DOING IT JUSTICE
Meet the stars of this arresting new comedy cop show
Who doesn’t love a police drama that thrusts two unwitting officers into the murky world of a criminal enterprise? Brand-new comedy thriller Black Ops revolves around two ordinary police officers, Dom and Kay, who want to help the community, but are caught up in events well beyond their rank.
“I was just really excited about the notion of putting myself in a show or scenario that I wouldn’t get cast for ordinarily,” explains actress Gbemisola Ikumelo, who plays Dom. “You can hide a multitude of sins behind comedy, so I just went, ‘I’d love to be in a cop show. I’d love to be in a show where it’s running, guns, car chases and it’s fun and funny.’”
Dom is the feisty, no-nonsense half of the duo, while her PCSO partner, Kay, is more naive and lives with his church elder and is played by Hammed Animashaun.
“Kay just sees the good in everyone, but that gets him in trouble throughout the series,” says Hammed. “I think he just wants to help people. If there’s some way he can be at one with the community, this is the perfect job for him to do it.
“It’s authentic, I was able to play somebody who was like a version of me – you know, Kay’s Nigerian-ness, and being able to play that and be true to that part of him. Also, you don’t really see a buddy cop comedy thriller with two Black leads on TV.”
The pair are soon thrust into a secret mission where they find themselves way out of their depth facing one of the very dangerous leaders of the Brightmarsh gang.
Despite the high stakes, Gbemisola and Hammed had a ball off-screen.
“These supporting artists who were acting as drug addicts were looking like they were coming out of The Walking Dead,” laughs Hammed. “And it was just, like, the wildest thing I’ve ever seen. They were really going for it, really like dragging their feet along.
I just burst out laughing, I couldn’t hold it in. Hopefully they’ll keep those as bloopers because it was hilarious.”
“Hammed is a goofball, and highly, highly annoying,” Gbemisola tells us. “Genuinely, it was like a brother-sister relationship. He likes to get on your nerves. But he always lights up the room, as an actor, in all the work that he does. So, I was really keen to see if we’d work well together in this and the chemistry was instant.”