A glimmer of truth:
Ioan Gruffudd talks about his role in the drama Liar in which his character is accused of rape by his son’s teacher, Laura, played by Downton Abbey star Joanne Froggatt. Jim Maloney reports.
Date rape claims unravel on Liar.
After weeks of he said/she said, this week’s episode of Liar finally sheds some light on the date rape claims. Viewers discover, by way of flashback, a little of what happened on that fateful date night.
“Andrew’s life is rapidly falling apart because of the accusation,” says Ioan Gruffudd, who plays the suave surgeon Andrew Earlham.
“He’s a very proud person. He has a huge ego and something of a God complex and suddenly someone’s accusing him of this and he starts to get paranoid that everybody knows everything about him and he has no way of defending himself.”
Gruffudd says he was fascinated by the drama and wanted the role despite initially seeing scripts for only the first three episodes.
“I couldn’t put them down and I knew that it would be a tragedy if I didn’t get the part. When it came my way I was absolutely delighted. They were the best scripts I had read in years and not knowing whether Andrew was guilty or not was an added attraction to me. “I did ask the writers but they just said that it would all become clear and they were trying to keep their cards close to their chest as much as possible. “It’s not a drama about what consent means. It’s the story about the consequences of an event and how it affects people’s lives on both sides. “I felt it was
important to the story to make Andrew incredibly charming and likeable from the outset so that viewers would empathise with him and so the shock would be greater after the rape accusation.
“So when we see him he is not only charming but a pillar of the community, a successful surgeon who is brilliant with his patients and team and a fantastic father who has been dealing with the loss of his wife and raising his son on his own.
“We meet these people at this junction in their life. There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong or amiss with them and then this incident happens and she’s saying one thing and he’s saying another and then the law gets involved and we see how hearsay plays out in these circumstances. And we start to reveal something about her past that might suggest that this has been over-elaborated.
“We also show how powerful and damaging social media can be. We all read stories on the internet and it’s hard to know what is real and what is fake news and what infuriates Andrew is the injustice of Laura posting this accusation and him not being able to do anything about it. And it’s like trial by society.
“I’ve got a barrister friend who deals with these sorts of cases and, yes, your name is out there and dragged through the mud, and if you’re innocent it’s too late.
“Often the law isn’t there to protect the person who is making the accusation either because it’s one’s word against another person’s word which is such a tough thing to prosecute. And we deal with that in the series.”
Gruffudd, 44, who is originally from Aberdare, Wales, found it tough being away from his family while filming Liar in the UK.
He is married to actress Alice Evans, whom he met when they co-starred in 102 Dalmatians, and they live in Los Angeles with their daughters Ella Betsi and Elsie Marigold.
Gruffudd has forged a successful career in the US in high-profile roles such as Reed Richards in Fantastic Four and Dr Henry Morgan in the US fantasy TV drama series Forever.
“I flew back to see my family once every three weeks for the weekend. It was difficult and I didn’t have much time with them but that’s the life that we’ve chosen for ourselves and it’s the life that we live and even though it was hard being away, I’m an actor, not a soldier on duty in Iraq or somewhere.
“Despite having to be away from home sometimes, I think I have an amazing job. I’ve lived my life to its fullest capacity and, hopefully, with something like Liar, presenting incredible drama.
“I think it’s thrilling. It’s entertaining and a real page-turner. It keeps you guessing and it challenges very difficult questions.
“My hope and desire is that people will be debating who’s telling the truth. If we’ve achieved an argument on a couch between a couple watching our series about who is telling the truth at any given time, I believe we’ll have succeeded.”
“He has a huge ego and something of a God complex.”
– Ioan Gruffudd on his character Andrew