Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL
Harry Potter star Rupert Grint is a loveable loser who pretends he’s terminally ill to keep his girlfriend and his job in Sky’s dark new comedy Sick Note
Given the kind of news Daniel Glass receives, most of us would want to shout about it from the rooftops. Initially told he’s got cancer of the oesophagus, Daniel then discovers he’s been misdiagnosed and is actually perfectly healthy. But rather than tell his family, friends and workmates the joyous news, Daniel decides to pretend he still has the disease.
And so begins Sky One’s new darkly comic six-part series Sick Note, starring Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, as loveable loser Daniel, who’s about to be dumped by his girlfriend and get fired from his job at We Cover Insurance. ‘It’s an odd decision but Daniel has his reasons,’ says Rupert. ‘There’s a line in the first episode where he says, “Having cancer all week has been so great.” His girlfriend has taken him back and he’s getting huge amounts of sympathy from his colleagues at work, all of whom think he’s desperately ill. He fears his life won’t be so enjoyable if he tells people he’s been misdiagnosed, that it’ll go back to being pretty lousy.’
Daniel and his incompetent oncologist, Dr Iain Glennis, decide it would be mutually beneficial not to spill the beans. Daniel will continue to receive lots of support from those around him, while Glennis, who’s already on thin ice after previous mistakes, will be saved more professional embarrassment if their secret doesn’t come out. ‘Glennis is so useless he can’t even pronounce the word oesophagus,’ says Nick Frost, the Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead star who plays him. ‘How on earth he hasn’t been struck off I don’t know. But he and Daniel become locked together thanks to this terrible mistake.’
Don Johnson, who starred as ultracool 80s cop James ‘Sonny’ Crockett in Miami Vice, is Daniel’s nasty American boss Kenny West. ‘Kenny has secrets he doesn’t want exposed,’ says Rupert.
‘All the characters are keeping quiet about some aspect of their lives. Daniel’s girlfriend Becca has her own big secret: she’s been two-timing Daniel with his best friend Ash.’
Rupert admits he struggled playing a character who’s telling such a massive whopper every time he opens his mouth. ‘You have to make your character likeable, someone viewers will have some sympathy with, and I found it hard to understand what’s going on in Daniel’s head to make him do what he does. The sheer degree of it was quite hard for me to comprehend. But this level of deceit does happen quite a lot. When I was researching the role I found real-life stories of people lying about terminal illnesses fairly frequently, often for monetary gain.
‘Now, for better or for worse, Daniel wants to turn his misdiagnosis to his advantage and Sick Note follows him as the pressure to keep a lid on his big lie grows ever more intense. Will it prove his undoing or bring him happiness? Only time will tell.’ Sick Note starts on Tuesday at 10pm on Sky One.