Nichola Burley (Donkey Punch) Interview

Starring Jaime Winstone, Nichola Burley and Sian Breckin, Donkey Punch is a no-holds-barred horror/thriller that pushes the genre to its limits and dares to ask the question: Do you know what a Donkey Punch is? Nichola Burley plays Tammi in the film.

Prior to her role in Donkey Punch, Nichola made her feature debut in 2005’s Love + Hate. On television, roles have included the TV Movie, Born Equal for the BBC, regular appearances in The Ghost Squad, Goldplated, and Shameless for Channel 4, as well as Drop Dead Gorgeous and the recently completed Till We Die a new comedy series for Hat Trick. Nichola’s recent theatre work includes BollyWood Jane (West Yorkshire playhouse) and Amadeus (Crucible Sheffield).


“I’m in almost every scene, which meant shooting every day, all day. As we became more physically drained, our exhaustion was put to good use and I think we all channelled that emotion into the film, we knew if we used that it would help our characters seem more realistic.

There were a lot of things in the filming that I have never had to do before. At one point we were anchored between two seas, one of which, the Atlantic, is very cold. We had medics on board who told us that if you were in the sea for over 40 minutes you could catch hypothermia. There’s a scene where we’re swimming and it looks really hot in the film, but they actually had to pull me out of the water because my lips were going blue, so the medics took my temperature and said I wasn’t to go back in. Working in England we’ve never had to do anything like that! There were sharks and seals in this ocean and we had a crew of people called The Frog Squad; any time we had to do a scene they were swimming around and underneath to keep us safe. During one night scene when Jaime (Kim) and I are trying to escape in the dingy, one of them popped up suddenly, we thought he was a seal and screamed our heads off! Yes, we were quite on edge at that point!”


Donkey Punch is released in UK cinemas on 18th July 2008.