“Doctor Who” alums Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo play clashing British cops in the Apple TV+ “Criminal Record,” which premieres with its first two episodes on Wednesday.
In the eight-episode crime thriller, an anonymous call from a battered woman leads Detective Sergeant June Lenker (Jumbo) to believe that the wrong man was convicted in a previous crime. However, Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty (Capaldi), who outranks her in status, experience and influence, shuts down June’s every attempt to get to the truth.
Ahead of the premiere, the two actors spoke with TheWrap about treating their confrontational scenes like “battles,” even though, as Jumbo says, they’re “buddies” in real life.
TheWrap: These two have such an adversarial relationship. You can see that Hegerty enjoys knocking June down, there’s this little glimmer of enjoyment when he feels he’s thwarted her. Can you talk about how that played out?
Peter Capaldi: I think it was very important that we had these two characters who were equally matched, but on different sides. And I think that’s what really excited me about it was because, yes, Hegerty is a complex character and he’s been around the block and everything.
But June, it’s so powerful, the way Cush plays her with such grace and such focus and spirit. I think Cush brings to June a very bright light. And Hegerty recognizes that and recognizes that as being a threat to him. He thinks he’s going to be successful in diminishing her, [but] then sees she’s more powerful than he thought. And in a way, I think he’s been expecting fate to send him an adversary like this. So ultimately, he’s quite relieved to face that battle. And he is prepared to go into battle about it.
Jumbo: The scenes between them happen like little battles, they go apart, they come back together. And they are quite long. Peter, and I kind of without discussing it, just decided to not rehearse those scenes. Because we know each other quite well, we get on really well, we’re buddies. And we didn’t want any of that to get in the way of these two strangers, working out what the other one is trying to do. And we found that quite helpful to do it that way.
Cush, you often see detectives who bend the rules, who don’t wait for backup, who don’t listen to the superiors, but we don’t see that very much with a Black woman.
Jumbo: No. We talked about that, from the beginning, when we were developing her, that I thought that she should be fearless. But for the right reasons, always be driven by this gut instinct that makes her do things that if she thought about it for too long, she wouldn’t [do].
I also don’t think you see it very much with women who have children making those decisions, because it’s always like, “Well, I’ve got a child at home. And I’ve got a family at home.” That’s not how life works. Often as a working parent, you find yourself in scenarios, maybe not as intense as what we put in on our show, but you find yourself in scenarios where you’re having to make decisions in the moment that are not always able to be reflective upon your whole life situation. And I think it shows how driven she is by her needs to get to the truth and to help people.
Cush, can you talk about the physicality of this role? There are so many scenes where June is just going for it and gets beaten up and is not standing down.
Jumbo: Those are definitely peak June crossing over the line moments. I said to Paul from the beginning, “Push, push her as far as you can, because I think that that’s where she needs to go.” In scenarios where men are acting violently towards you in it, it does sometimes take a while to shake it off. But I thought it was really important to share those things.
Hegerty is doing more work into covering up the past than investigating current cases.
Capaldi: I think he is protecting his legacy, if you like, and he’s also… I don’t want to give things away for people who haven’t seen the show. I mean, it’s a direct threat to his authority to suggest that he has behaved inappropriately and with injustice, because he is a respected police officer. But it’s never that simple. You know, it’s just never that simple with Hegerty. Deeper things going on.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
“Criminal Record” debuts on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Jan. 10, followed by new episodes weekly, every Wednesday through Feb. 21.
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