What do you think it is? Why do people love it so much?

I think there's still a fascination with, you know, the old empire that used to exist with Britain, and now obviously it doesn't.

And there's a kind of romance there.

Then at the same time, there's a skewering of this kind of weird class system that still involves Britain, and I think people enjoy that.

And then on top of that, it's lots of, you know, money and guns and murdering each

No,

no, I think he'd be disappointed.

It was very it was fun, actually.

[laughs]

He's a civilian, uh, who's brought into this world, and he's adept and smart, but ultimately he's just trying to do the moral thing.

He's trying to get his family out of the, the, the kind of crime world.

Season 2, what I was most interested in is kind of the blackness in his eyes, the darkness, the, the, the, the corruption of soul.

The, the idea that slowly the, the tentacles of power and wealth and all those things that we know can corrupt humans and continue to do daily start to get under his skin, and that he begins to enjoy not only the power, but the ability to inflict violence, um, to get things that he needs.

You know, the, the, that moral duplicity is, is kind of what was more interesting m- to me going forward.

What are some ways that maybe his writing and his way of creating th- this show challenges you in ways that maybe other directors haven't?

Um, you don't get prep time, so I think you're forced to leave behind some of the, uh, the safety things you think that perhaps you need as an actor.

What do you think makes someone a good leader? And is Eddie actually becoming one?

Yeah, I hope so.

I mean, this was always a push and pull with Guy that we had, which was in season one, I wanted him to be... that faster and quicker.

I wanted to see more of him in a way, but he wanted to tell the kind of Michael Corleone in the first half of The Godfather, you know, like a kind of a pedestrian, you know, someone who's a soldier, regular guy who comes back and he's trying to do the basic thing, which is, you know, make his family safe.

what we've done in season two and why i wanted to do more of it was was wrestle with the larger themes of of moral corruption of how power corrupts the soul um and and and the the most compelling stories for me especially crime stories is one of ascension right if you think about tony soprano we think about al pacino we think about Walter White you know it's ascension but at the same time it's the sacrifices that they make along the way and how ultimately it leads to their downfall so that's the beginning of what we're trying to explore in season two and the ramifications of overreach I think in season one he feels kind of untouchable because he's harsh and he's a duke and he's just kind of being a moral guy here he's stepping into the shoes of kind of don territory i guess and with that comes a lot of danger

definitely you know and you've mentioned guy richie obviously a couple times in your answers and you know there's only one guy richie in this world you know what have you come to appreciate with working with somebody like him

uh you know throwing away some of maybe your your conceits you've acquired over the many, many years of being in this industry before you think you need X or Y to achieve certain things, whereas he forces you to throw away some of that pretentiousness in a good way.

And also the ability to work as a team.

Faux.

I just say faux, but it's faux life.

Yeah, so my school friends, Aylesbury Grammar, Grammar School Catastrophe, we used to call it A Crew.

That's our kind of friendship group, you know, the name of our WhatsApp group.

So number one was, when was the last time you had your heart broken? This is from Captain America.

World captain.

World captain.

Perhaps by you, my friend.

How do you see it affecting men in a negative way?

it's a lot about deep-seated insecurity, ultimately.

Men who feel that they need to be performative or misogynistic, it's about them not feeling good enough, essentially, but it's hidden with kind of meaningless bravado, right? And then on top of that is what we've reached at the moment is cataclysmic capitalism, where you have everyone now is rewarded by wealth, It used to be in a time with our parents' generation.

I know I'm not saying that worked either, but you had two general global ways of thinking about the world.

You had a communist and you had a capitalism.

Now capitalism is the dominant force.

And if you are celebrated, no matter what you are, if you are stinking rich and driving around in flash cars, and that has been epitomized by Trumpism and and everything that goes with that.

Do you find that tough in a way to like live up to an image?