Politics gets personal:
A troubled army veteran faces a new series of challenges when he is assigned to protect Britain’s Home Secretary in the thriller The Bodyguard on TVNZ 1.
The Bodyguard comes to TVNZ 1.
The finale of political thriller The Bodyguard became the UK’s most-watched episode of a TV drama, with 17 million viewers tuning in.
The six-part series, which starts on TVNZ 1 this week, centres on Police Sergeant David Budd, who is assigned to protect Britain’s ambitious, driven Home Secretary Julia Montague who is trying to get legislation passed giving the intelligence service sweeping powers to combat terrorism.
Writer Jed Mercurio, who was also behind Line Of Duty, says The Bodyguard started out as a desire to do something set in the political arena.
“With my experience on Line Of Duty I was kind of aware of the different specialisations within the police, so the idea of the specialist protection unit, which looks after politicians and diplomats and royalty, felt like a really good area in which to set the story,” he says. “David Budd is someone who had first-hand experience of the traumas of war and he’s got difficulties in his home life as a result of it. And the premise is we don’t know a whole lot about his motivations. “He would appear to be a very highly respected and very proficient personal protection officer assigned to Julia Montague, who’s the Home Secretary, and the idea may be that actually rather than protecting her he may be involved in some conspiracy to do her harm.” Mercurio says a common factor to Line Of Duty and The Bodyguard is that characters have a bit of good and evil in them. “They can be positive characters, but they can have very real flaws that lead to dramatic consequences,”
“The idea may be that actually rather than protecting her he may be involved in some conspiracy to do her harm.”
– Jed Mercurio
he says. “One of the centrepieces of the story is the terrorist threat and, unfortunately, that’s something we’ve all learned to live with in our big cities. It’s very contemporary and, obviously, we want to handle that in the most sensitive way but also in a way that does feel authentic.”
Complicating matters is the political world within the broader story.
“As a high-ranking cabinet minister, Julia Montague’s obviously at the level where everyone’s looking over their shoulder and also looking at the top job and trying to get into Number 10,” says Mercurio.
Two government figures have good reason to oppose her. She has sidelined her ambitious deputy, Mike Travis (Vincent Franklin), who becomes resentful, and her party’s Chief Whip is her bitter ex-husband, Roger Penhaligon (Nicholas Gleaves), who is loyal to the Prime Minister and suspicious of his ex-wife’s political ambitions.
Keeley Hawes (The Durrells) plays Montague and says of her character, “She is a hugely ambitious woman, incredibly bright.
“She got into politics for all the right reasons, to make the right sort of changes. She’s strong but she’s also flawed and kind of damaged. She’s divorced, vulnerable.”
Hawes adds, “I watched an awful lot of politicians. There’s a very particular way of giving speeches and speaking to people and giving interviews. They don’t seem to have conversations with people, they just keep telling you their point of view.”
And Richard Madden (Game Of Thrones), who plays Budd, says, “I was fascinated with him being a series of different characters within himself. His sense of duty, and then also his political history because he’s been in Afghanistan, he’s been in Iraq, and has the scars to prove it – physical, and mental.
“He’s a man adjusting to civilian life and dealing with some mental health issues. He is still deeply in love with his wife, guilty and regretful over how their relationship has panned out.”
Initially, Montague isn’t that popular with Budd.
Mercurio says, “This assignment to look after quite a hawkish Home Secretary brings back the traumas and the conflicts that he feels about the experiences he had overseas in the army.”
Madden expands on that, saying, “Much like David Budd has to keep his mask up all the time, Julia Montague has to keep her mask up all the time. And instantly you have these two very strong characters with their own definite agendas that actually clash with each other. That spark, that chemistry between them then evolves. And you’ve got two very lonely, very isolated people that find solace in each other.
“I had the best time working with Keeley. Crazily professional and brilliant at what she does. The character’s a very lonely, isolated man and I was very thankful ... to have Keeley there as my friend and companion through it.”