Steve Pemberton interview
Steve Pemberton talks about joining Bounty Hunters as Colin McQueen, a history teacher at Eton College whose interests lie more in the 'specialist' end of the antiques market.
How did the role come about? What attracted you to it?
I've worked with Jack before on Inside No. 9 and obviously I know Jeremy Dyson who is one of the co-writers.
I know Jack and Freddy were pretty big fans of The League Of Gentlemen and the other stuff we've done. I was offered the part quite a long time before we filmed it and really liked the script and the character seemed great fun. He's a sort of seemingly boring weedy beaten teacher who becomes a sort of villain of the piece and gets quite nasty. There was a lot to play with and I thought that it would be really lovely working with Jack again.
Colin McQueen is quite the art expert, are you an art fan yourself? How did you prepare for the role?
I didn't do much to prepare for the role to be honest. I prefer modern art myself to classical art. But interestingly, I was telling my hairdresser about the part I was about to play... He whipped out his phone and showed me a photograph he'd taken of a painting in Italy he'd seen in a gallery on his holidays which was painted by Adolf Hitler. So that was my research, I was able to sit and study that in my trailer and enjoy - if that's the right word - well I enjoyed showing everybody that I had a painting by Hitler on my phone that nobody else had.
How does Colin fit into the story?
The main trio of characters - Jack, Rosie and Charity - are looking for this painting and because I've had dealings with their father, Nigel, they come to me.
I've bought a number of pieces from him over the years such as Hermann Goering's toby jug and Rudolf Hess' Ouija board. He's bought a number of prominent pieces and they knew that if they were trying to track down this painting that Colin McQueen would be a very good expert in this Nazi memorabilia. They track him down and that excites his interest because he's also secretly looking for the painting himself. So he's trying to use them and they're trying to use him and when it becomes clear that it's getting out of his control, Colin brings in his group of heavies. It becomes a standoff between the girls and Colin as to who can get the painting first.
Is there humour in the character of Colin?
Oh, definitely, you know the part was written with a comedy in mind. He's quite sinister but because he's an Eton professor as well, you see another side of him. He's carving his wooden eagle while giving his Eton boys detention and there's a lovely disparity between that Englishness and that love of fascism.
There was a lot of humour to be had, it's very sharply written by Freddy Syborn and Jack Whitehall and Jeremy Dyson. Great lines, great language, I think all three writers have a great love of language and we did a lot of laughing as we were filming.
You've worked with Jack previously on Inside No. 9. What is it like working alongside one of the writers?
Well obviously I'm used to that because most of the things I do I've either written myself or I'm acting in with Reece Shearsmith, so that's absolutely fine and Jack isn't at all precious with the script if you want to change a little bit.
What they love I think is when people improvise and add a little line in. There was a discussion that I was having with Adrian Lukis who was playing an art historian and we were talking about Otto Dix and Gustav Klimt and all these sort of rather dirty sounding German painters. The more we improvised the more they said, "no, no let's keep that in", so they're very generous. It's actually very useful to act alongside the writer as there's no interpretations, you just say, "What did you mean by this?"
What were the most challenging things during this shoot?
There weren't many, to be honest, as we had lovely locations to work in. The biggest challenge was not laughing, there were a few scenes in particular where we couldn't get it together and Jack was, considering it's his show, particularly bad at bursting out laughing whenever Colin was being slightly camp, channelling a little bit of Ian McKellen. He found that very funny indeed. So yeah, that was the main challenge, getting through the day.
Why should viewers tune into this series?
Well it's got everything. Action and a very, very funny script. It's a rare thing to get an action comedy which is both genuinely funny and exciting, written by very funny people. With the budget to do proper action set pieces too, so I think if people enjoyed the first series they'll certainly enjoy this one as well.
You've worked a lot in comedy - The League Of Gentlemen, Benidorm and Camping, to name but a few. What is it about comedy you enjoy?
I think when doing a comedy you have a very nice atmosphere on set. It can be serious sometimes but you're all there to make the show as funny as it can be. You know, when the crew are laughing and enjoying themselves, it's just a joyous way of working. In this day and age, we need to laugh as there are plenty of miserable things going on in the world and it's great to do a job that you love and which you know is going to bring a smile to people's faces.
Do you watch the shows you're in?
Yeah, I try to. I mean obviously a lot of the stuff that I do is written by myself and Reece so we watch that several times through the editing process, which we've got used to now over the years. It's nice, especially, to watch it with the people you work with at a screening or something like that.