Nesbitt returns to his roots in Acorn TV’s ‘Bloodlands’
Though Irish actor James Nesbitt has played everything from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Pontius Pilate, he says there’s only one requirement to acting: believability. “You try and play the truth of the character, as complicated as that is,” he says.
“Without believability, we have nothing. And there’s incredible content on our screens that I think audiences invest a lot in — otherwise there’s a remote control people can use.
“I think when you see characters make difficult decisions ... the audiences are saying, ‘Why have they made that decision?’ And, ‘Do I go along with it? Can I understand it?’ ”
Making decisions is what Nesbitt does in his role as the veteran detective on the trail of an assassin in a case gone ice-cold in “Bloodlands.” The fourpart drama, which was filmed in his native Northern Ireland, premieres
March 15 on Acorn TV.
Nesbitt says he was fascinated by this story because of the writing. “Everything starts with the writing,” he says. “And the writing and the plot were so arresting immediately.”
Chris Brandon, creator and author of the series, says setting the story in Northern Ireland was crucial. “The idea came from that very distinct sense of place,” he says.
“And that was influenced ... by the Scandinavian crime dramas — but definitely what, at the time, ‘The Killing’ was doing in Denmark, and what ‘True Detective’ was doing in Louisiana, and also the writing and the films of Taylor Sheridan as well.
“That idea of neglected frontiers, I suppose all fed into this idea of telling a story that really used the landscape of Northern Ireland to underline the drama that the lead character was going through.”
“It’s an astonishing job, really, what Chris did here,” says Nesbitt. “I’ve always said it doesn’t matter how good an actor you are, it’s hard to make bad writing work. You can never have acted before and anyone could make some of his writing sing.”
The 56-year-old actor says he felt an intimate connection with the character of DCI Tom Brannick and his pursuit. “How could I not in the sense coming from Northern Ireland, being of a similar age? I know that background. I myself am a parent of two daughters. And Northern Ireland has always been part of the backdrop to my life in many ways,” he says.
“I think I tried to base a lot of it — at its core was my relationship with my daughters, because the main pieces in Tom’s life are his daughter, his missing wife, his job and where he comes from. And all those things have collided; the other three things have collided in such a kind of traumatic way. And all that he’s left with, in a sense, is his daughter.”