Back in the spy game
THE TEEN AGENT RETURNS IN AMAZON’S ALEX RIDER REBOOT…
Somewhere on London’s Commercial Road, the upstairs of a deserted office building has been turned into MI6 mission control: think blacked-out windows, computer monitors, lots of serious-faced adults in suits. We’re on the set of Alex Rider, the new eight-part adap of Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling teenage-spy saga. “You’ve come on a great day,” enthuses the author when he greets Small Screen. “This is to me one of the great Alex Rider scenes – where it all begins.”
Alex (War & Peace’s Otto Farrant) has just learned that Uncle Ian (Andrew Buchan) was not a bank manager but a British spy killed on a mission. “You’re spies, why can’t you sort it out?” says Alex, as MI6 head Blunt (Stephen Dillane) tries to recruit him to take his relative’s place. Also in the room: Vicky McClure, playing Alex’s soon-to-behandler Mrs. Jones and Ace Bhatti as Blunt’s right-hand man John Crawley. “It’s absolutely where the whole series – and 18 years of my life – began,” murmurs Horowitz, between takes.
The eight-episode series largely draws on the second Rider book, 2001’s Point Blanc. “We’ve turned it into more of a coming-of-age story,” says Horowitz. “This treatment is more considered, more serious.” Don’t expect a glut of Bondian “gadgets and gloss”, says showrunner/writer Guy Burt. “We’ve been pulling it slightly
away from that, towards a grittier reality that you might actually believe.” The tone may come as a surprise to viewers – as it did to the cast. “I assumed it would be quite child-like,” admits McClure. “And then I read it and was quite shocked at the amount of action.”
Lots of action means lots of stunt work, which Farrant has embraced as much as possible. “I’ve been hanging off buildings, running through military bases,” grins the star, who was one of 600-odd young men to try out for the Rider role. Farrant describes his character as “an outsider. He’s not the most confident with girls. He’s not the most smooth talker. He’s not even the best spy. And I think that’s what’s quite interesting.
You’re going to watch [a boy] become a man,