The Invisibles
Anthony Head plays Maurice Riley
Maurice is a safe cracker – the finest locksman of his generation. He is married to Barbara (Jenny Agutter) with one daughter, Grace (Emily Head). Is Maurice still the best and is it worth the fallout to find out?
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How would you describe the series?
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The Invisibles is very cool – it's got a weird mix of real high emotion, high drama and high comedy action. It's not like anything I have ever done before and it's certainly not like anything I have ever seen before.
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Can you tell us about your character
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Maurice Riley is a safe cracker, an old villain who went off to Spain when a job went wrong and one of the gang was killed, and retired to a life of luxury.
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Why has Maurice returned to the UK?
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Unfortunately, he had a heart attack and his wife, Barbara (Jenny Agutter), persuades him to come back to England to get a home in a place that is, to all intents and purposes, a nice luxury flat by the sea. But, when he gets there, he finds he's surrounded by older people – he's only in his fifties, so he's completely a fish out of water.
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How does Maurice feel about enforced "retirement" by the sea?
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Maurice is quite a vibrant man – he's had a life of action, adventure and high adrenalin. Suddenly he finds himself in this extremely alien environment and, needless to say, he kicks against it, which gives way to a lot of extremely amusing rants – Maurice rants a lot.
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Tell us about Maurice's relationship with Syd
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Syd (Warren Clarke) is Maurice's driver and alarms man. The two of them are complete opposites – Maurice is the eternal "glass half empty" guy, and he calls Syd a pathological optimist. I wouldn't have necessarily put Warren and me together – we're both interesting choices for the roles.
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When I met him at the read through I was quite nervous, but he's absolutely adorable – one of the nicest people I have ever met. He's funny and witty. It's all about chemistry – the producers said that if the chemistry was wrong, the show could not succeed. Happily, apparently, my chemistry with Warren is great on screen and it works really, really well – we had far too much fun on set.
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Is there a third member of the gang?
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Yes. Dean Lennox Kelly plays Hedley Huthwaite and he's brilliant. Hedley wants to be the muscle in the gang, but Dean isn't a big bruiser type – he plays him as this street fighter who more than knows how to handle himself. His dad, Vernon, was a member of The Invisibles and died during a job – Hedley has always dreamt of being one of the gang.
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Tell us about the on-screen chemistry between you Jenny Agutter
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Jenny plays Barbara, my wife, a former model who I married in the Sixties when villains were glamorous. I have always had a crush on Jenny Agutter, like most men in the UK, and I thought: "I'll have to put that aside," [laughs]. I thought I might be a little over-awed.
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But, actually, it was useful in our scenes together because we had to establish this long-standing relationship that Maurice and Barbara have had – they are still deeply in love. From the outset, we had a great rapport – Jenny is a wonderfully open and giving actress and we both jumped straight into these very affectionate, emotionally-charged scenes. It felt like a believable relationship from the word go!
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Where you aware your daughter, Emily, was auditioning for a role in the series?
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It was a big surprise when the production cast my daughter, Emily, to play my daughter, Grace, in the series. I was in Canada when our agents called and said they were putting Emily up for the part. At that point I had in my head that Emily was 17, for some reason, and would be too young to play the role – it was our agent who pointed out she's 19!
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Apparently, the casting director – I don't know whether it was by design or by accident – didn't put any names on the casting tapes. The director and producers cast Em, and then didn't discover she was my daughter till sometime down the line.
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What was it like starring alongside Emily?
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Right from the outset it was a real bonus. It makes playing father and daughter really exciting because you don't have to create that bond – there's an unseen bond between father and daughter. Our relationship in the story is affected by the fact that I haven't told her what I do – I've kept it hidden – so I've been lying to her all her life and she finds out.
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There's a scene which is quite passionate, quite emotional, where I have to make a public apology to her. I just looked at her and started getting tears in my eyes [laughs]. There have been two or three key moments in the series which would have been so different with another actress – this has a real special quality to it.
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Is this your first TV role together?
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Yes, it is.
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What advice did you give her, if any?
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It's about being able to make choices, leaving yourself open to choices, and she knows that – there's no need to tell her. It's not my place to try and guide her on set because I wouldn't find myself guiding another actress and, anyway, it's the director's place to direct. Of course I felt protective at times, and yet it was lovely to watch her growing and enjoying the whole process.
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There were a really nice bunch of people on set –
really caring. When Emily had to turn up in a burlesque outfit she was a bit nervous, but the costume department were really lovely – they made sure Emily didn't feel uncomfortable. I didn't have to say a word! The whole process has been really enjoyable.
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What are you hoping the viewer will see when this hits the screens?
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I hope they laugh a lot. It certainly made us laugh. During filming one dinner scene, that played as high farce, our director was laughing so much in the corner that we had to put him in another room! This series is so much about the writing. Billy Ivory saves himself for a project that he really cares about.
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There's a great soul to this series – there are moments of high comedy and moments of extraordinarily rich emotional depth – so I hope that viewers will find it a bit of a feast. Added to this intense mix is a load of action. In fact, there's much more action than I was expecting [laughs], and I've done my share of action stuff.
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In Buffy [The Vampire Slayer], I was always saying: "I'll do it, don't bother to get my action double to do it". But there are some great stunts in this that I was happy to let stunt team do! One night on set, a bike stunt took everyone's breath away – we just thought the guy was going drive up and over the stunt car but he took off, flew about 30 feet and landed really close to the camera – absolutely brilliant.
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