Key
NW = Nicola Walker
SL = Shazad Latif
MB = Max Brown
PF = Peter Firth
EP = Executive Producer (Andrew Woodhead)
RA = Richard Armitage
LR = Laila Rouass
IG = Iain Glen
SM = Sophia Myles
NW: Step forward the real Lucas North... yeah, I mean, no-one expected that, this is the first time that you've had the lead Spook actually not be who he appears to be.
SL: Yeah, all the relationships build up and all the things you've done together throughout the series... it's brilliant yeah because you realise later that all those things... that he was playing a character the whole time.
MB: He's killed this guy "Lucas North", he's taken over his identity, he's infiltrated the MI5, he's become someone that he wants to be, but, you know, he's got this horrible background, so he's been running from the past.
NW: He's totally torn as well because he adores Harry. He's tried to become the man that he's masquerading as; he's tried to make good.
PF: Yes, it's reveal after reveal really. It's a Mille-feuille of deception.
EP: Adam's exit was very much... it all happened in one episode, bang bang bang bang bang, Adam, heroic, saving the day; oh my God, didn't survive. Whereas Lucas' downfall is over the eight hours of the series.
RA: This series, for me, is about peeling back Lucas North and finding John Bateman again. Uh, and what Lucas actually finds is not that man that he was, it's, uh... there's a character in episode 8 called Alex who describes it as a chimera, and that's really what it is, it's an amalgamation of both of the characters, of somebody new emerging. And that's really, uh, what episode 7 for me is about, the birth of uh, of who he's gonna be in the future.
NW: I'm quite impressed watching Richard unravel him as the episodes going by; really small things he's doing as you watch this character who seems very straight and controlled and contained, just see him breaking down, he's been brilliant at doing that.
RA: John Bateman was a bit of a lazy drop-out I think, and Maya was the worker, she was the studious one, and their relationship was tight, and they really, you know, they were made for each other.
LR: And then John just disappears one day, and it completely rocks her world when she hears that he's dead.
RA: John realised that he wasn't going to be able to support her financially. He kind of got involved with this guy who was uh doing a drugs run, and he saw it an an opportunity to make some extra money. So he goes to Dakar and he gets caught and he gets stranded out there and needs to pay his way back, so he meets this guy "Vaughn". They start running courier jobs for the British Government, one of which turns out to be an embassy bomb. 17 people die, 5 British citizens died.
EP: Vaughn saw something in John Bateman, which he thought could be manipulated, but he also saw something in John Bateman which probably Harry saw in John Bateman/Lucas North in which actually ultimately made a brilliant spy. He was someone who was capable of doing horrendous things and extraordinary things.
RA: Vaughn's kind of the architect but John is the engine driver; he knew what he was doing, um and the creation of Lucas North after the event was very much John's doing.
Interviewer: He brutally murdered Lucas North?
RA: Yeah, I don't think there was any plan, I think he just needed the passport. He had to reinvent himself, he had to hide within the legend of Lucas North. I think he created somebody that he would have wanted to be, someone that he aspired to be, in a way it's quite hard to define, because there is remorse there, there is guilt, but he did what he did, but I think he saw his creation of Lucas North as a way of paying his due in a way. And going to prison for 8 years; I think he feels that he's served his time for killing Lucas North even though he's never been tried in a court of law I think he believes that he's paid back. All his prison tattoos do tie in to the John Bateman situation, the "Gnothi Seauton" (Know thyself), on his arm we have "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I say nothing to nobody" and "While I live, I breathe" on the back of his neck. And on his chest is a William Blake painting which is "Arisen; God is the Architect", so it's all about recreating himself, but at the same time not losing the truth inside.
Interestingly Lucas' relationships have failed, uh he's had this wonderful relationship with Elizabeta, Sarah Caulfield, but the one relationship that he does hang on to, the person that reminds him who John Bateman was is Maya.
LR: Every woman he's probably been with since has been compared to Maya, it's his first love.
IG: His central weakness is his, um, his love for this lady, that in the end causes his downfall.
LR: Vaughn's been very clever, he's been very calculating, um and yeah he's used her to get what he wants and get to Lucas.
IG: He's a psychological baddie, he's sort of, you know, he gets inside Lucas' worst nightmare and manipulates him, he knows his greatest fears, he knows sort of his weaknesses because they've got a shared history.
RA: Vaughn delivers a suitcase with photographs in it; Maya happens to be one of the photographs, and there's this sort of shock reaction to seeing her again.
LR: So of course when he turns up, she's angry because I think she feels completely betrayed by him but there's such a strong attraction, there's such an unspoken understanding between the two of them. It's a very passionate relationship. I don't think she can control it either, which is what scares her.
RA: Suddenly, it's like an awakening, and he, it's like John Bateman starts to kind of wake up and say "Hang on, what about me?" He finally realises that he can't really be Lucas North forever, it's already kind of shattering and crumbling, and he's trying to hang on to that because that's his life, you know, at MI5, that's all he has, really. And it's a strong place to be, it makes him feel good, without that he's a terrorist that would be captured and imprisoned, so he can't be there and he can't be John Bateman either, so he's sort of in limbo, but Maya is the only thing that really feels real.
EP: If in episode 1, Lucas North, after he had got the suitcase from Vaughn had said "Harry, this man's come back from my past and I've never told you this, I did this terrible thing". If he had made that choice then to go to Harry, I think his life could have been very different. And there's been moments all through the series actually, if you look back through the episodes where, okay, he had a choice, still then. He didn't have to go down the road he went down. But for some flaw in his psychology, Lucas North couldn't make those choices.
RA: Vaughn has been blackmailing Lucas to bring him a file called "Albany", which is the "file of all files".
IG: What we see now is a kind of desperate final measure that he's been driven to and I've been pushing him forward every step of the way.
RA: He's here to manipulate Vaughn into giving Maya's location up.
Director: It's a violent scene that happens in the middle of a very um domestic setting with children and mother's and families around, and it's quite an intense piece.
SM: Beth has discovered that he's not exactly who he says he is, so she's come out to kind of tail him.
Director: Beth gets between Lucas and effectively the man who can lead him to the woman he loves, and he has to make a choice. Is he gonna shoot her, or is he not? To me as a director, what I always have to d in scenes where somebody may or may not be hurt is try and persuade the audience that it's going to happen. And then somewhere out of that you can find the moment when it doesn't happen, but you have to get in to the right zone where you believe it is going to happen for the scene to actually work.
RA: Lucas uses Ruth as leverage to get Harry to deliver Albany so that he can deliver Albany to Vaughn and get Maya back.
NW: She has quite a ride of it, in the second half of the series.
RA: Poor, beautiful, tragic Ruth *laughs*
NW: To think of Ruth Evershed sitting there and pondering whether or not she could put a glass in to Lucas' neck is a completely bizarre thought.
RA: He knows deep down inside "I will never be able to hurt Ruth", but he has to appear to do it, and likewise over the phone to Harry. You know all of the threats, Lucas... LucasJohn sets up a bomb uh which turns out to be a fake bomb because it's all about leverage, it's all about manipulation. It's about what is real, what seems to be real, and what you believe to be real.
EP: There's such a game of bluff, whose gonna blink first between Harry and Lucas North?
RA: Harry knows that Albany isn't real, so he knows what he's delivering to Lucas - he can deliver it, because it doesn't exist.
EP: Does he go up there to kill Harry? I think it's great that we all believe that, but does he go up there to ask for Harry's forgiveness? Or does he go up there to understand what's... who he is anymore? Or a combination of all the above? I hope we've made a series where ultimately you'll watch Lucas' journey and think "Ooh! I wish it hadn't been like that" and "Oh him and Maya, maybe they could have been together and maybe it would have been all alright" because I think what's lovely about series 9 is that there's a real love story there.
RA: In a way she's a memory; he thought that he could go back there, that he could become John again and that they'd have a future together, and I actually think when he lost her he realises that would never have happened.
EP: He ends up not knowing who he is.
RA: But it's quite an elegant death, a non-violent death, which is sort of what I asked for.
Interviewer: You're bowing out now from Spooks, what highlights have there been over the years?
RA: I think being strapped naked to an electric chair, having water thrown over me and sort of wired up to a car battery, covered in tattoos and being electrocuted was... a high point! I think the moment where he got on the chair and put his head in a noose was quite interesting because it was just a stage-direction but the director said, you know, "I'll leave the camera on, however you get on that chair is up to you", so that was quite an interesting acting exercise for me. I think Connie's storyline was really exciting, a real page-turning episode. And in this series we've got another page-turning episode where the grid is locked-down and Lucas is left on the outside to try and bring an asset in. I think it's those episodes where the team is really compromised as one unit that really excite me.
EP: Ultimately you've got extraordinary characters in extraordinary worlds and I think there's something about that which just will always be so dramatic, and so emotional.
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