Crisis? What crisis?
Filming role of beleaguered PM in lockdown, thousands of miles from family, was tough for Robert Carlyle.. but he kept reminding himself that he was one of the lucky ones
EVERY time Robert Carlyle began feeling sorry for himself during “the toughest shoot I’ve ever been involved in”, he’d catch himself. The 60-year-old spent four months in a Manchester flat during the pandemic while filming COBRA’s second series.
And when he felt isolated he would remember those crammed in high-rise buildings without access to open space.
The Trainspotting star said: “I was put up in a nice apartment with a nice balcony so I could get out and get a breath of air. So it wasn’t horrific for me.
“I’d always had this scenario in my mind that I kept on playing whenever I could have felt down and, of course, away from my family.
“My family’s over in Canada. Four months away, through Christmas, not being able to see them, that was tough, but I kept on thinking about this kind of fictitious family.
“I had them up a high-rise block, in two rooms, four people, an abusive kind of relationship going on, no outside space. In lockdown, that must have been real torture for people.
“So whenever I was feeling a bit down or feeling sorry for myself, I thought about that. I thought ‘You’re OK, son.’”
Carlyle began filming COBRA: Cyberwar for Sky at the end of last year when infection rates in Manchester were at their highest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
The father of three said: “It was very tough, very stressful. The toughest shoot I’ve ever been involved in because we were shooting in the heart of the pandemic in the UK.
“When Covid was at its peak we wore masks and visors if we weren’t filming, which made it very difficult to connect with the cast and hard for the camera department to figure out focus points.
“But we were grateful to have each other, it would have been harder had we not been pals.
“COBRA was maybe one of two or three productions that didn’t shut down over the past year, which is incredible.”
Glaswegian Carlyle had to stay in his apartment and was picked up in the morning to go to the studio.
Even his groceries were delivered, to ensure no one jeopardised the shoot by catching the virus.
Fans of the show will find it ironic that the production was filming in a genuine national crisis and real-life meetings of COBRA – the Civil Contingencies Committee – were taking place.
While the first series of COBRA revolved around how Carlyle’s prime minister Robert Sutherland dealt with a solar storm, the writer and series creator Ben Richards mooted a flu pandemic for the second series – and everyone involved in the show is glad he didn’t.
Asked how his PM would have faced the Covid crisis, the Scot said: “I don’t know, although it was a topic of discussion leading up to shooting – do we mention Covid? If we mentioned it, you’d need to spend the whole show on it.
“If we even referred to it, would we
need to have the odd person in the mask in the background? In the end we just didn’t go there, the subject was too big.”
Instead, the second series tackles a malware attack on the UK.
The series begins with an attack on a Ukrainian oligarch on British soil near a school. A Chinese firm drilling in the North Sea then destabilises the sea bed and causes an old warship off Kent to explode, taking out half the coastline.
The government then comes under a cyberattack, affecting water, emergency services and nuclear capabilities.
Carlyle plays a Tory PM, despite his own left leanings from growing up in a Maryhill tenement and getting his break in Ken Loach’s 1991 film Riff-Raff, about a Scots builder sleeping rough in London.
Cracker and Hamish Macbeth secured TV fame before Begbie in Trainspotting made him an international star.
Carlyle didn’t base Sutherland on a
Conservative. Speaking to BT.com, he said: “The one that stood out for me was John Smith, the Labour leader of the 90s who passed away. “The best prime minister we never had, in my opinion. He was a fantastic man. “I think what Smith had was a real sense of the moral compass. “Sutherland is what would be described as a kind of two-tier, utilitarian politician, and that’s possibly where Smith was as well. “I think that fundamentally he was about doing the right thing. But he was pragmatic at the same time.”
The new series also sees Victoria Hamilton returning as his chief of staff Anna Marshall and Richard Pepple joining the cast as home secretary Joseph Obasi.
Bond baddie Carlyle loves Sutherland. He admitted: “I’m fortunate to play him. Not many people would have seen me in that role so I’ll be eternally grateful that they took a chance on me.”
He and Irvine Welsh are hoping for a TV series based on the Trainspotting author’s Begbie book The Blade Artist.
And Begbie is the character there’s no getting away from. Carlyle said: “Wherever I go, whatever country, whatever accent, I always hear that name.”
COBRA: Cyberwar starts next Friday, at 9pm on Sky Max and streaming service NOW. All six episodes will then be available to stream.
John Smith was the best PM we never had, a fantastic man ROBERTY CARLYLE ON INSPIRATION FOR HIS ROLE