You have no idea who your kids are talking to.. both our twins have snuck out at night, my son to see someone he’d only met online.. it’s f ****** terrifying
John says: “God, it’s impossible. They’re more techno savvy than I ever would be so it feels like [there’s] no sense in putting a fence up and you have to trust their good judgement.
“We watch them but they spend all their time in their bedrooms now. Every parent has gone through the frustration of it...
“We don’t want our children going out as it’s dangerous because of the knife crime and stuff like that, so we keep them in and then we expect, given this explosion of technology, they are going to sit quietly and watch Antiques Roadshow with us.
“They’re never going to do that. They’re going to be on there playing games, looking at YouTube and talking with their friends.”
John, who starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998 film Sliding Doors, will be on our screens next week in new BBC1 drama The Victim.
John plays Det Insp Steven Grover, with Kelly Macdonald as grieving mum Anna Dean.
The dark drama explores what happens when Anna uses social media to reveal the secret identity of the man she believes killed her child.
The suspected culprit, portrayed by James Harkness, is attacked with a knife – a weapon all too prevalent in real life. John, who also played the title role in ITV detective series Rebus, is horrified by today’s lack of police for which he blames the Tories. “I don’t know how the Government cannot relate the cuts to police and the lack of police on the streets to the rise of crime,” he says. “I live in a nice area but you used to see cops around and there was a police station... “We’re so busy trying to deal with this Brexit b ***** ks that no one is talking about anything else. There MOVIE SUCCESS With Gwyneth in 1998’s Sliding Doors isn’t a government, there is no opposition either, the trains aren’t working, schools, crime, the whole f***ing thing is a disaster.”
John is concerned about the impact Brexit might have on his children.
He says: “What I worry about is my kids and people going to go to university in places where there may have been co-operation between European space agencies, the sciences, CERN or with medical advances or security.”
He also has fears about the internet. John thinks giants such as Facebook and Google are dragging their heels when it comes to finding and removing illegal content.
John was born in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, and trained as an electrician before launching his acting career. He married
Joanna in 1996 and the family live in Richmond, South West London.
It was Four Weddings in 1994 that brought John to prominence. And this year he delighted fans of the film by reprising his role of Matthew in the Comic Relief “sequel”, One Red Nose and a Wedding.
And he reckons that of all his co-stars in the film, Hugh Grant has aged the most.
“It was really weird because apart from James Fleet with his beard, I thought the only person that obviously looked older was Hugh,” John says, laughing, before adding:
“Not in a bad way, just because he was so young and charming.
“Everyone talks about it being a small world with two of the acto and Anna Chancello
John admits he surprised by his own “I look in the mirror old man walking up shop window and f***ing hell that’s me
Filming the sequ JOHN ON SUDDENLY BEING REMINDED HE IS
I catch sight of an ol the street in a shop and I think, ‘F***, th
bittersweet for John as he missed Charlotte Coleman – scatty Scarlett in the original movie – who died of an asthma attack in 2001 aged 33. He says: “Charlotte wasn’t there, which was tragic because I was very close to her during filming.” John is clearly keeping very busy.
This month he will be on our screens in series two of psychological thriller Trust Me, alongside Alfred Enoch and Ashley Jensen. Years after starting out in the business, John is in
JOHN HANNAH SLAMS POLITICIANS AND BEMOANS STATE OF THE NATION
the enviable position of still being offered a wide choice of plum roles.
He says: “You read the script and you kind of go, ‘oh that’s good’, it’s instinct really.
“Everything else is just kind of post-event justification. I don’t think many people get the opportunity to be choosy...
“Most of the sh*t jobs in my life I’ve done for the money – it’s necessary.
“But the other ones you’re doing because you love it and it’s going to be fun.”
And the only other reason he will take part in something he does not think is truly good? An exotic location.
He says: “Though apparently Death in Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – it’s very humid and full of mosquitoes, I hear.” ■ The Victim, BBC1, April 8-11 at 9pm.
There isn’t a government – and the trains, schools, crime... it’s all a disaster