Let’s talk about REBUS, in which you play the character Rebus as a younger sergeant. First of all, can you tell us more about your character and what initially drew you to the role?

Oh, that’s not an easy question. He’s a longstanding Scottish literary character. He’s quite iconic in Scotland. He’s been appearing in the books for years now. I think there are over 30 books written very beautifully by Ian Rankin and he still has a huge fan base. And there are still quite a lot of fans of the previous iteration of the show, starring Ken Stott, but this is more of a reimagining of the same sort of story, same protagonist but displaced into a modern world and made younger as he said. What attracted me to it is he is a character who is very much at odds with himself. He has a real duality to him. There are very much two sides to [John] Rebus. You see him in his work life, you see him in his personal life, and he can be quite destructive in both. His primary job is to uphold the law. But he doesn’t necessarily get there by conventional means. I think he’s very much of the opinion that if the means meet the end sort of thing, then he will find the best route to that. So I think that there’s something almost of an anti-hero quality to him at times. The dark, gritty side to him, which I think appeals to me as an actor because it’s just something quite inviting, quite exciting about playing a character that’s quite unconventional, kind of off the rails, quite an unpredictable personality. And I quite like that in a character.

Coat Haversack via Clutch Cafe / Shirt Edward Sexton / Trousers Kit Blake/ Shoes Crockett & Jones

Everyone loves a bit of an anti-hero though, right?

I think so! This series completely stands on its own. You don’t need any context. You don’t have to have read any of the books. In fact, we’re in a slightly different world from the books. But I remember filming, not to give any spoilers away, but you know he has some questionable relationships on the show, which made me think as we were playing it, and I kept raising this question, I thought, ‘Aren’t people gonna hate him at points?’ ‘Aren’t people gonna hate Rebus?’ And they constantly assured me, ‘No, they’re gonna be with you, they’re gonna be on your side, they’re gonna understand kind of where he’s coming from, hopefully.’ In terms of that, he’s got this self-destructive nature, you know? He gets it one way. He could take much easier routes but he deliberately makes things harder for himself. He has this very Presbyterian Edinburgh approach to his life. He even mentions that in one of the episodes, he says to Siobhan, ‘You’re in the city of John Knox, Siobhan, life’s supposed to be difficult.’ And I think he kind of believes that. It’s almost like he has this sort of self-loathing, you know? And he needs to jab at it. I feel that with the character, I feel that all the time playing the character and I feel it in the writing – there’s just this antagonistic friction with his own self. Going back to what you’re saying about people loving an anti-hero, I wasn’t sure. I really wasn’t sure when we were filming it. I was like, ‘I think people might hate him. I think people might think he’s an utter twat.’ But, that still might be the case. But you know, it’s exciting to be treading that fine line between a likable character and people absolutely detest but time will tell.

I think overall, they might support the character. There will probably be some scenes where they’ll be like “I bloody hate this guy.” But I guess we’ll find out. So as established, the series is based on the novels. Have you read these at all for your prep or did you read them throughout?

I read some a few years ago, and I read a few in preparation. I think it was Knots and Crosses, which was the first one. I went back and had a bit of a read of that. And then there was Even Dogs in the Wild. So I went through that. And a bit of Heart Full of Headstones. But yeah, so the source material was quite important to me to have an understanding of that and to go back and look at sort of Ian’s original version of the character. But Greg’s written a very different version of the character, kind of, it’s not so much that he’s a different character, it’s just that he’s displaced. So we’re in a contemporary setting in 2023 and the character is younger. So I thought I wanted to go back to the books and have an understanding of Ian’s version of Rebus, but then kind of knit that together with Greg’s version and make them younger which I didn’t think was gonna make that much of a difference, but it does, it brings us a very different character. I think there’s a bit more energy to it. I think there’s more scope, there’s more potential. There’s just feels like there’s more of a danger, more of a threat about him. I think it does a lot of things for the story, modernising it and making him that bit younger. I think that gives us a real frenetic energy. I think that we felt off the top of the first episode and I think that remains there through the whole season.

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That sounds amazing. I can totally imagine it gives the character a completely new edge. Though I guess sometimes it can be tricky to find a fine line between making the character your own, when it’s based on books, versus trying to be similar to the novel character. How did you find that?

Yeah, absolutely. 100 percent. It was very important to me to do the character justice. It was very important to me that I had an idea of both of these versions of the character. And I did draw upon a lot of Ian’s writing for my version of Rebus. But the thing is, you can’t force yourself into a character, right? You can look at it and you can see what you can take from it and what you can take ownership of, but I don’t want to force the character because then it’ll just be false and it will lose its sensuality and it won’t have any sort of honesty or integrity. So I only took the parts that would bring a sense of the character for myself. A lot of that was his military background. He’s got a bit of SAS history and background. We’re also bringing him more into his youthful days. So what does it look like if you adjust that? You might have a 50-year-old Rebus where we want to be looking at more like a 30-year-old Rebus, right? So you’re shifting, you’re shifting at sort of a point in his life. So things in the earlier days become more relevant and more pertinent to the story. So I brought a bit more of his sort of military background into it in terms of his demeanor, his physicality, the way he conducts himself, kind of a bit of a psychology. I’m also aware that there is a huge fan base for the books. So I’m aware that there will be expectations from fans who already have an idea of what the character should be. But even when people are reading the book, even though you’ve got 10 million people reading the same book, I guarantee you that all of those people have a different idea of the character. So every one of them will have a different picture in their head, they will read it differently, and they’ll interpret it differently. So there’s no one way to go about it. And it’s not the first time I’ve brought a literary character to the screen. So I’m aware of what comes with that. It’s important to me that I do the character justice and that I’ve got as honest a portrayal as I can.

Left: Coat Edward Sexton
Right: Full look Brunello Cucinelli / Shoes Crockett & Jones

That’s very true, and you literally can’t please everyone. So with the series being about Rebus being drawn into all sorts of criminal conflict, what was it like shooting the more intense scenes and overall what scenes did you enjoy the most and which scenes did you find the most challenging?

That’s a good question. The thing that I was most aware of was the support of my other castmates. They were so incredibly talented. They brought their A-game every single day and the ownership, the passion and the integrity by which they went about their work was incredible. And that really pushed me. It really, really pushed me. There were times I was on set thinking, I really need to up my game here because these guys are absolutely smashing. And some of the performances were so nuanced, so beautiful. They just brought themselves to it. And some of the more intense scenes brought with them such spontaneous off-the-page moments. I won’t go into them in too much detail because actually some of those moments for me were maybe ironically from episode four onwards and I know you’ve only seen the first three. Just really touching, beautiful, spontaneous moments. And they were always looking for ways to play off the page. They weren’t always necessarily playing prescriptively or what was written for them. They would find all of the subtext and then layer it with their own sort of interpretation of the scene and character in a way that I didn’t even see coming. So that was one of the big driving forces for me was getting to work with such a talented and dedicated cast.

Nothing stands out as being more challenging than the rest. I think because of the way that we set the character up, and early, early, early on in the first episode, we already have an idea of how he functions, how he behaves, and you get an idea of that sort of short fuse that Rebus has, and how violent he can be quite quickly. So later on I don’t have to telegraph that too much. It does me a great service from an acting point of view where I can play everything in a really subtle way and you still get the impression that he might just snap at any given moment without any notice.

Coat, jacket, and crewneck Mr P / Jeans Allevol by Clutch Cafe

A supportive and inspiring team is worth so much, isn’t it? When you wrap up a project, do you actually like to watch it back or do you not want to see yourself? I heard some actors don’t like to watch themselves in a project that they’ve starred in.

I have to be dragged, kicking, and screaming to the Rebus screening. I was trying to get over it actually, but they made me go. Someone made a very good point of it being not so much going to watch yourself, but going to watch all of your castmates. And then when I thought about that, I thought, yeah, that’s true. I absolutely have to go to watch their work. And the only downside to that is I have to watch quite a lot of my own face to do that. But it took me maybe half an hour, an episode, to warm into it, but actually, I really, really enjoyed the whole second episode, and by the time it finished, I wanted to watch more. But I didn’t hah. I just don’t get a lot from watching myself. I just over-analyse what I could have done better. I start to look at things that I might do physically or with my face and I don’t think that serves me any great purpose.

I would be exactly like that. I could never! So now that you’ve wrapped up REBUS, are you working on any other projects like TV, film, or theatre-wise that you can already share?

I’m filming season eight of Outlander at the moment. I can talk about that for days. It’s been running for about 10 years. So this is our last season. The second half of season seven is gonna be out later on this year and then season eight will follow at some point after that. It’s fun to be back on board. We just started about a month ago, so we’ve still got about four or five months to go left of that. And then we’ll wrap that up and then who knows what’s after that. I wouldn’t mind going back and doing a bit of theatre, maybe some new writing or so. There’s a director who’s really killing it in the UK at the moment actually. He’s on Broadway as well, at the West End. Jamie Lloyd is his name. I actually got to know him earlier on in both of our careers and almost did Macbeth with him and James McAvoy. So I would like to have the opportunity to work with him. He’s a huge director now though, he’s much, much bigger than he was at that point. I’ve seen a few of his pieces now and they’ve been excellent. So he seems to have a real knack for bringing back some really well-known plays with some really great actors and giving it his own touch. But other than that, I’d like to maybe do some Shakespeare. I just finished Fall Out. I kinda want to be in that, actually. It’s well worth watching.

Well, let’s speak it into existence. Sounds like you are busy for the foreseeable! Thank you so much for your time. It was great speaking to you.

Coat, jacket, and crewneck Mr P / Jeans Allevol by Clutch Cafe / Shoes Trickers

Rebus will launch on Friday 17 May. All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from 6am, with episode one airing on BBC Scotland on Friday 17 May and on BBC One on Saturday 18 May.

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