Date Published: September 11, 2024 —
How much fun was Nightsleeper to make?
A lot of fun. It was an interesting challenge because we were shooting in a studio just outside Glasgow. We were cooped up in these small carriages for 10, 12 hours a day and they’d pre-recorded the entirety of the train journey exteriors from Aberdeen to London on LED screens, which were outside the train. I’ve often been fortunate enough to work in real environments a lot, but this was all pretend, so it was a different way of doing things.
Could you see where the train was supposed to be in the UK while you were filming?
Yeah, although it was dark so you couldn’t really see much. They used it for the lighting in the windows on our faces a little bit here and there, which saves a lot of time in the edit and just looks better and more realistic. Although because you feel like you’re on a train, people were getting motion sickness if they looked out of the window for too long.
When you’re all confined for that long, how do you avoid going mad?
I actually thought it benefited the show. We’re all there all day together, all in the same green room with everyone running about changing mics and what have you, so you just couldn’t escape this absolute chaos. It was all part of the fun.
What does telling the story in real time bring?
An immediacy and an energy. Having seen the first episode, that clock ticking like Speed or 24 creates a tension.
Is Joe comfortable being a lone wolf or does he prefer working with people?
The whole show is about everyone doing their bit and working as a team to stop this train. Joe is a great leader of teams and a galvaniser of people although, at the beginning of this, he is a lone wolf. Gradually, he learns to cooperate and work with everybody else – he realises that if not everybody is on board, pardon the pun, then he’s not going to be able to stop the train.
Could you relate to Joe?
I tried to bring the fun, cheeky bit of myself to this role because a lot of the action heroes are just big hardmen with gruff voices. I tried to be free with it and play a real person, warts and all. I don’t have kids although I’ve got younger brothers that I’m very close to. Hopefully, the audience will try and put themselves in the shoes of the characters in the show and try to see who they would be within that group of people. We all want to hope we’d be the one that steps up and runs about and saves the day, but would we really? I’d like to think I’d be more like Joe in that moment, but that’s probably because I’ve done all these different movies so weirdly, I sometimes feel like an action hero.
When Joe first realises something is seriously wrong, does he feel equipped to react to the crisis or out of his depth?
He’s sort of figuring it out as he goes along. Obviously he has some skills and a basic level of training because he’s worked in police force. But this particular incident is quite far out of his field of expertise so he’s relying closely on Abby (Aysgarth, played by Alexandra Roach) at the other end of the phone to assist. They don’t have much time to figure out whether they can trust each other, they just have to get on with trying to get to the bottom of what’s happening. Joe grows into the role as the show goes on.
Could you talk about building that relationship with Alexandra?
It was about trying to create some rapport between myself and Alex Roach. I know her personally, but we never actually met for this because we weren’t in the scenes together. We were trying to create some sort of relationship over the phone, although I’ve just got someone reading in while I’m talking into a prop phone. It’s a different challenge when you can’t look somebody in the eye. You gain so much from somebody through their physical being and their eyes, because you can read their emotions non-verbally. When you’re on the phone, you sometimes have to perform a little bit more to create some energy. You can’t just talk in a monotonous tone.
Does Joe bond with any of his fellow passengers?
He bonds with the young kid Mouse (Adam Mitchell) because he reminds Joe of his own son, so we see some of Joe’s paternal qualities. One of the staff, Billy (Scott Reid), becomes quite useful, as do a couple of others with the more physical elements, and Joe uses one of the one of the guys on the train that knows the train well.
Was it fun to play off all those different actors in a small space?
Yeah, there are some amazing actors in that cast: Sharon Small, James Cosmo, Alex Ferns… Everybody brings something different, and they’re funny as well, so it was a joy. Hopefully, we’re creating a picture of what it might look like in the UK on one of these trains: ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance having to step outside their comfort zone and save the day. That’s why I’m looking forward to it, because hopefully people in the UK will really be able to relate to these characters.
How do you feel about train travel now?
I had a stag do in Glasgow not long after the shoot and quite a lot of the lads got the night sleeper up there. I was like, Guys, do not get on that thing… I think they had a pretty rough journey and were knackered the whole trip. But it hasn’t put me off trains!
About
All episodes of Nightsleeper will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Sunday 15 September. Episodes will air on BBC One every Sunday and Monday from 9pm that night.
Nightsleeper is a real-time thriller for BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Created by BAFTA-winning writer Nick Leather, it is a six-part series in which a train is ‘hackjacked’ and driven through one single night from Glasgow to London on an uncertain journey. Part fast-moving heart-in-mouth action-adventure and part twisty-turny whodunnit detective story, it’s a roller coaster drama where no-one is ever quite who they seem.
Leading the fight are Joe Roag, a cop who is a passenger on the train and Abby Aysgarth, the acting technical director at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). But who are they fighting? And how can they win against the self-styled ‘Driver’ who seems one step ahead of every solution?
There’s a small team working the night shift alongside Abby and a handful of passengers left on the train with Joe but are they all as innocent as you’d think? Who can they trust? Who can we trust? Are there people on board who know more than they are letting on?
Produced by Fremantle’s Euston Films for BBC iPlayer and BBC One, the 6×60 series is written by Nick Leather (Murdered For Being Different) and stars Alexandra Roach (The Light in the Hall) and Joe Cole (Gangs of London).
The series is executively produced by Euston Films’ managing director Kate Harwood, with Nick Leather, Jamie Magnus Stone and with Gaynor Holmes for the BBC. The series is directed by Jamie Magnus Stone (Doctor Who, Ten Pound Poms) and John Hayes (Dublin Murders). Created and written by Nick Leather with Laura Grace (Episodes 4 and 5). Producer is Jonathan Curling (The Sister, Baghdad Central). Co-Producer is Daisy Costello. Fremantle handles global distribution.
Watch Nightsleeper on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Sunday 15 September
Source
BBC One
