GERMAN SHOOT WAS NO LAUGHING MATTER FOR STAR –
GETTING a trip abroad is always a nice bonus for an actor.
But Robert Glenister admits he would have better enjoyed filming in Germany – if it hadn’t coincided with Brexit and England’s woeful showing in Euro 2016.
Robert was shooting new ITV drama Paranoid this summer during what turned out to be a remarkable period.
“We were out there while England were doing so badly and Germany were doing so well,” Robert smiles ruefully as he sits down to chat to iN10.
“Let’s just say we kept our heads down a little bit.
“I got there the day before the crew and I woke up the next morning to hear the result of the Brexit vote.
“When the crew arrived later on at Dusseldorf airport, the security guards were having a laugh, checking their passports and pretending to have to send them home.
“It was a very interesting time to be there.”
Paranoid, which starts on Thursday, is an eight-part conspiracy thriller, also starring Neil Stuke, Indira Varma and Lesley Sharp.
“It starts with a young GP and mother being brutally stabbed to death in a kids’ playground in front of witnesses,” explains Robert, 56.
“I play one of the rural cops investigating what seems to be quite a straightforward case.
“But it soon turns out to be something much more complex and goes off at a tangent, taking the investigation to Germany.”
Robert admits that with no shortage of police dramas on the telly, something a bit different was part of the appeal.
“It was a real page-turner. I read the first three episodes to begin with and I couldn’t put it down.
“There is a place for a straight police procedural, but this isn’t it.
“And the character I play, Bobby Day, was really interesting because he’s coming to the end of his career, has no life outside of the job and suffers panic attacks.”
Robert, whose brother is Life On Mars star Philip, is one of TV’s most familiar faces.
He was a regular as the Home Secretary in Spooks and played conman Ash Morgan in every episode of the BBC’s long-running hit, Hustle.
While he admits most people can distinguish telly fiction from reality, he says the role did occasionally have an impact.
“Although we started making it 13 years ago, Hustle is still very much around,” says Robert, who has two grown-up kids with radio producer wife Celia.
“When I’m channel-hopping I still come across it. And fans of the show at the start maybe have kids of their own now and a younger generation has been introduced to it.
“I remember when we were on at first that if I paid for something by credit card people would look at it wondering if it was genuine.”
Ever-busy Robert fitted in filming Paranoid in the UK with a role in big American film, Live By Night.
Starring and directed by Ben Affleck, and also featuring Sienna Miller, it’s a 1920s-set gangster movie which was shot in Boston and Los Angeles.
Robert had to go back out to LA to complete filming after Paranoid and admits the movie lifestyle was a little different from his evenings in the UK.
“Rather than go out to eat in Manchester I’d find it quite cathartic to come back to the apartment they had for me at nights and do a bit of cooking,” says London-based Robert.
“It sounds a bit ‘Billy no mates’ but I love cooking and it was better than sitting sad and lonely-looking by myself in a restaurant.”
Robert’s a stage as well as screen veteran and among his accolades over the years, a couple stand out.
“I was doing a play at the National Theatre and Anthony Hopkins came to see a matinee performance and left me a really nice note at the stage door saying how much he’d enjoyed the afternoon,” Robert says.
“And then Neil Simon, who’d written the play, also left a handwritten note.
“I kept them both and I still have them now. They’re very special and not the sort of things you treat lightly.”
Paranoid, ITV, Thursday, 9pm.