Actor Philip Glenister found fame as un-pc DCI Hunt in Life on Mars. Now he brings a new character to life in Fox Television horror series Outcast. Rosanna Greenstreet meets him
ITV Drama
Phillip Glenister Chris Black
It’s been a decade since Philip Glenister starred as DCI Gene Hunt in the BAFTA-nominated, Emmy award-winning series Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes, which were set in the 1970s and 1980s respectively. And yet, it’s hard to think of Glenister playing anyone other than the politically incorrect Mancunian copper.
Over breakfast in Richmond, not far from where he lives in East Sheen with his actress wife Beth Goddard and their daughters, Millie who is 14 and Charlotte, 11, Glenister tells me,
“I still get people – I had three yesterday – saying ‘Are you doing more Life on Mars?’ It’s extraordinary, it finished 10 years ago!”
Some of Hunt’s memorable lines include ‘Gene Hunt smashes doors down he does not pick girlie locks’ and ‘take that seat belt off! You’re a police officer, not a bloody vicar’. Not to mention his request to a female police officer: ‘listen luv, how about you detect me some Garibaldi biscuits to go with this cuppa’.
The gravel-voiced Gene was so popular with both men and women, that viewers could not accept the actor in any other role and his next performance after Ashes to Ashes, in the American series Demons, was not well received.
“It was a strange old show and I got quite a lot of stick for it, but I think it was right at the height of the Gene Hunt thing. Had I played any part at that time and not been Gene they’d have just gone ‘no! no!’” says Glenister, adding, “It’s taken a long time to slowly move away from him.”
2016 sees him star in a brand new Fox Television series called Outcast, which is based on a comic title by Robert Kirkman and, having had a sneak peek at the first episode, I think Glenister’s new character, Reverend Anderson, may finally eclipse Gene. A West Virginian evangelist who believes he is a soldier in God’s holy war against the forces of evil on earth, the Reverend is also an inveterate drinker and gambler.
“It was fascinating playing a character like the Reverend – something as far removed from me as you could get,” he says. “Robert Kirkman created The Walking Dead, which is probably the biggest TV show worldwide along with Game of Thrones. Outcast is his new show. People can say, ‘Oh, it’s another horror show,’ but actually it’s better than that. It’s very character driven and I think the grotesque or hard bits to watch are earned.”
The series opens with a ‘hard bit’. A young boy called Joshua, who we later learn is possessed, watches intently as a cockroach crawls up the wall. Suddenly, he head-butts the insect, crushing it to death.
“When you see the boy splat the cockroach and turn to camera and there’s blood all over his face, that is the difference between American and British television,” says Glenister, adding (in the accent of a BBC announcer and then that of an American TV executive), “British television would go, ‘Ooh don’t, we’re going to upset people with that. It’s too much’. Whereas America shows it in the first minute and says, ‘OK, folks this is what this show is about, take it or turn over’. I like that non-apologist view!”
Already set for a second season Outcast, which broadcasts this month, is being heavily promoted internationally. When we meet he has just returned from the European premiere in Italy and he is due to travel to the States for the LA premiere.
Glenister is clearly enjoying the perks of the publicity circuit. As he tucks into his bacon roll, he says between mouthfuls, “Because the show’s set in Rome, which is a fictional town in West Virginia, good old Fox thought, ‘Hey let’s have the European premiere in Rome!’ I’d never been to Rome before, and I was like ‘Why not?’ Beth came with me and it was a really good do.”
His wife’s credits include the television series Cracker and Silent Witness but, of late, her career has had to take a backseat, due to the fact that her husband has been away for five months filming Outcast and she has been in sole charge of Millie and Charlotte.
Glenister found it difficult being away from his family for so long.
“That was the toughest part,” he tells me. “We started last July and were filming up to just before Christmas in South Carolina, which doubled for West Virginia. We were staying just over the border in Charlotte, North Carolina and filming in a place called Rock Hill, which we renamed Rock Thrill – you can understand why!”
Beth and the girls came over for most of August, but it’s quite hard to keep the kids amused because all the American children go off to summer camp, and Charlotte is a financial centre, so there is not a great deal to do unless you join a country club – if you’ve a spare £20,000 dollars! This year we’ll take a few more internal flights and see friends in LA and relatives in Kentucky.”
In Outcast the Reverend gets thrown around a fair bit during Joshua’s exorcism. Glenister did a lot of his own stunts in Life on Mars but he is now 53 and I wonder if that is still the case.
ITV Drama
Phillip Glenister
“I am getting too old! Anything to do with horses I get somebody else to do – horses are stupid!” he laughs, adding, “I like the driving stuff – I am happy with cars because you are in control of those. On Outcast, I had a great stunt guy. His name was Duke and he looked a bit like Daniel Craig. So I said, ‘Duke, I’ll teach you to act and then I can have the day off!’
“Joshua’s exorcism scene took two and a half days to shoot and involved wires and ropes and CGI stuff. I can assure you, no children were harmed in the making of this production!” he deadpans, adding, “Our stunt coordinator is amazing and most of the team are film people – our DOP [Director of Photography] had shot three Bond movies. Outcast has a cinematic look and, when we had the premiere in Rome it really held up on the big screen.”
Glenister knows about production as his father, John, was a television director, who made the popular series Softly Softly, and Philip began his career behind the scenes. His elder brother Robert is also an actor, best known for his work on the long-running TV series, Hustle, and it was Robert’s first wife, the actress Amanda Redman, who encouraged Philip to go to drama school. I wonder if Glenister’s daughters are likely to enter what is obviously very much the family business.
“Millie’s really into her writing. She is a dreamer, she loves writing poetry and plays a bit of piano. She wrote a song yesterday,” he tells me, adding with a laugh, “I started rearranging it for her – I don’t know anything about music at all! Charlotte is good at accents and a good mimic. Sky Arts recently cast her in a film with Kim Cattrall called Ruby Robinson. Charlotte played this spoilt little brat – I said, ‘No acting required then!’”
Charlotte must get her gift for accents straight from her famous dad, as during our interview he lapses into numerous different voices to suit whatever subject we are discussing. Between bites of bacon he has been variously the Reverend Anderson, an outraged local councillor from Clacton, a plummy aristocrat and, when he tells me about his role in a new ITV thriller The Level, a dodgy businessman in haulage: “It’s got to be haulage innit!”. Also coming up is a one-off special of his Channel 4 show called For the Love of Cars.
“I co-present the show with Ant Anstead who is an amazing restorer. We came up with this idea of finding a classic British car, restoring it, putting it to auction and giving the money to the owners. Technically I have no knowledge of cars, I am purely an aesthetic tart – my job is to pick the colour! We decided that people were making far too much money on our behalf so for this one-off special Ant and I have bought the car ourselves. I can’t tell you what it is, but we are in the process of restoring it with a view to racing it in a classic car race at Silverstone at the end of July.”
As we say our goodbyes I ask him what he is doing for the rest of the day – more promotion for Outcast perhaps? When he pats his now full tummy and replies “Pilates”, I couldn’t be more surprised. I think we can safely say that Gene is gone for good.
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