The stars of ITV’s high-flying action thriller Red Eye talk about their own unlikely journeys onto the screen
Red Eye Sunday 9.00pm ITV1
RICHARD ARMITAGE
What appealed to you about a thriller set at 35,000 feet?
I love a page-turner and this reminded me of some of the work I’d done years ago on Spooks. It’s the kind of show I would watch, and binge to the end.
You filmed in an actual plane for six weeks — did that feel claustrophobic?
We were ready to hate it but actually, because we were able to shoot in sequence, it was a very controlled environment and the set designer had just made the most brilliant architectural playground for the story. I loved every second of it.
As well as Spooks, you have starred in projects as diverse as North and South and The Hobbit film trilogy. Which roles are you most drawn to?
I tend to veer towards characters who are good solid people who have done terrible things and are trying to reconcile why and how they’ve ended up down that road.
This is quite a physical part with lots of running and fighting. Was that a challenge?
There’s a little part of me that wonders if I can still pull it off, ‘I couldn’t afford to study acting – I got grants’ but another part that still thinks I can do what I did when I was in Spooks!
You grew up during the 80s in a working-class family in Leicester. How unlikely was the idea of making a living as an actor?
Very. I would watch TV and movies and never once make the connection that that would be something I could do. I was quite a shy, introverted kid, and I did drama in school and that helped me come out of my very, very thick shell. That is why I’m very pro drama on the national curriculum, because it can transform lives, like it did mine.
Did your parents have any qualms about your acting ambitions?
It was when I said I wanted to study acting that the fights began because we could not afford it. We had to get local authority grants – I auditioned for two scholarships from Leicestershire County Council.
Do you ever have pinchyourself moments?
I remember getting to New Zealand to shoot The Hobbit and not unpacking. I genuinely thought I was going to be fired and sent home because they had made the wrong choice. Not in a million years would my nine-year-old self, reading the books, ever have imagined that he’d be starring in the films!
JING LUSI
Was it the character or the script that got you on board for Red Eye?
As soon as I opened the first page, I was all in. I couldn’t stop reading and then when I saw the character of Hana, I was like, “This is once in a lifetime. I need to play t
