Back in the spy life
Spooks star RICHARD ARMITAGE returns to the murky world of espionage
AFTER SPENDING THREE years chasing spies and terrorists in Spooks, Richard Armitage finds himself back in the world of double agents and dead drops this week when he takes the lead role in More4’s new espionage drama Berlin Station.
Set in the present day, the 10-part series follows CIA analyst-turnedfield agent Daniel Miller (Armitage) who is assigned to the agency’s Berlin office tasked with tracking down a mysterious hacker who goes by the alias Thomas Shaw and who may be collaborating with a CIA mole to leak confidential secrets.
‘When we start the story, Daniel has been sent in as a mole hunter,’ explains Armitage. ‘He’s been a desk analyst for 10 years but is transferred to the Berlin Station to try to figure out what’s going on and who’s responsible for it.
‘What makes Daniel right for the mission is his ability to blend into a crowd. He can sense the temperature of a situation. He can see the area that he’s moving around in, and he understands what it takes to just disappear into that picture, in the same way as a chameleon.’
‘I was interested to see how the CIA operates in today’s world of cyber-hackers’
In Berlin, Daniel is reunited with an old colleague, jaded CIA case officer Hector Dejean (Rhys Ifans), and the pair strike up an uneasy alliance.
FRIENDS OR FOES?
‘Previously, David and Hector had worked on an operation together that went terribly wrong,’ explains Armitage. ‘They’ve been kind of bound by this event. They collaborate together and it would seem on the surface they are very good friends. But there’s something underneath that neither of them can identify. It really is a kind of catand-mouse game between them.’
Since being shown in the US in 2016, Berlin Station has been recommissioned for two more seasons, and Armitage says he’s happy to be back in the world of espionage after his time as Spooks’ troubled MI5 officer Lucas North who ended up taking his own life.
‘I love the spy genre, and Spooks was a really great show,’ says Armitage. ‘But Berlin Station is different – very immediate and current. I was interested to see how the CIA operates in today’s world of cyber-hackers and whistleblowers. I wanted to see how ordinary people function in this circus.’
The Leicestershire-born star has plenty of big roles to his name, including special forces soldier John Porter in Strike Back, serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal, and a very memorable turn on the big screen as dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its two sequels.
‘After finishing on The Hobbit, I had been hunting for a TV show for a long time. I didn’t want to play fantasy or fairy-tale roles, but something relevant and political,’ he says. ‘When the Berlin Station script fell into my lap, it was exactly what I wanted. These characters are nothing like James Bond characters. They’re very ordinary, but every time one of them comes on screen, you want to know about them. You want to follow them on their path.’