MotherFatherSon 2019

Gere’s media mogul casts a long shadow over big business, politics and his shattered family…

“it’s the first time i’ve done anything like this [TV]. it started with the script – fascinating characters, and the thought, ‘maybe if we can stay with them for eight hours, we can find out more about them than we do in two hours.’ i looked at it like four indie movies back-to-back – a six-month shoot.

“it’s kind of in the same world to Arbitrage, but the family drama is more central to this, and the intersection of media and politics becomes one of the central themes. That’s what interested me. Trump, Fox News, fake news… MotherFatherSon not only comments on that world, it is it. i think we’ve seen a resurgence of populist governments, populist personalities. Clearly Trump is such a clown, such a buffoon, he’s hard to take seriously, but you see it in eastern europe and in the UK. This populism is a theme of the world we’re in right now and that’s very important to what we’re trying to do in the series.

“There is that manipulative aspect of bad politicians. They don’t really see people’s pain, but they say they do. Trump obviously has no sense of what it’s like to have no power, no money, no protection. The [politician] we have in our piece is much more complex. Sometimes you think, ‘This is really a maniac.’ Other times you think, ‘No, this is a visionary.’ it’s so well-written that you fluctuate back and forth. and it’s the same with my character [a media mogul]

– is he a monster or something much more complex?”

MOTHERFATHERSON AIRS WEDNESDAY NIGHTS ON BBC TWO. ALL EPISODES SO FAR ARE ON BBC IPLAYER.