International cast lends authenticity to crime series

OPATIJA, Croatia — British actor James Norton stood outside a sea-fronted modernist villa, which in June was standing in for a lavish Tel Aviv party venue in the new AMC series “McMafia.”

In a nearby car sat Israeli actor Oshri Cohen, accompanied by Russian actress Sofya Lebedeva.

On the final day of the 27-week shoot for the ambitious AMC-BBC co-production about global organized crime, the series’ unusual international flavor was on full display.

Norton had bought ice cream for the cast and crew members, who shouted goodnaturedly to one another in myriad different languages as they lugged cameras and equipment down the stairs for the next shot.

Taking in the chaotic proceedings, Norton joked, “Everyone knows exactly what’s going on, really.”

“McMafia,” an eight-part series that premiered Monday in the United States, is unusual in mainstream television for its international actors in major roles, often speaking in their own languages.

Many are famous in their own countries but are generally unknown to English-speaking audiences. With the exception of American actor David Strathairn, who plays a shadowy Israeli mogul, Russians (and one Georgian) play Russians, Israelis play Israelis, Indians play Indians and the British play the British.

Created by Hossein Amini (“The Wings of the Dove”) and James Watkins (“The Woman in Black”), the series was inspired by Misha Glenny’s 2008 nonfiction book, “McMafia.”

The plot centers on Alex Godman (Norton), the British-educated son of Russian mafia exiles, who is an upstanding fund manager with an ethical banking activist girlfriend (Juliet Rylance). A false rumor and a brutal killing draw Alex into a global network of money laundering, heroin smuggling, sex trafficking and counterfeit goods.

“The thesis of the book is that gangs have become like corporations,” Amini said. “And the gangsters can be transporters, politicians, businessmen, work for intelligence agencies — the lines between the underworld and the overworld have become quite blurred.”

Glenny proved invaluable, Amini said, in providing access to “hackers, lawyers, people involved in transporting for Russian and American mobs, former intelligence officers, a whole range of experts who all felt very different from the heightened pictures I’d seen in movies.”

Family, Amini added, became an important linking idea.

“We wanted to show that even criminals ... say they are doing everything for the people they love,” he said.

Because the story takes place across multiple countries and nationalities, it was important, Watkins said, to have a cast that was “ethnically right.”

“I had never seen or read a script that was fully international in that way,” said Norton, known in Britain for his role as a psychopathic killer in “Happy Valley” and a crime-solving vicar in “Grantchester.”

One big upside to the series, the actor said, was the interaction among the global cast.

“They all brought their own craft and energies.”