Take One
Keeley Hawes tells us what it’s like to step back in time as DI Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes
You’re going back to the ’80s for your role in Ashes to Ashes. It’s an interesting concept, isn’t it?
I think it’s something people probably think about a lot, whether they could stop something terrible happening if they were there at the time. There is that aspect to Alex, and she knows she must put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Tell us about Alex.
When Sam Tyler landed back in 1973 in Life on Mars, the first show in this series, he had nothing to go on. He spent two series trying to work out whether he’d died and gone to heaven, had gone mad, was in a coma, or had actually travelled back in time.
Thankfully for Alex, she knows exactly how she’s ended up in 1981. Back in the present, she was one of the London Met’s best profilers, used to employing complex psychology to understand criminal behaviour. She also pored over Sam Tyler’s case report. So she now finds herself in a foreign world, and quickly comes to realise just how real her accounts of DCI Gene Hunt, DS Ray Carling and DS Chris Skelton really are.
It’s sort of like being in a panto. Alex is winking at the audience, well, Alex is the audience. She thinks she’s created the characters through Sam Tyler telling her about these characters, so she thinks they’re puppets and she’s imagining it all in her mind. It’s great fun to play and it’s amazing how it all pieces together.
Do you think she likes stepping back in time?
I think she enjoys 1981, secretly, more than she likes 2008, just as Sam grew to love 1973 more than he did his present. Alex finds the guys very exciting, especially Gene, but she has her daughter Molly that she has to go back to her present for. Sam’s motivation was his girlfriend and the rest of his life; Alex has her daughter.
Did John Simm, who played Sam, have any words of advice for you?
I went to see a play one night, and my hair was still in Alex’s perm. I waved over, but he just gave me a funny look, he must have thought, “Who’s that loony?”. Thankfully, he realised it was me and we chatted and it was really nice. It was great to meet someone who knew what it was like, and he had been through it too. I’m in pretty much every scene of Ashes, and was in for every day of filming, as was John on Life on Mars. When we got talking, we were like survivors of a crash or something. It was really good to see him, and he was very sweet about everyone here too.
Following up a series as successful as Life on Mars must feel like a bit of a pressure.
It was a bit daunting stepping into this role in an established programme, but there’s also a safety attached because you know you’re going to get viewers — they’ll come to watch Phil Glenister as Gene Hunt! The role I’ve taken on has enough pressure of its own, so actually it’s nice to have that little bit of comfort — people are already interested in it, it’s not like Life on Mars which had to find its audience and build up interest. But it is terrifying because we have to please the seven or so million viewers who will hopefully tune in, and I don’t want to let anyone down — the viewers and the people at Kudos (the production company) — plus I know there were a lot of people who went for the part of Alex.
How do Gene and Alex get on?
As soon as they come face to face there’s an immediate chemistry. They’d make an unlikely couple, though — he’s the gruff, hard-drinking former Sheriff of Manchester, now in London, and she’s a high-ranking and super-intelligent profiler with a cut-glass accent. So posh is Alex, that Gene nicknames her “Bolly Knickers” almost as soon as he meets her. But Alex’s attraction to Gene wasn’t all created by the scriptwriters.
How come?
Gene’s an unlikely flirt object for Alex, and there are a few will-they-won’t-they moments. Actually, Gene’s an unlikely flirt object for every woman that watches. You get taken by surprise just how much you fancy Gene Hunt when you watch Life on Mars, he’s just a sex god! Girlfriends of mine totally lust after him!
Did you like wearing some of the ’80s clothes?
Throughout the series, I get to wear some of the period’s most memorable fashions, but the real gems were kept for the extras. It’s difficult with the clothes, because you don’t want the show turning into Sex And The City, where people only watch it to see what the next outfit’s going to be. It’s easier to do that with the smaller characters and the extras, and it’s a clever way of doing things, otherwise we’d just be lost in shoulder-pads!
Ashes to Ashes is on Thursday at 9pm on BBC One
Take Two
How different is Ashes to Ashes to Life on Mars?
Ashes to Ashes is very much of its own making, it has a completely different feel to Life on Mars. We didn’t want to remake Life on Mars, there’d be no point, so the writers were adamant about making it its own show, and having seen the DVDs of the final show, they were totally right. I was blown over.
This time, DCI Gene Hunt is no longer in Manchester in 1973, but London in 1981. What were you doing that year?
I was probably in a field dropping acid! I’d just finished college and was looking for work. I didn’t know what, just that I didn’t want a 9-5 thing. So I went for a job where you work 8amtill 8pm six days a week!
What’s happened to Gene in the seven or eight years since we last saw him keeping Manchester’s streets clean in his super-powered Ford Cortina?
Well, he’s not the big honcho of Manchester anymore. Gene’s now fairly small-fry in the world of the London Met. He’s become more institutionalised I suppose. Gene’s journey throughout the series will be interesting. We see a man trying to keep a grip on his old-fashioned style of policing, which is being moved on. He’s being left behind a little, much more of a melancholic feel about him in this series. There are hints about his home life which Alex drags out of him, so we learn about his state of mind and where he’s at from their conversations. The big thing about Gene is that he’s an enigma, so the less you know about him the better and it’s important to keep that, otherwise he’s blown as a character.
It’s always a worry with our favourite TV shows that they’ll go on too long. What’s your view?
I definitely needed persuading to do it, in terms of where they were going to go with the story. I had no qualms about resurrecting that character, though.
Gene’s such a fun, great, great character to play. John had understandably had his fill of playing Sam, but that’s John, he likes to move on. His boredom threshold is quite low and he felt he’d done all he could do. We all felt Life on Mars had run its natural course, we didn’t want to start repeating ourselves.
But for Gene, he’s become a bit of an iconic character and I was happy to carry on playing him for a bit longer.
Wasn’t there talk of an American version of Life on Mars?
They were having problems with casting in the American version. My agent got an email asking if I’d be interested in playing Gene, but by this time I’d signed for Ashes. I said I’d do it if they could fit in with certain dates, but because of their pilot season they couldn’t, so I couldn’t do it. They sent us some sniffy email back but, whatever, you know? The American show was only a pilot, a one-off which might not get picked up, so it would have been career suicide for me to go and do it. It would have meant turning around to Kudos production company and the BBC and saying, “Sorry guys, I’m off to America.” And what if the series didn’t get picked up? I’d be back here, unemployable and with my tail between my legs. And imagine playing Gene Hunt for six months here and then for six months in America! I’d be in the Priory shouting (adopts Gene’s gruff accent) “I’m Gene Hunt, I’m Gene Hunt, I’m Gene Hunt”.
Do casting agents get you confused with your alter-ego?
I was in Cranford last year playing a forward-thinking character very different to Gene. I knew I was going to do Ashes to Ashes, so I was adamant I should find something very different before that. I don’t worry about being typecast. Had I just come out of drama school and Gene was the first role I’d ever done, then I might have a problem, but I think I’ve done enough other stuff for people to recognise me as me now. It’s not like I get sent scripts for 1970s throwback cop shows. If that started happening, then I might have to stop it.
For the Western Mail.
(Source: highbeam.com)