Spooks

And what I mean by that is they kind of endure in sales terms.

So a show like Grantchester, quite a few of those spooks titles, I didn't have anything, a few of those kudos titles that I didn't have anything to do with, like Hustle and Spooks.

They still sell and sell.

They've got these incredibly long tails, which makes them over time attractive.

think that's right.

I mean, it's interesting, that bunch of shows that... kudos had in the late noughties and early 2010s.

Spooks, Hustle, Life on Mars, going into Ashes to Ashes, MI High, Law and Order UK.

They were all kind of made and financed a bit like Grantchester, which is a sort of a UK broadcaster, ITV or BBC, pays the lion's share of the budget And there's a bit of a distribution advance, an advance on future sales that comes from a financier.

This is James, the son of Zebedee, son of thunder, brother of John, one of the 18 and dead in 13 words.

Instead of the A-Team, ask anybody my age about the second episode of the TV series Spooks.

If you ask them, okay, there's a reaction, you get a little bit of a sort of shudder at that point.

I'm not going to tell you what happened at midday on a sunny Sunday, but there is a character who dies in episode two.

and they will, you will indeed, drink from my cup.

That is what's going to happen.

So James, the son of thunder, I guess he probably was not, unlike the character in Spooks, he probably was not blonde or beautiful, but he certainly had a mum and a brother.

Likely he had a wife and children.

Thomas Vincent directed episodes of Bodyguard and Reacher, two shows built entirely around tension, complicated plans, and characters operating under pressure.

His co-writer, David Wolstencroft, is the BAFTA-winning writer behind Spooks and The Escape Artist.

So between them, you've got filmmakers who understand how to construct suspense and how to keep an audience guessing.

Add Gaumont's Lupin heritage into the mix, and you can see exactly why this film feels confident in its genre.

But it sort of does make you think.

I remember watching Spooks all those years ago.

In fact, I watched quite a few of the episodes recently.

And you think, how accurate is that? And I mean, I know a couple of people in...

This is good.

The British star, 50, whose credits include the BBC drama Spooks and Les Miserables, to play Robert Louis Stevenson's peg-legged villain in Paramount's six-part TV adaptation of Treasure Island.

Oh, I love that book.

Treasure Island! God, it's genius.

He's been in all of it.

The Hobbit, Spooks, Hannibal, all those Harlan Coben dramas.

Yeah, and not just, like, walk-on parts.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[laughs]

What are the sort of more extreme things you've ever done to get into character?

It, I was once waterboarded in Spooks.

Fucking hell.

Yeah, it's a Netflix standard and They're very exciting.

Like most thrillers or action thrillers, when you're looking at something like Spooks on the telly in England and you're seeing MI6 or whatever, it's always amazing that MI6 has about six people.

Well, Fowler, who are Mossad fans, Mossad agents, Mossad is operating on just the six of them as well.

And the slightly inconvenient thing was that those that are at my age can look back and remember Dynasty when Bobby Ewing died.

I would probably have been quite busy right now.

And actually, the TV programme Spooks, they actually came to Woburn Abbey to do a recce one time, and I was so excited.

But they didn't actually end up filming there, but I was really excited about that.

Truly amazing.

So, like, I love, like, gritty, intense TV shows, you know.

Anyone remember Spooks? No? Okay.

I love Spooks.

Peaky Blinders, you know.

If there's explosions or car chases, I'm usually a fan.