The devil of a job: Drama looks at the murky world of finance.
A new series about global financiers, starring Alessandro Borghi (right), uncovers the real power behind the events that shape the lives of ordinary people.
Back in 1946, the FBI complained that It’s A Wonderful Life cast bankers in a bad light, saying it was a trick used by Communists.
Well, the Feds’ disapproval didn’t bother too many people and bankers have been movie villains ever since. But the lines get blurred in Devils, a TV blockbuster series about murky dealings in the financial world.
It stars Italian actor Alessandro Borghi as Massimo Ruggero, a fearless and charismatic banker who has enjoyed enormous success working for NYL Bank in London’s financial hub, and seems set to become the next deputy chief executive.
But then a scandal involving his drug-addicted wife leads his boss Dominic Morgan (Patrick Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy) to favour Ruggero’s rival Edward Stuart and when Stuart is found dead, Ruggero becomes the prime suspect.
Ruggero soon becomes caught up in a vast political game and aided by Sofia Flores (Spanish actress Laia Costa), a journalist working for a whistle-blowing website, he soon faces a stark choice: join the financial ‘Devils’, who rule the world’s fate from the shadows, or bring them down. The plot was something of a revelation for Borghi. “By playing Massimo, I discovered that the ‘devils’ are not at all those I thought they were before embarking on this journey.
“There are obviously people who are part of the world of finance and follow their interests with a very low level of ethics. But there are many others, who instead put these ethics almost in the first
“So the devils are the bad guys, that is those bad guys of the financial world pursuing their own interests.”
– Alessandro Borghi
place. There is a sentence within the series: ‘They are the ones who have the task of maintaining order in a moment of chaos’.
“This is because, over time, finance has increasingly become a political tool and, consequently, a huge tool of power. So the devils are the bad guys, that is those bad guys of the financial world pursuing their own interests, but there is a whole part of them that simply takes care of ensuring that this political tool is not used in a negative way, but in favour of citizens and of the State.”
Guido Brera, who wrote the novel the series is based on, adds, “A new, political power ... affects citizens’ lives. Keep in mind that until today, finance has always been described and associated with beautiful women, beautiful cars, drugs and a non-stop showing off. Instead, these characters are like warrior monks and, therefore, it was very complex to represent them.”
So is the world of finance utterly ruthless or is there really a good side somewhere?
“It is not completely obsessed with money, but rather with power,” says Brera. “It’s a political power that (they) probably didn’t even want, just as (they) probably do not want to be in the spotlight.”
Much of the series was made during the Covid-19 pandemic, a global financial event as well as a major health issue.
That’s not lost on co-director Jan Michelini. “What is happening now is an extremely difficult historical moment that reminds us a bit – especially for the movements of finance, of the era we tell in the series – of the years 2010-11. In times of crisis like this one, it may happen that whoever is responsible for the financial sphere is also responsible for the political sphere.
“And so as Guido said before, they may be faced with a situation of ‘free will,’ which means they can decide whether to use the political and financial means to either help supporting states, nations, or even, as in this case, the continents of the world ... or to pile on it. We will see what will happens.”
Patrick Dempsey echoes those sentiments. “I believe that if we look at the world today, we will no longer be able to look at the world in the same way after we get out of this situation. What we have witnessed so far, the push towards growth, I think it is no longer sustainable.
“Our planet cannot sustain it. Our population cannot sustain it. Therefore, we will have to rethink it all. We will also have to look at the balance sheets and the financial figures to see if they will be sustainable, because what we are seeing now ... with the whole world shut down, we are on the edge of total chaos.
“And what is sustainable? What is sufficient? Those are the questions we will have to answer.”