Robson Green interview

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Robson Green interview

Published: Sunday, 8 July 2007, 2:41PM

By the time the new series of Wire in the Blood returns Robson Green will be back in Surrey with a pretty big suntan.

Robson and his family flew to Texas and the Deep South of the US in June to film a special episode of the ITV1 drama.

Robson, who plays criminal psychologist Dr Tony Hill, explains: “It’s a death row situation in which a wrongly convicted guy has been framed for a murder, it’s based loosely on a true story. He’s been framed to protect a political figure from prosecution.

 “A female detective in America has called him over, she’s obviously found out how clever, windswept and interesting Tony Hill is,” he jokes. 

Robson took his wife Vanya and their six-year-old son Taylor because he hates being separated from them. “I don’t know how actors can go away and leave their families behind, it would be impossible for me. Five weeks in the US is a serious amount of time apart and I couldn’t spend that time away from them.”

Being Tony Hill is one of the hardest roles of Robson’s career. “It is an incredibly high-pressure part,” he admits. “The preparation and the amount of dialogue involved are intense. You need a lot of concentration. When we’re filming, I spend a lot of time on my own rehearsing and it comes to a point when it’s just overload.
It’s a very lonely process sometimes. I have to deliver speeches like an eight-page monologue about narcissistic personality disorder.

“Viewers buy into the character of Tony Hill and the way he functions within a damn good yarn. The storylines are complex and interesting and I know it’s up to me to get it right. But afterwards I like to purge it all by going away fishing.”

Robson is delighted with ITV’s decision to commission a further series of the hit drama before the new, fifth series has been transmitted. Wire in the Blood is also a worldwide hit, and its popularity in the United States led to the Texas episode.

"Sometimes we need to look back and remind ourselves where we’ve come from,” he says. “It all started with me and executive producer Sandra Jobling sitting in the offices of our small, independent company in the north east with an A4 piece of paper.”

“In this incredibly diluted and competitive industry I think it’s great to have arrived at series five. We’ve won awards and critical acclaim, it’s now shown in 33 countries.”
 
The latest feature-length stories explore dark themes as Tony and DI Alex Fielding (Simone Lahbib) go on the trail of serial killers in Bradfield. Another episode involves witchcraft and voodoo. “They are fascinating subjects and creepy but Tony believes there is no such thing as evil,” says Robson.

Robson is a man of many faces but can he carry on being a doctor one month and a larky 40-year-old manchild in City Lights the next?

“It’s up to the audience,” he says. “Will they allow me to be a clinical psychologist and Colin in City Lights? There is an appeal in both genres for the audience at the moment but will it last? They seem to be happy with me.”

Away from Wire in the Blood Robson has bought an option to adapt Place of Execution - another Val McDermid novel. “It’s not a Tony Hill book,” he explains.

“It’s set in the 1950s and is about a guy who was hung on the premise of a murder case where they didn’t find the body. Was he the killer? It is a great whodunit and that’s for ITV.”