage in the first place!"
Honeysuckle began acting at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She combined acting with studying for a degree at Oxford University.
Her other credits include Lorna Doone with Michael Kitchen, the Poirot film Cards on the Table, Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House, the film My Brother Tom and, most recently, an episode of Where The Heart Is.
Honeysuckle has toured as Viola in the play Twelfth Night and she also enjoys writing.
"I'm currently doing a script about Eleanor of Aquitaine and I went to the South of France to research it, visiting various shrines like Rocamadour.
It's a long project but hopefully she's someone I may be able to play in the future when I'm older. You have to be proactive in life!"
January, 2006; Publicity Release
Dancing the jitterbug and lying in hospital covered in grotesque sores were two of the highlights of filming Foyle's War for Honeysuckle Weeks.
"This year Sam has it all - death and sex," laughs Honeysuckle. "I love doing Foyle's War and the character of Sam is so great, especially as the two episodes were so exciting."
In Invasion, Sam meets a GI called Joe Farnetti (Jonah Lotan) and is taken back by his flirtatious manner.
"Joe is gregarious and outgoing, forward and modern. Sam is rather shocked by this behaviour. She's English and reserved and would never think to respond to his American way of handling women. But she enjoys the dancing when she gets going, as I did.
"Filming with real Americans was great fun. They are very enthusiastic and our energy levels shot through the roof."
The romance leads to a proposal from Joe.
"Sam is very flattered when he proposes but it happened all the time in the war. Both my grannies were proposed to at least three times. The men were about to go away to the war so there was a lot more do or die about marriage. It's nice though for Sam, because she's had a bit of unhappiness."
The second film, Bad Blood, sees Sam at death's door after she contracts a mysterious illness which claims the life of one of her friends.
"I had pretty horrendous boils applied with makeup. Black plague sores were glued to me and they were pretty revolting-looking, weeping pustules. People avoided me at lunch - I think they thought it was the onset of bird flu.
"It was a relaxing episode for me because I spent a lot of time lying in bed, looking ill. The bit I most enjoyed was being amongst the goats and chickens at a farm. I had a bit of trouble getting the goat to stay still so I could stroke him, then I discovered he loved new hawthorn leaves."
Honeysuckle spends most of the episodes in uniform as driver to police chief Foyle (Michael Kitchen).
"I like my uniform and it's how I get the character. It's easier to be Sam Stewart, perky driver, in a uniform. You feel proper and together, neat and ordered. But at the dance I got to wear civvies - an indigo dress, jewellery and my hair down."
Honeysuckle began acting at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She combined acting with studying for a degree at Oxford University. Her other credits include Lorna Doone with Michael Kitchen, Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House and the film My Brother Tom.
Since filming Foyle's War, Honeysuckle has toured as Viola in the play Twelfth Night and she also appears in a new Poirot film, Cards on the Table.
"I play Miss Dawes who is a frightfully posh gal with a slight lesbian connection to her best friend. It was great to work with David Suchet because he has a totally different style from Michael Kitchen. He's a method actor and is Poirot on and off the set, whereas Michael is Michael. It was good to experience that."
Honeysuckle is currently planning a trek to the Himalayas with her boyfriend Lorne. "He took me to the Himalayas a couple of years ago and I loved it, so I'm hoping to join him on a trek again."
October, 2004; Publicity Release
Honeysuckle Weeks was delighted to get her hands dirty in the new series of Foyle's War.
"Sam has done all sorts of things since she joined Foyle as a driver and in the new series she joins in working with two land girls on a farm where Foyle is investigating a murder.
"In the story, the girls have turned a huge area of scrubland, including wild brambles, fallen down trees, shrubs and roots, into ploughed fields. It was made to look like we knew what we were doing although sadly it was the art department slaving away for days to make it look correct. We all had to have tractor lessons as well, which was pretty amusing."
To research the role, Honeysuckle turned to her two great aunts who were both members of the Women's Land Army in the war.
"They were both land girls in Hampshire and drove around in tractors and milked cows. They weren't townies like the other land girls in our episode, just country girls doing their bit - everything that Sam does really.
"All my grandparents and my great aunts and great uncle love Foyle's War. They all went through the war and love to see it reconstructed so authentically."
Honeysuckle also spoke to an uncle to help her prepare for the episode Enemy Fire, which features the work of a pioneering burns unit.
"My uncle worked in emergency wards dealing with people who came in with terrible injuries. He talked about the sketch shows they would put on to lighten the atmosphere. That's exactly what happens in this episode. You often find this sense of grim humour in hospitals. The injuries people are suffering are ghastly. You have to laugh at something or you'd otherwise cry."
Honeysuckle is shortlisted for best newcomer at the 2004 National TV Awards for her role as Sam in Foyle's War. She was delighted to return to playing the character that has brought her such recognition.
"I'm really pleased with Sam and what she's been doing in the series. Anthony Horowitz has done a wonderful job with her, I think. She loves her job and she's totally up for the opportunities that it offers to her. It's a real adventure for her.
"Before the scripts for this series were fully written I had a meeting with Jill Green and Anthony to discuss Sam, and Anthony suggested perhaps she could marry Andrew Foyle. Everyone loves a wedding but I wasn't keen because I thought it would alter the relationship between Foyle and Sam.
"Sam is still journeying and has things to see and do by herself. I don't think she would be able to keep all that if she married. Men are coming and going and dying but she is not starved for male attention. Perhaps she'll end up like one of my maiden aunts and never marry!"
Honeysuckle dislocated her shoulder towards the end of filming but has since recovered well and her fitness was recently put to the test in the jungles of Africa.
"After we finished filming I went on a horseback safari through Botswana for three weeks. I have ridden a lot but I was slightly concerned because of my shoulder. It was serious riding - at one point we had to gallop away from a river as we were being chased by lions! I've always wanted to see Africa and get close to animals. It was a fantastic experience but there was no turning back once you started."
Honeysuckle began acting at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She combined acting with studying for a degree at Oxford University. Her other credits include Lorna Doone with Michael Kitchen, Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House and the film My Brother Tom.
She is currently recording a series of audio books from the wartime novels by Lillian Harry.
October, 2003; Publicity Release
Honeysuckle Weeks had to learn to drive an authentic 1940s petrol tanker for the new series of Foyle's War.
"Sam is Foyle's driver but she gets a chance to go undercover, working at a fuel depot that's suspected of being involved in racketeering. Delivering petrol was one of the jobs taken over by women in the war. Honeysuckle Weeks plays Samantha Stewart. The tanker was quite difficult to drive and incredibly hard to steer - you had to have arms of steel to turn those wheels. Lisa Kay, who plays Connie, another driver, and I were both having trouble and the first assistant director was giving us some stick - until he tried it himself and kept crunching the gears!"
Honeysuckle felt more at home behind the wheel of Sam's vintage Wolseley. "It's a very powerful car and I miss it when I don't drive it. I just wish I knew as much about cars as Sam does because I could have saved a fortune."
Like her co-stars, Honeysuckle was proud of the success of Foyle's War. "It was amazing to get such a great reaction. I think it's the mood of the whole series and the way it's presented. There's some incredible detail, such as when Sam gets made homeless because the house where she's staying is bombed. I'm sure it must have happened to a lot of people and the details of all those facets of life in the war make it very real. In the new series, Sam is no longer a novice. She's slowly becoming more tactful, although she still has that blundering, youthful curiosity at times. Foyle gently instructs her and there's more familiarity between the two of them. I feel we've become more of a family too as actors."
There's a touch of romance for Sam, too, with Foyle's son Andrew (Julian Ovenden). "Sam hasn't really mixed with boys that much and she likes Andrew. The idea of an airman really appeals - they were the heroes. And because she feels very comfortable with Detective Foyle, she likes the idea of his son as a prospective boyfriend. But she realises Foyle might not be exactly pro the idea," says Honeysuckle. It was nice to get out of uniform and into civvies when Sam goes on a date with Andrew. She wears quite wholesome, sky blue dresses, and nothing too racy. In general, I think the clothes of Foyle's War predict the 1980s - shoulder pads and sculpted hair - women with power and serious jobs."
Honeysuckle began acting at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She combined acting with studying for a degree at Oxford University. Her other credits include Lorna Doone with Michael Kitchen, Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House and the film My Brother Tom.
Between acting jobs, Honeysuckle enjoys oil painting, driving around to visit as much of Britain as possible and working on her plans for a children's drama series on the themes of magic and mystery.
"I'm writing a children's series in three parts - it's a parable, a fairytale about childhood. I think childhood is a good metaphor to life. As it doesn't last long, it has an added poignancy."
September, 2002; Publicity Release
Honeysuckle Weeks found it easy to slip into the role of police driver Samantha Stewart in Foyle's War - because she and her character share an uncannily similar background.
"Sam was described to me at the outset as someone who was born in Cardiff and brought up in the South Downs. In real life, I know the South Downs like the back of my hand because I grew up there and I was also born in Cardiff. I felt transported into the character as I read.
"It was so amazingly just like my life, although the story was changed slightly to make Sam a vicar's daughter, to make up for my slightly Oxford accent. Sometimes you just know a role is right for you. You think no-one else could do it as well, which might not be true, but it's a great feeling."
Honeysuckle's determination to win the part was reinforced when she discovered Michael Kitchen would be playing Foyle.
"I worked with Michael in the radio drama of Charles Dickens' Bleak House and we were also both in the cast of Lorna Doone. When I found out Michael was starring in Foyle's War I was desperate to get the part.
"Sam has so much energy she doesn't know what to do with it. She is very enthusiastic and excited by taking on a role in society so young. Her job makes her independent and as a consequence she is almost overwhelmed to have freedom, both literally and metaphorically.
"Her curiosity about Foyle's work is childlike - charming, but irritating - and Foyle gets severely cheesed off. But she gets it right in the end and Foyle is forced to admit that she has an intuition that balances a man's logic. She feels through her imagination rather than just the facts."
Sam is pulled out of the Mechanised Transport Corps to become Foyle's driver.
"She has joined up of her own free will. It's an adventure for any girl to aid the war effort but she's working with men. When her father finds out he thinks it is not morally sanitary.
"It was fun driving the cars and fortunately I didn't have to be an expert driver. Ron who owned the cars obviously adored them. Here I was a young lady driver and he had to let me loose with his beautiful car. He wanted me to know all about how it worked and was incredibly proud of it, so I had to be very careful and look as if I'd been driving it for longer than a couple of weeks."
Foyle's War took Honeysuckle back to a location where she had previously worked - Squeerys Court in Kent, which doubles as the home of Henry Beaumont (Robert Hardy) and his wife Greta (Joanna Kanska).
"I filmed a Victoria Wood Christmas Special there, a spoof of Sense and Sensibility called Plots and Proposals. It was quite different this time. In Plots and Proposals I played Kate Winslet's character and was dressed in a Regency outfit, frolicking in the garden with ringlets. For Foyle's War there were lots of horses with blood all over them and we were investigating a murder."
Honeysuckle began her acting career at the age of nine and had her first big TV break starring in Goggle Eyes. She has combined acting with studying, gaining a degree in English Literature from Oxford University. Her other credits include Close Relations, Midsomer Murders, The Orchard Walls, The Rag Nymphs, The Wild House and the recent film My Brother Tom.
"When I don't act I'm busy writing books and screenplays and take it quite seriously. I've wanted to do this since I was very young and both my brother Rollo and sister Perdita are actors, too."