Back on the grind
Detective Baptiste’s retirement turns into a missing persons mystery as he hunts a human trafficking ring in Baptiste.
“Ah, you know, Baptiste is French. They always complain. They’re not happy unless they’re unhappy and everyone else is unhappy with them,” says Turkish actor Tchéky Karyo, who reprises his role as the disgruntled cop in new series Baptiste. The six- episode 2019 thriller is the spin- off from his popular drama Missing (2014-2016) but there’s a difference to the case that Baptiste works on. He is retired. He is no longer as sharp as he was, having suffered a brain tumour at the end of Missing. “He thinks that he can go to The Netherlands and have a nice relaxing time there,” says Tchéky. “But then he gets a phonecall and in the back of his head he is going, ‘Do not say yes. Do not say yes.’ His former boss asks him to help the Dutch police with a missing persons case and he wants to say no but the words do not come out his mouth.” But the more he digs into this missing sex worker, the more perplexed he becomes. Is it her uncle? Is it her gangster ex? “There are so many possibilities,” says the actor.
SHIFTING FOCUS
The most important element in this reboot for Tchéky is that his character has developed. “We no longer focus on his world. This case is bigger than him because he has a time frame to work in and his senses, his instincts, as a detective have been dulled by his surgery,” says Tchéky. Baptiste needs to move ahead but he’s being held back at every turn, not least by the missing girl’s uncle Edward (Tom Hollander, Lord Cutler Beckett in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, 2003- current). “They get into this catand-mouse game,” says Tom. “Baptiste and Edward try to figure out who they are. There are so many turns to the story that in the middle of filming last year, I went to our producer John Griffin and said, ‘I’m in a terrible mess. I don’t actually know what’s going on’.” Tchéky on the other hand knew exactly what was going on. “I’ve slipped back into Baptiste’s shoes. He knows that there is more to Natalie (Anna Próchniak) missing than it appears. I was sitting reading the script and I could see where it was going. That got my re-energised and invigorated – I’m ready for more Baptiste!”
HELPING HAND
Baptiste might be a little slower but he still has a couple of tricks up his sleeve to find Natalie. He is given access to police resources by British liaison officer Genevieve (Jessica Raine, Julia in 2018 miniseries Patrick Melrose), who works for European law enforcement agency Europol. They don’t get on at first, says Jessica. “It’s a British-French thing. She is hunting a Romanian sex trafficking ring and he thinks that she is getting in his way of finding this girl because he thinks that Edward is linked to the people she is investigating because something just smells off about him.” Don’t expect the pieces to fall in place until the very end, warns Tom: “I am still not sure how we got to the ending we did.”