DAVID MORRISSEY
The not-doctor has a country to conquer in Britannia season three
He’s masqueraded as a Time Lord, taken on zombies in The Walking Dead, and sung his way around a British seaside resort in Blackpool. But there are few entries in David Morrissey’s eclectic CV quite as out-there as Britannia. This is the Roman history lesson you never got at school, the first-century invasion of Britain retold with Game Of Thrones levels of sex, violence and swearing. It also adds generous helpings of magic and spirituality to its infectious concoction.
In the third season, Morrissey’s Roman general Aulus Plautius – leader of Rome’s forces in Britannia – continues his mission to overcome the resistance of the Britons, while dealing with a dangerous new complication in his life: his wife.
“The reason I wanted to do this show is [writer] Jez Butterworth – I think he’s one of our greatest writers,” Morrissey tells SFX. “What I love about it is Jez’s writing. He has a great sense of place and history, but he also has this great modern sensibility towards character and language. It’s a grown-up show with adult themes and language, but he walks this fine line between the brutality of the world, and this wonderful turn of phrase. I love it.”
Season three instigates big changes in Aulus’s world when his wife, Hemple (played by Sophie Okonedo), arrives in Britannia. Will she bring out a side of Aulus we haven’t seen before?
The season starts with a terrible event in Aulus’s past which is devastating, and was orchestrated by his wife. Aulus’s mission to Britannia is twofold. There’s the Roman side, where Claudius has sent him to conquer the country, but he’s also there under the power of his own god, Loka. Hemple is very much a servant of Loka, and when she arrives in Britannia, Aulus hasn’t delivered on what he needs to do. It’s a very volatile relationship. Hemple is ruthless, she is cannibalistic and she is a loose cannon. So now he has to manage her, he has to manage Britannia and he has to manage the druids. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place, as well as having to carry this terrible shame about his actions in the past.
How did you find acting with Sophie?
What she brings to the show is a real energy and an intelligence, and I loved the scenes we had. It was like being in this complex dance routine. There was a trust with her where you felt you could really push this and go for it. You could really throw the energy around the room, and know that the other person would be there to catch.
With the might of the Roman Empire behind him, do you think Aulus underestimated the Britons?
I think what happens with all these empires – our own included – is that you overstretch yourself, that your greed reaches to the point where you can’t satisfy it enough any more. Aulus is trying to spread the Roman Empire as far as he can, but there’s also this terrible Faustian pact that he has made, where he has sacrificed something of himself in order to have some sort of immortality and ultimate power. We see that in leaders all the time, not just historically.
Aulus Plautius was a real human being who lived in the first century AD. How does that history inform your performance?
The thing that’s been useful for me from a historical point of view is looking at belief systems of the world: how people saw the gods, how they saw themselves in terms of mortality and immortality, how they worshipped, and how that could be – and was – exploited for power. I think that from a research point of view that was much more fruitful for me than, “Aulus got here on this date, this is what he did, he left on this date…” That is interesting to me, but it doesn’t really feed into this work. What does come into this is how people then and today – and all through history – are run or manipulated by fear, and the power of belief systems.
You’ve worked on The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, The City & The City and even Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. Are you particularly drawn to the fantastical?
People say to me that The Walking Dead is a zombie show, and it’s not – it’s about what human beings will do in the extreme in order to survive. I think Britannia is about what you will pursue in the name of your god. Doctor Who is a fantastical show, but it’s really about the human condition. And The City & The City was about displacement, paranoia and how a populace can be controlled by a Big Brother-like government. You can have all the bells and whistles, and all the great rides [that come with science fiction and fantasy] but if it isn’t about the human condition, nobody will watch it.
Britannia is streaming now on Sky Atlantic and Now.
The season starts with a terrible event in Aulus’s past which is devastating