A quickie with... Stephen Moyer

Tell us about Safe House… I play Tom Brook, who used to be a copper, but walked away from the job eight years ago. Now, he and his partner run a sailing school in the middle of nowhere, and, as a sideline, look after people going into witness protection. They’re living this lovely life, then Tom sees a kidnapping on the news that’s identical to his final case. He can’t help but get drawn into the investigation, which then affects his whole life. It’s pretty dark for ITV… Yes, it has real elements of Nordic noir, and there are more than two ways it can end, which they hadn’t decided when we wrapped. We had great weather, which isn’t necessarily what you want in a thriller – we would have taken wind and rain – but the building we were shooting in was weird, so it still has that sense of foreboding What attracted you to the show? I remember bumping into Idris Elba in the States four or five years ago, when I was doing True Blood, and he was like, “I think I’m going to go back and do this London thing, but don’t know if I should.” I said, “Dude, you should do it. If it f**ks up, you’ll always be OK.” That was Luther, so I guess I’d always also been looking for the right thing to come home for. Me and Jill [Green, the producer] did a show in 2001 called Menace, and we’d been looking to do something for years, then this came up. So, I told the Americans I wasn’t going to be around for a few months, because I wanted to do this thing at home. What were the rest of the cast like? It was so nice to be a part of this with them. I’ve known Jason Watkins for over 20 years, and he’s so good. We could just throw in lines and all sorts of shit at each other, knowing we’d both pick it up. And Ashley Walters, Sunetra Sarker, Stephen

Lord… they’re all fantastic! You’ve been in the US for ages, do you want to be back more? I’d love to come back here and work more, so I’ll be keeping a keen eye on how this one goes. I think there’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mindness about being away. Plus, I haven’t done anything here for a long while, so there will be an expectation for this to do well.