Ciaran Hinds 'Above Suspicion' Q&A: 'Silent Scream is a rollercoaster'
Digital Spy caught up with Ciaran (the complete opposite of the grumpy Langton!) to chat about the new three-part drama and Travis and Langton's complex relationship!
What is it that keeps luring you back to Above Suspicion?
"Kelly Reilly! We met ten years ago doing a play in Dublin and we worked very deeply and closely together. We became friends, but then we didn't see each other as our work went different ways, but we'd check in with each other. Then, about four years ago, this came our way through an agent. He said, 'Kelly Reilly's almost definitely going to do it - would you be interested [because] Kelly would love you to do it?'
"At that stage, it was a one-off, because they don't know if they're going to recommission. Working with someone that I'd worked with very closely and got on very well with, in a completely different genre and with completely different characters, really appealed to me. I knew that we could trust each other - that when we had to work very closely, nobody would try and gainsay the other. And so it's proved to be!
"It's been a joy to come back to. I float from one project to another project, so you miss people and you don't see them for years. But to come back every year to this and to work with the team - Celyn [Jones] and Shaun [Dingwall] and Amanda [Lawrence] - is a real joy in our lives, cos it's not something we get often.
"Then there's also the fact that Lynda La Plante's quite a classy writer, of course! Personally, I was never particularly into the crime genre, but they sent me the first book to read [2004's Above Suspicion] and I found it fascinating and complex. It was interesting and dark, and the characters were flawed. It kept subverting itself in the storyline, and because I didn't know the genre, I didn't know where we were going to go with it, so that was an adventure as well."
Having worked with this cast through four series, do you have a kind of shorthand with each other now?
"Well, I suppose the first time we did it, Kelly and I were fronting it, and the others all played their roles, but now it's a free for all. But that's the way it goes - that's friendship and trust. It also depends on a group of others who understand each other and have great respect for each other. If you get on, at the end of the day, that makes the work better. So it's always nice to have the professional work, knowing that the friendship is also there."
© ITV
What is the set-up of the new Above Suspicion series, Silent Scream?
"Lynda often goes for these crimes with people in the celebrity world, and this again is another one of those. It's about a very well-known young actress, in her early 20s - suddenly she's hit three, four films in a row. She's a star and she's found murdered - stabbed in her bed. Who did it? That's the premise.
"Unlike the other ones we've done, it's not that gory. Some of them have been pretty gothic and I faint at the easiest things, so I'm glad it wasn't down that road. But in this story, there's a whole list of possible suspects, through ex-lovers, the ex-lovers' wives, drivers, ex-flatmates. So the story moves around quite a bit and you get to meet a lot of characters, however briefly.
"Langton has the extra agenda in this story that he was passed over for commander, because of something that was found out about what happened in the last series. His story begins with him being told, 'Sorry, you're not getting it', and he challenges why he didn't get it, and they bring up this old case. Langton had told every one of his guys to shut up about it - not to say a word - so he then throughout this whole story has another agenda, which is about finding out which one of the team, whether inadvertently or deliberately, let the piece of information go.
"So he moves in a different way - he's not as bullish as he normally is, he's not drinking, he's thinking more. He's kind of quietly predatory, as opposed to volatile and aggressive. And then also he has the usual connection with Travis, which is now a mixture of [being] her boss and making sure she does the right thing, [being] a father figure, and also his male libido, which really wants to be with her. So they're always in conflict, these things."
Have you enjoyed how Travis and Langton's relationship has developed over the four series?
"Yeah, I have. Are they destined never to be, or could they [be together]? There's also the fact that he's much older and she's a beautiful young girl - what's wrong with her, why isn't she out carving a proper personal life for herself? I don't know where you'd take that. Maybe that can happen in another episode, where Langton and Travis develop other lives, but are still conflicted?
"There is something that may - but probably won't - be connected in the end. But it's always there, that's the thing - it comes in waves and then it's puts in its place by both of them."
Lynda La Plante's novel has been so hugely successful - what is the basic appeal of her work?
"A lot of her stuff is about gothic crime - the brutality, the darkness. They're very, very dark, her stories. This one - I'm not saying it's less dark, because there's a young woman stabbed to death - but there's no sadistic element to it. A lot of the others we've done have been about the psychological, dark stuff that goes on in people's heads and how it manifests itself physically.
"It's kind of thrilling - your deepest fears, your darkest anxieties. 'This is horrible, give me a little more, can I take it?' - people put themselves up against it. But this [story] is a more a crime of passion. [La Plante] takes people down into this very strange, dark, seedy underbelly sometimes, but also she writes these strong characters - like Travis and Langton - and people want to follow their relationships. It's a bit of a rollercoaster, topsy-turvy kind of number!"
There's still a few Langton and Travis novels that haven't been adapted...
"I think she's written six and we have done four, but we skipped one, which was extreme and quite brutal. Langton gets machete-ed and spends quite a lot of time in hospital, repairing - still furious!
"But they're commissioned year-by-year to see if they get the [viewing] figures, that's the way TV works now. So that's the thing that Lynda's fighting with and fighting against in a way, because you can't prepare ahead."
But if the ratings do come in, are you keen to continue with the show?
"If Kelly does it, I'll do it! That's the deal. Also, it's lovely to work again with the guys - Shaun, Celyn, Amanda and Michelle [Holmes], the team! It's like a family coming together again."
http://www.digitalspy.ca/british-tv/interviews/a358551/ciaran-hinds-above-suspicion-qa-silent-scream-is-a-rollercoaster.html
