Ben Cavey interview
Ben Cavey is the Executive Producer on Bounty Hunters. He talks about some of the challenges involved in filming the second series of the show.
How excited were you to get working on the show again?
I was extremely excited to be working on the show again. We had left Rosie and Jack, their characters Barnaby and Nina, in a fantastically exciting place at the end of the last series - stranded in a desert with a man in their boot and a pile of cocaine. It was great to get straight into that story and find out what was going to happen to them next.
It was a joy to be reunited with Rosie Perez, who Jack and I adore working with. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to work with her again and it's always very exciting for us. Moreover, the opportunity to bring new characters to the show and start thinking about new story lines was a thrill. The moment we knew Steve Pemberton was going to come on board to play Steve McQueen felt like the show was really starting to notch up again.
You've produced shows with Jack Whitehall and Pippa Brown before like Bad Education, why do you think you work so well together?
I've been working with Jack for eleven years now. I first met him at the Edinburgh Fringe when he was performing for the first time in a school sketch troop. I've worked with him pretty intensely over the years and I think what is great about our relationship is that we really make each other laugh. We always have a lot of fun working together so however tough things get we always have the ability to have fun and not take things too seriously.
Pippa Brown, who I've been working with for about six years, is just the most awesome female producer in the business. There's no one better than her to get a big production like this up and running and it's always a joy to work with her.
What's different about this second series, what can the audience expect and how does it develop?
There were a few aims for this series. We wanted to spend more time with Nina and Barnaby, put them under more pressure and up the stakes for them. In this series you'll see them thrown into even more dangerous situations together and we'll spend more time with them to learn more about their characters and their back stories.
Further to this, we really wanted the show to feel even bigger and more spectacular than Series 1 so we tried to embrace the international storylines. Be that through finding the best locations or building some brilliant action set pieces which will hopefully stand out and be really exciting for people to watch.
Bounty Hunters was one of Sky's biggest launches since 2011, why do you think people love the show so much?
I think the best bit of the show is Nina and Barnaby's relationship and that contrast of the uptight British gentlemen and the kick-ass female bounty hunter from New York. I think that's a relationship that really engages people. I think Sky also gave us the ability to create something that really felt genuinely premium. It looked amazing and we could deliver production values that make it stand out from most comedy television.
The cast are fantastic - how did the casting of Steve Pemberton come about?
Jack, Freddy, Pippa and I have been trying to cast Steve Pemberton in our show for quite some time. We offered him a part in Bad Education which he was unable to do due to timing unfortunately. I actually know Steve well because I worked with him on Benidorm, but that's not why he did the show.
He was our first choice for the part of McQueen from the word go so we were all over the moon when we could offer him a part he wanted to play. He is one of the funniest men in the business, an absolute gentleman and is always a joy to work with. He can really bring the creepiness to the character of McQueen - he's great at conveying that so he's perfect for the role.
What do you think Steve Pemberton will bring to Bounty Hunters?
Initially there'll be a sense of intrigue about his character and then hopefully surprise as we discover more about him.
What makes Bounty Hunters different than other comedy dramas? Why should people watch Bounty Hunters?
Bounty Hunters is a unique mix of laugh out loud funny moments alongside genuine drama. It is positioned in a really interesting space somewhere between comedy and drama. That's always the calibration we're trying to get right, and I think we really cracked that in Series 2. This series is probably funnier than Series 1 but also delivers those dramatic sucker punch moments.
What have you enjoyed the most during this shoot?
For me it's working with Rosie Perez. Jack and I first worked with Rosie for a pilot in America that we did a few years back and we instantly really got along. We knew we wanted to work together so when Jack and Freddy were thinking about their next project I said, "would you write something for Rosie?" She's just been the most amazing actress to work with. Not only is she phenomenal on screen - there's a reason she's been nominated for the academy awards - she's also a wonderfully funny and generous person off screen. For me it's always the dream when Rosie comes to London to come hang out and work with us.
What has been the most challenging aspect of filming this series?
I think the Mexico sequence and the hotel fight scene, although hilarious, was a big challenge. Jack was left with his bottom dangling in the air whilst a choreographed fight scene took place around him; this was the most challenging in terms of production. Sitting by a monitor and having to watch it wasn't easy either!