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ey see that more and more as the season ogresses,” he said.
Below, Bamber elaborated on his expei nce and the new season of Strike Back. mie Bamber: When you join a pre-existTV g show, there are bonds and relationforged ips and there is trust which is a onderful thing. It’s great that they’re not l jumping into the unknown together. But e flipside of that is that you have to prove urself. You have to show your worth being dedtotheteam.
So life and art goes hand in hand and ol Coltrane is also introducing himself a team that already know each other d whose members have been hardened rough conflict.
So, I knew this was a successful show ith an audience, and that’s a wonderful ing as an actor because you know you’re t going to be wasting your time. But you ve to bring something to the party and s a challenge as an actor, and you have risetotheoccasion.
tremely well. I had only been together ith Warren, Dan and Lynn for one season. ut one season of Strike Back is a lifetime hen compared to any other TV show. It is lentless, difficult and emotionally draing. Just because of the work load, it’s demanding physically. So they were a osely bonded unit.
But they were very welcoming to Yasand in I and even Alex, as well as all the est stars.
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They took their job very seriously. And that applied to the stunt work, to the physical training and the way we handled weapons and all of that were pretty rigorously catered for in Strike Back. We really respected that. There were many — we were in Malaysia for six months. On set I had a wonderful day where I got into the hurricane’s eye of a bar fight, and I never played a bar fight before. That for me was a high point and we had a wholedaytodoit.
Essentially it was a two-hander with Alin’s character — I had to fight my way out of the bar, and that, for me, was a really enjoyable day. I wrote an email to the writer saying “Thank you, I haven’t had so much fun on a film set for 10 years”. It was really the best fun I had had since Battlestar probably.
Then on a personal level, my family cametostaywithmeforamonthinJuly, and we got to travel around Malaysia and to Borneo. We went to Vietnam for a week as well and to Rawa Island to scuba dive.
Those little personal moments I shared with my kids in another side of the world they’ve never seen before were very special indeed and they remind me on a daily basis that they miss Malaysia and they wish to go back all the time whenever they see a photo come up on my computer. THERE’S FRICTION BETWEEN
YOUR CHARACTER AND THE THREE SOLDIERS. DO YOU GET ALONG WITH THE CAST MEMBERS IN REAL LIFE? Yeah, they’re very impressive people. The friction is onscreen only. Off screen, I have to say, I was in awe of them from the beginning.
I was hanging around a lot, I could see when I went in for stunt training or weapons training, the work they have to put in, aside from shooting, to get ready for all of the fights, which was constantly happening in the schedule.
There are three or four (action scenes) in an episode. Having to prepare while shooting, it’s just physically rigorous, there’s no shortcut to preparing a fight, you have stunt double to block it out for you, but when you jump in there, you have to do the repetitions. As an actor, I was very impressed with the work ethic that they have, and they’re extremely impressive people.
Warren had a previous career as a Thai boxer — and a world champion. Dan is an amazing tri-athlete and he’s done Dancing With The Stars in Australia. I’ve watched Alin strip an AK-47 or M40 rifle down to bare bones and then back again, while eating a sandwich. She can do it, without thinking about it. So they’ve just immersed themselves in these characters.
And Yasmin, she has the hardest task of all actually, she had to get up to their speed at what they were doing real quick. The way she slotted herself in was extremely impressive. And then off screen, they’re all wonderful and fun people.
Warren and I enjoyed the delights of the food and bars in Kuala Lumpur, Penang Johor and Singapore. We all got along super well. The single important factor of the show I think is that glue and the love between those core characters.
It’s really what Strike Back is about, it’s a buddy movie. It’s about putting yourself in the line of fire for one of your colleagues and never leaving one behind. It’s a hard, physical demanding, relentless shoot for the six months with very few days off, and the crew itself was extraordinary.
For us westerners operating in the humidity and the heat in Southeast Asia, it really binds you together. It’s quite a task, you wouldn’t get just any actor to come and enjoy it but we really did. Yes, definitely my first time shooting in the country. I’ve been there before, as an 18-year-old with a backpack — going around the world, before I went to university. So I was keen to revisit places I’ve already experienced.
The challenges are the heat and humidity. Initially with any film crew, it is just bonding and understanding how things are done. I thought the Malaysian crew was extraordinary, the people that helped us to get through the day, the runners and the assistant directors, who were mostly locals, were the best I ever worked with in the world. They were carrying bottles of water everywhere. We were being fed protein-rich meals every day because we are all training so hard. They had a lot to juggle but they made it look as easy as possible. The Malay people are so friendly and welcoming and we really had a great time.
For me it was interesting to see the country and the region, and the changes that have happened in the past 27 years since I last came to Malaysia. It was quite frightening to be honest, the urban development seemed quite haphazard and ill thought-out but it’s impressive to see how much the economy has changed, and how resourceful people are. How business and opportunities have grown in that time. None of us actually really need a stunt double. The issue with stunt doubles is whilst Warren is shooting, his double won’t necessarily be doubling in front of a camera but will be choreographing all the fights that are in the holding pattern in the corner.
Andondayofforasceneoff,thestunt double will then jump in and show him what they have rehearsed. To see the fight, do the fight and then jump in.
On a side note, we don’t all have contracts whereby we get to do all the stunts. There are insurance reasons for some extreme explosions, car rolls and all that stuff. They just won’t let actors do that stuff. On a TV show, it’s just not practical.
The beauty of being an actor is that you don’t have to spend your whole life doing one thing. You can do different things. But if I had to choose, honestly, right now in terms of acting and the challenges that we are allowed to embark upon, there’s no real contest — its TV. It is where grown up stories are being told, the interesting stories, the right to “take risks”.
Movies are completely risk averse at the moment. The lines are blurred between TV and film at the moment. It’s just long form and short form of storytelling and TV does long better than anyone. We trained in army barracks in Kuala Lumpur at the very beginning of the show. And when there were scenes that required choreographed background essentially, we did use the police force and they were great.
Obviously, it’s always tricky when you work with a police force because they have their own working rules and we have our own working rules. They were very easy to work with and very professional. I didn’t have to deal with them much because I was not involved in those sequences, but it’s always invaluable to have the real deal when you shoot and to show what the real procedures are in the background so that it all feels legit.
And of course the Malaysian Police Force is featured in the first two episodes quite strongly. So that was great!
nstent@nst.com.my