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Miller talks about his role in major new ITV scifi series
Primeval.
BEN PLAYS JAMES LESTER
“He’s your archetypal moustache twirling villain who really enjoys being bad.”
Ben Miller has just finished adding some additional dialogue to his scenes in Primeval, and to say that he’s excited would be something of an understatement:
“I’ve just been doing some more voice recordings on the show and the director said ‘I’ll just play you in from the scene before yours’ and there was this diver in a swimming pool and suddenly something bursts out of the water. Everybody in the room screamed and leapt out of their seats. Of course I had to go one step further. I shouted so loudly that I blew the mic and sent them all cross eyed!
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It’s so exciting; we never had things like that when I was a kid. Suddenly I’m very, very excited about it. I knew this show was going to be something else when I read the script but it looks even more amazing than I ever thought it would.”
Audiences are more used to seeing him in a rather different role than that of bad-guy Lester. Snide, cold and manipulative, he is the antithesis of anything the actor has done before, and it’s a role he has clearly relished.
“He’s the first villain I’ve played and my god is he a complete git! I’ve absolutely loved playing him. In footballing speak, Lester is the play maker. He’s the kind of guy who has no fixed position in the field of government but is very, very powerful and his job basically is to just keep everything quiet. But make no mistake, he’s not doing what he’s doing to try and save lives, it’s all about the power.
Everything Lester does is just out and out pleasure seeking to please himself and no one else. He has no moral boundaries which is kind of great. He’s sort of amoral but he knows he’s amoral. He’s your archetypal moustache twirling villain who really enjoys being bad.
Lester is just so arrogant but at the same time there’s something kind of loveable about his complete inability to think about anyone apart from himself. But I should point out he’s not this cartoonish, one dimensional baddy, he does actually have some qualities! Not particularly likeable ones granted, but qualities nonetheless!!
Adrian Hodges dialogue is unbelievably witty and precise which gives him added depth. Lester has this fantastic sense of humour, maybe not about himself but about the situation that they’re in and takes great pleasure in constantly winding Cutter up.
Miller becomes extremely animated when talking about the central relationship between Cutter and Lester. The reason for this excitement it seems is not just playing the bad guy for the first time, but that he’s acting opposite Douglas Henshall:
“At the risk of sounding like a crazed fan, I think Dougie Henshall is without doubt one of this country’s greatest actors. The work he has put into this project, the concentration and dedication he displayed, was just incredible to watch. His skill has brought a real integrity and soul to Cutter which utterly centres the entire show.
Cutter is the key to the Primeval. Where Lester is the traditional pantomime villain, Cutter is the traditional tortured hero of the piece. It’s so important that viewers warm to him, root for him, want him to win the day and get the girl. He’s got to be the real hero deal: handsome, funny, intelligent and brave but with a very healthy dollop of vulnerability, and with Dougie, they’re getting the complete package.
Dougie has captured Cutter so perfectly, there is such an intensity there that you really believe that the Professor has a very painful kind of past, but he has also added a real warmth and humour to the character that softens him.
Lester of course just despises him and, it’s fair to say, the feeling is mutual. Cutter and Lester are bitter rivals, and in some ways, my guy has more power than Cutter. This means that while there is a lot of posturing and puffing out of chests, Lester is essentially just toying with him, and Cutter knows it.
This all worked out rather nicely for me as it meant I got to go head-to-head and toe-to-toe with Dougie Henshall in every single scene we had together. It was just great fun verbally fencing with him, staring him out, and generally just winding him up. Dougie is a really powerful personality and I relished every single moment.”
However, it’s not just Dougie who Miller has singled out; his younger co-stars Hannah Spearritt and Andrew-Lee Potts also come in for some particularly glowing praise:
“Hannah is brilliant. She looks amazing, and I think she is really going to surprise people. She’s a lovely person and that quality really comes across on screen. And Andrew is going to be a huge hit in this too. He’s just such a funny, funny guy and would have all us all rolling around in fits at the read throughs.”
And of course it’s not just real live actors that Ben and his co-stars have to contend with on screen, but the hotly anticipated CGI creatures. How did Miller find the whole experience of acting to thin air?
“I think it was a little different for me as I’m not in the vast majority of the creature scenes, as Lester isn’t really an ‘in the field’ type of guy. His natural habitat is the rather sterile but, let’s face it, rather cool looking government building. He very occasionally ventures out from behind the glass and chrome to visit an anomaly site or something like that. But it’s always done in a very nice car with somebody to make me cups of tea and hold my umbrella. I sort of sweep in with my entourage, stay long enough to make some suitably cutting remarks and piss everyone off, and then sweep off again.
That said I did have a couple of rather interesting experiences on set with our first assistant director, Gareth Tandy, whose dedication to helping us get it right deserves a special mention. Gareth is quite a character who wears Giles Brandreth jumpers. To say they are multicoloured doesn’t really do them any justice and essentially he looked like an HDTV trying to tune into a satellite channel.
Anyway, he would run around the set doing his own interpretations of dinosaur expressions and basically attacking people. Rain or shine, Gareth could be found quite literally roaring around the set pretending to be an array of prehistoric beasts. It was really, really brilliantly good fun, absolutely great. He totally threw himself into it. Well done that man.”
As the discussion progresses, the issue of Doctor Who and the question of whether this is ITV’s answer comes up. And it’s a subject Miller has clearly thought about:
“I’m a huge Doctor Who fan and have been all my life, but Doctor Who fans don’t need to worry. They will enjoy this as much but it’s a whole different experience. When you watch them you’ll see that the two are not even remotely similar but I can see why people are trying to make a comparison.
There something for everyone with Primeval. It’s a really modern, cool looking show which is rooted in the traditions of family drama. Get your kids and make a date to watch it as it’s going to be a real treat for everyone. We’ve never had anything like the scale of this on British television before and I just hope people will love it as much as I do.”
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