Jayne Wisener relied on 'artistic licence' for Unsinkable: Titanic Untold role

Jayne Wisener used "artistic licence" to add more background to her 'Unsinkable: Titanic Untold' character.

The 36-year-old actress features in the new film – which focuses on the aftermath of the 1912 disaster – as Maggie Malloy and had to put herself in her character's shoes as there was only limited detail about her role.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, Jayne said: "I play Maggie Malloy, who is a real person, she's a senator's assistant, and she's first generation Irish. There's not a lot of information about her. So I was able to take some artistic licence and give a lot of myself to the character.

"I did watch half of 'Titanic' just to remind myself more of who the people were like the captain of X, Y, and Z."

She continued: "And I kind of, I thought a lot about who Maggie was. And obviously, at some point, she would have ordered a passenger ship and come across to the US on (a ship) similar to the Titanic, possibly.

"I just tried to make up a reason for what brought her over, how young she might have been, how she came to work for the senator, stuff that doesn't really matter to the film, but I just kind of, I just wanted, like a real person, even though I've made half of her up."

Jayne has an "affinity" with the Titanic as she comes from Northern Ireland – where the doomed ship was built – but her first introduction to the story was through watching Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in James Cameron's hit 1997 film.

She said: "I'm from Northern Ireland, and I think most people in this country have an affinity with the Titanic because of the fact that it was built in Belfast. But I think the first real introduction to the story was Leonardo DiCaprio.

"When I was very young in the cinema and probably too young to have watched it to be honest, but everybody went to see it because everyone was talking about it.

"But this film, 'Unsinkable' was the first I'd ever heard of this part of the story. I had no idea that there that all this went on afterwards."

'Unsinkable: Titanic Untold' is available to watch in selected Cineworld and Vue cinemas nationwide from April 12th and to stream on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime from May.