With London Spy released this week on DVD, we have some Q&A’s with stars Ben Wisham and Jim Broadbent.
LONDON SPY begins with a chance romance between two people from two very different walks of life; one from the high-powered ranks of investment banking and the other from a world of clubbing and youthful excess. Their love story quickly unravels, however, when the reclusive banker disappears under suspicious circumstances, exposing his real identity as a spy and forcing his lover down a dark path in order to reveal the truth.
The stirring five-part mystery, from acclaimed best-selling author Tom Rob Smith (Child 44, Doctors), stars BAFTA winner Ben Whishaw (Spectre, The Danish Girl) in a career-defining performance as Danny, the innocent, young romantic drawn into a dangerous world of espionage. He is joined by Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent (Iris, Cloud Atlas) who is Danny’s friend and mentor; Scottie, Emmy nominee and Academy Award© nominee Charlotte Rampling (Broadchurch, 45 Years) is Alex’s mother; Frances, and newcomer Edward Holcroft (Wolf Hall, Kingsman: The Secret Service) is Danny’s friend, Alex.
Ben Wishaw
Q: Where does the story of London Spy begin?
A: Danny’s the central character and we follow him, he falls in love at the beginning of the story with a man called Alex and they have a very intense, deep connection.
Q: How does that relationship contribute to the plot of the story?
The relationship mysteriously ends abruptly and Danny doesn’t really understand why. And anyway it transpires that Alex has been murdered and Danny discovers his body in an attic in Alex’s flat. And from there the story follows Danny’s journey to try and understand what happened to his lover.
Q: What’s the importance of character in London Spy?
A: It’s very anchored in character and I’m amazed by how well Tom has written every single character who features, there are many characters that Danny encounters along this journey. And it’s also very unique and exciting I think because it happens so much in one character’s head. It’s a very subjective story, and all the more exciting for that I think.
Q: Is Danny aware of the situation he’s in or who Alex really was?
A: Danny doesn’t know he’s in a spy story, he doesn’t know he’s in love with a spy, he doesn’t understand the world of spying, he’s in a world that’s quite alien to him, the rules of which he does not understand at all. I also think though that Danny has a few surprises up his sleeve. He’s a complicated person and there are parts of him that are revealed only slowly over the course of the five hours. So it’s all part of the world that this series creates where you’re not certain quite of everything.
Q: Can you talk about the friendship between Danny and Scottie?
A: Danny and Scottie have been friends for a very long time and in a way it’s the central relationship of the series and that’s another thing I really love about this series is that it features this friendship between two gay men, one who’s in his sixties and one who’s in his twenties, so two very different generations in terms of attitudes towards sexuality.
Q: Do you think there are any other underlying feelings between Danny and Scottie besides friendship?
A: There are unspoken or unexplored feelings probably from Scottie towards Danny, but over the course of the story we realise that Danny really does in his own way reciprocate those feelings. There’s great love and tenderness towards Scottie, who is a wonderful, wise, humane person with a sort of core of sadness in him I suppose.
Q: What did you think of the script when you first read it?
A: It felt incredibly fresh and I didn’t know what on earth was going to happen next or what kind of a story I was in. It felt like anything could happen.
Q: What made the story stand out to you?
A: I think it’s a fascinating story, a fascinating series because although I think it is a thriller, it doesn’t really conform exactly to what you expect a thriller to do. It sort of has its own version of that genre.
Q: What have you liked most about working on London Spy?
It’s been wonderful to work on a really fantastic piece of writing, of new writing, that’s not based on anything else, which is contemporary and challenging.
Q: How has it been working with Jim Broadbent?
A: Jim is an incredible actor and it’s impossible to say how he does what he does.
Q: What do you think it is about his acting style that makes him so incredible?
A: He’s got an incredible range as an actor so he can inhabit vastly different people very lightly, very easily as you say with almost no effort, no force. It’s amazing.
Q: What it’s been like working with director Jakob Verbruggen? What has he brought to London Spy?
A: It’s also been really wonderful to work with Jakob Verbruggen, who is as much a part of the series as Tom Rob Smith the writer. The vision that Jakob has brought to it, the visual style, and the kind of energy I think that he’s brought, I think is a defining quality of the series.
Q: What kind of experience do you hope the audience will have when watching the series?
A: I really hope that it’s as exciting and moving and layered an experience as I’ve found it to be to read.
Q: What aspect of the series will have a powerful impact on the audience?
A: I think that there’s something powerful about watching a character go to its sort of limits of an experience, to get dragged over the coals, to plunge into something very dark and painful and come through that experience. I think that’s really powerful for an audience to watch.
Jim Broadbent
Q: What does the story of London Spy focus on?
The central character is Danny who falls in love with a young man and this is clearly the love of his life. And quite early on this young man dies under mysterious circumstances and the arc of the five-part series is the implications and ramifications of that on Danny’s life.
Q: What makes Danny’s story unique?
What’s exciting is the whole story is such a strong story and it’s an unusual story and the fact that the central characters are gay is sort of peripheral to the arc of the thriller. There’s a great sort of ethical idea and dilemma at the heart of the story which makes it gripping and totally original.
Q: Can you tell us more about the character you play?
I play Scottie who’s an old friend of Danny’s and Scottie has had some experience in the secret services and he is able to help Danny in his quest to sort out the after effects of this murder.
Q: What role does Scottie play in Danny’s life?
Initially he’s advising or concerned about Danny falling head over heels in love with this guy and he wants to check him out and see that he’s not going to be a bad egg in terms of Danny’s life and so a meeting is arranged and Alex passes Scottie’s test as it were.
Q: How does Scottie help Danny after Alex dies?
When Alex disappears and is found to have died, Danny comes to Scottie for advice and help and Scottie agrees reluctantly or positively and gets engaged with the ongoing narrative.
Q: What did you think of the script when you first read it?
Getting the script was a treat, I knew Tom Rob Smith’s writing anywhere, I’d read his three Russian spy novels or secret service-KGB novels before, long before the script came my way so I knew I was in for a good thriller really and it’s absolutely proved true. It’s a really good read so I’d leapt through the five episodes very quickly and I always love a good strong thriller narrative myself anyway, so that was great to be part of that.
Q: How was it working with Ben Whishaw?
Ben’s a wonderful actor and I’m completely in awe of the ease and the subtlety and the reality that Ben brings to his characters, it’s really brilliant.
Q: How was Jakob Verbruggen as a director?
Jakob is a very engaging and engaged director who is very communicative and positive. And he’s clearly got a great relationship with the director of photography, Laurie, and they have a good, positive approach which infects the whole production.
Q: How do you think audiences will react to the series?
It’s a very provocative series, there will be lots of questions asked that people will be fascinated by and there will be a lot of discussion I think after the series and it will be a gripping and engaging series anyway. All the time people will want to know what’s happened and what’s going to happen and why it’s happened and I think in an entirely original way it is going to engage the audience incredibly.
LONDON SPY COMES TO DVD FROM 2ND MAY 2016 COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES (UK)
