Cold Water Cast and Plot Breakdown (Full Guide)

Seeking a quieter life, John relocates his family to a secluded home in a remote, close-knit Scottish town. The stunning landscape promises peace, but the community is guarded, holding its secrets close. John’s attempt to settle in leads him to befriend his enigmatic and solitary neighbor, Tommy, a man who seems to know the town’s every hidden path and unspoken story. What begins as a welcome friendship quickly becomes an obsession for John, a fascination with a man who is clearly more than he appears.

As John is drawn deeper into Tommy’s world, his wife Fiona’s suspicions grow. Where John sees a compelling, misunderstood soul, Fiona senses a palpable danger and a history of violence that the town has willingly forgotten. Her investigation into Tommy’s past triggers a dangerous unraveling, forcing long-buried truths and repressed anger to the surface. “Cold Water” is a gripping psychological thriller about the secrets we keep, the lies we tell to survive, and the devastating consequences of unearthing a past that wants to stay buried.

Meet the Cast of Cold Water

1: Andrew Lincoln as John

Andrew Lincoln delivers a masterful performance as John, a man whose search for a simpler life leads him into a complex and dark psychological web. Lincoln expertly portrays John’s initial optimism and vulnerability, making his growing obsession with his neighbor both compelling and unsettling to watch. He captures the character’s gradual transformation, as his fascination with Tommy’s secrets begins to overshadow his responsibilities as a husband and father, blurring the lines between curiosity and dangerous complicity.

Lincoln’s performance is a nuanced study of a man being slowly seduced by the darkness he seeks to understand. His chemistry with Ewen Bremner is electric, built on a foundation of unspoken recognition and a shared, repressed anger that John himself doesn’t yet fully comprehend. Lincoln ensures that John’s journey is not just about uncovering Tommy’s secrets, but about confronting the hidden shadows within his own soul, making his descent a deeply personal and terrifying unraveling.

2: Indira Varma as Fiona

Indira Varma is compelling as Fiona, John’s intelligent and intuitively suspicious wife. Varma brings a steely resilience and piercing perception to the role, portraying a woman who immediately senses the threat that her husband is too blinded to see. Her performance is layered with a protective ferocity, as her attempts to safeguard her family isolate her within her own home, turning her marriage into a tense battleground of trust and fear.

Varma masterfully charts Fiona’s journey from concerned partner to determined investigator, becoming the show’s moral and emotional anchor. Her fear is palpable and rational, making her the audience’s surrogate in a town that refuses to see the danger in its midst. Her struggle is not just against a mysterious neighbor, but against the willful ignorance of an entire community and the terrifying erosion of her own marriage.

3: Ewen Bremner as Tommy

Ewen Bremner is utterly mesmerizing and deeply unsettling as Tommy, the enigmatic neighbor at the heart of the town’s mysteries. Bremner crafts a character of haunting contradictions—capable of appearing both vulnerable and menacing in the same moment. His Tommy is a raw nerve of repressed trauma and simmering rage, a man whose quiet, solitary existence is a fragile dam holding back a torrent of violence and pain.

Bremner’s performance is a masterclass in subtle menace and tragic pathos. He makes Tommy profoundly unpredictable, ensuring that every scene he is in is charged with a palpable and unnerving tension. He is not a simple villain, but a profoundly damaged product of the town’s dark history, and Bremner ensures the audience is constantly kept off-balance, questioning whether he is a monster to be feared or a victim to be pitied.

4: Eve Myles as Rebecca

Eve Myles appears as Rebecca, a pivotal local resident who possesses a deep, personal knowledge of the town’s history and Tommy’s past. Myles brings her signature warmth and fortitude to the role, but layers it with a palpable sense of caution and sorrow. Rebecca represents the conscience of the community, a keeper of secrets who is torn between the need for peace and the duty to reveal a terrible truth.

Myles’s performance adds crucial depth and emotional weight to the narrative. Her character’s interactions with Fiona provide key pieces to the puzzle, and her own fear and guilt regarding past events make her a compelling and tragic figure in her own right. She is the link between the present danger and the past sins that created it.

5: Lorn Macdonald as Angus

Lorn Macdonald plays Angus, a young, tightly-wound local who embodies the town’s collective anxiety and hostility towards outsiders. Macdonald brings a feral, nervous energy to the role, portraying Angus as a man haunted by the same history as Tommy, but without the same control. He serves as a volatile and unpredictable wildcard, whose actions could escalate the tension toward violence at any moment.

Macdonald’s performance effectively creates a sense of pervasive threat that extends beyond Tommy. Angus represents the wider community’s complicity and the dangerous pack mentality that emerges when secrets are threatened. His presence ensures that the threat to John and his family is not isolated, but endemic to the entire town.

6: Abigail Lawrie & Lois Chimimba

Abigail Lawrie and Lois Chimimba round out the cast in key supporting roles, likely as other residents of the insular town. Their characters will serve to further flesh out the community’s dynamic, representing the various factions—from those who are openly hostile to the new family, to those who might be silently sympathetic but too afraid to speak out. Their performances will add layers of social complexity and realism to the ominous setting.

The Ensemble
The series is supported by a strong ensemble, including Jason Alan Staines as a Funeral Guest, whose presence hints at the recent tragedy that hangs over the community and serves as a catalyst for the unfolding drama. Each character contributes to the suffocating atmosphere of a place bound together by a shared, terrible knowledge.

Why Cold Water Is a Must-Watch

• Psychological Depth: A slow-burn, character-driven thriller that preys on paranoia and the fear of the unknown.

• Powerhouse Performances: Stellar work from a top-tier British cast, led by the incredible Andrew Lincoln and Indira Varma.

• Atmospheric Dread: The remote, bleak Scottish setting becomes a character in itself, creating a palpable sense of isolation and impending doom.

• Twists and Turns: A story that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Trust No One. Fear Everyone. Cold Water premieres September 13, 2025, on ITV.