Thriller’s twists, turns and blurred lines had star doubting the truth
Ready for a tense and twisty new thriller to sink your teeth into? ITV’S Red Eye starts exactly as it means to go on – with a drama that’ll leave you holding your breath to find out what happens next aboard a “red eye” flight from London to Beijing.
British surgeon Dr Matthew Nolan (played by Richard Armitage, known for The Hobbit movies and TV series including Spooks) is being chased into a street in Beijing, escapes in his car and crashes shortly after.
Nolan had seemingly been in the country attending a medical conference with a group of colleagues. Next though, landing back in London, he is swiftly stopped by airport police, interrogated, strip-searched – and then told he’s being extradited back to China to face murder charges after a woman’s body was found in his car.
Nolan insists he has no idea what they’re talking about. But is he telling the truth?
“One of the things I loved when I read the first episode is that by default, a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, we should be trusting him from the get-go,” says Leicestershire-born Armitage, 52, on getting stuck into the role.
“The fact that he comes into the story with doubt in his own mind, because he doesn’t really remember what happened on that night so he can’t be 100% sure, he’s already in a state of flux within himself.
“It was really interesting to play around with that, and at points, I didn’t really know whether he was telling the truth!”
For Jing Lusi, 38, who was born in Shanghai and moved to England aged five, the series marks a “turning point” for British-asian representation on the small screen.
“I feel this is the first show in god knows how long that is a British show that has an Asian lead. I think the last one probably was (early 1980s series) The Chinese Detective, and that name probably wouldn’t hold up these days.
“So it was an absolute honour to see this happening in the UK, because this has happened obviously in the US with a lot of Asian-led projects,” Lusi added.
“And the significance for me is that, usually when you have a lot of diversity, you’re seeing the stories through the white perspective of the lead character, and the diverse minority characters are usually the ‘other’.
“To see the story unfold through Hana, finding out Nolan’s innocence or guilt, connecting with MI5 and her sister – you’re seeing it from her eyes.” she’s not the ‘other’.
Red Eye starts on ITV1 tonight, 9pm