SIXTY SECONDS
THE ACTOR, 43, ON WINDING UP STEPHEN GRAHAM, HANGING FROM HIGH BUILDINGS AND THE RETURN OF COMIC DRAMA CODE 404
We last spoke during the first lockdown. Your wife had just broken her calf bone and you were home-schooling. How’s life now?
God, that feels like a lifetime ago. I’ve been blessed that I’ve been busy throughout. So many contemporaries and friends have really struggled, particularly in the theatre sector, and for all the technicians behind the scenes it’s been such a treacherous time. In actual fact, Code 404 [his comedy cop show with Stephen Graham] was one of the first productions to start up again.
Were people giddy coming back to work on Code 404 or more worried you might get shut down again?
It was a strange mood. I remember getting a call from Stephen. I hadn’t worked for seven months and I think he was even a little bit longer. Both of us always seem to be busy but that was the longest I’d been without a job. It almost felt like our first ever gig. Then all of a sudden you’re on set, on your mark and having to remember how to do it.
How would you describe Code 404?
Robocop meets Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em. This super-brilliant cop, John Major [Mays] gets gunned down and comes back part AI but the wiring has gone wrong. There’s this love triangle with his best friend and partner, Roy Carver, Stephen’s character, who’s had an affair with John’s wife, played by Anna Maxwell Martin.
You’ve got some underwater scenes this series. What were they like to film?
The final shot we did for this second series was in a water tank in Basildon. It was a very memorable scene to end on. We literally just dived into this hot tank and then that was it. It was very safe, what we were doing. They gave us each a diver to look after us. If I remember correctly, they had to weigh down our pockets…
That sounds like a Mafia hit…
Yeah – ‘why are you putting all these weights in my pockets? The rushes aren’t that bad, are they?!’ I think Stephen was a lot more comfortable with it. There’s a great shot of him coming up from the depths. He was better at it than me.
We ended up having a good drink together and crying on each other’s shoulders
You have a fight scene in another episode. Do you box?
I don’t really box as such. We had a lot of prep for that sequence. The guy I was doing it with was a mixed martial arts champion. In another episode they had me hanging off a building on a harness, not something I’d done before.
How did that work?
They have you on a harness, on a big wire. There’s a guy standing there taking all your body weight and then they paint out the wire in post-production. It was bloody high when you got up there. Weirdly, once I was in character and they shouted ‘action’, you just sort of do it. You climb over the rail and do the sequence.
Not that we would want to but what is the easiest way to wind Stephen up?
I tell you what he hates is me going back to check the monitor all the time for the scene we’ve just shot. Stephen said to me, ‘Right, you, stop looking at the monitor! It’s really good what you’re doing.
You don’t need to watch it back. Just carry on because we are not going to get the day’s filming in if you keep doing that.’ So that winds him up. And if you criticise Liverpool football club.
Have you also just finished a TV series with Lesley Manville?
Yes, Magpie Murders, which I filmed in Dublin and Ipswich. It was great to work with Lesley. We were in All Or
Nothing together, the Mike Leigh film, but we didn’t have any screen time. I’ve always hugely admired her from afar. She was sensational in Mum. She commiserated with me when I didn’t win a Bafta for Line Of Duty. I lost and I think she lost [for River] that night. We ended up having a good drink together and crying on each other’s shoulders.
Your Code 404 cop listens to soothing music to calm his AI. How about you?
I’ve been listening to an Apple compilation of sleep music. I seem to be listening to it in taxis or I put my candles on and I listen to it in the bath. Making sure of my own mental health and trying to chill every now and then has become more important to me.
You’re on a stag do in Soho later – is that the first time for a while?
No, we had the press screening of Code 404 in Soho. What was amazing about that night was not only were we all gathered together in a room for the first time for ages but also we weren’t able to celebrate the success of season one because of lockdown and it did so well. It was Sky’s fastest binged show in eight years. So we had a bit of a big night. It’s strange now, isn’t it? You are venturing out among people and still part of your brain thinks, ‘Is this going to be alright?’ At the end of the day you’ve had your vaccinations and you’ve got to just get on with it.
Code 404 is on Sky Comedy and Now.