Mcmafia
The TV drama everyone is talking about
Why the BBC loves Russian actors
FACED with a tricky Russian accent, British actors can be trusted to do one of two things: ham it up or dodge the issue entirely and proceed in plummy English tones.
BBC One’s new drama, Mcmafia, has taken a different approach. The casting team turned to Russia in search of talent after deciding that audiences are now “too sophisticated” to take cod foreign accents seriously.
Mcmafia’s international cast includes Maria Shukshina, an actress dubbed “the Meryl Streep of Russia”. Characters who hail from Georgia, Israel, the Czech Republic and India are played by actors from those countries.
James Norton stars as the Londonraised son of Russian exiles, who finds himself drawn into a world of international crime. “We had no British actors doing dodgy Russian accents,” Norton said.
It is a marked departure from War and Peace, the BBC’S last big-budget drama to feature Russian characters – including Norton as Prince Andrei.
Critics derided the 2016 production for its lack of authenticity when it came to accents, with The Daily Telegraph noting that “the posh Russian characters speak English with public school accents”, while the peasants had regional British accents. The 2015 Tom Hardy film, Child 44, also came under fire. One critic said it was “full of actors speaking English with vyery hyeavy Ryussian accyents”; it was unclear whether Hardy was joking when he claimed to have drawn accent inspiration from The Count in Sesame Street.
Explaining the casting decision, Mcmafia’s director, James Watkins, said: “It was incredibly important to us to cast globally, for the authenticity.
“One of the first discussions we had with our partners was that when we depicted Russia, we wanted the language to be Russian, so needed to cast Russian actors.
“I think audiences are far too sophisticated now to have an English actor putting on a Russian accent – it feels fake. In order to immerse people in these worlds we wanted to seek out the best actors in these different countries, Russia, Israel, Georgia [and the] Czech Republic. It was fantastic working with people from different worlds as everyone has the same approach but different processes.”
Mcmafia is a sign of things to come, the first of several BBC commissions to employ an international cast.
The corporation is adapting A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth’s family saga set in 1950s India, with an entirely Indian cast. Another BBC One drama, Giri/haji is set between Britain and Japan, and features a Tokyo detective who travels to London in search of a younger brother who has become involved with Yakuza crime gangs.
Giri/haji is a co-production with Netflix, which will stream the series globally after it premieres on the BBC. Mcmafia is being distributed in more than 200 countries and territories by Amazon, and the international market is another reason why casting is increasingly a global business.
Watkins said his cast are “talent that you might not normally see in mainstream drama in the UK or the USA, actors who are huge stars in their own countries but undiscovered to those audiences. It’s wonderful to be able to showcase their talents.”