00:00I said, have you looked at...
00:01And I literally pierced my lips and said,
00:03and he went, Johnny Flynn?
00:04He said, that's exactly who we're looking at.
00:06I was like, do, do, do, do, do.
00:07I thought you were going to say that I owed the job to you.
00:10No.
00:10Guys, before we start,
00:12Johnny went to see The Motive in the queue a couple of years ago.
00:15Best thing I've seen on the last time for years.
00:17I thought it was so good.
00:19A mate of mine was visiting from Germany,
00:21and I told him to see it, and it was such a good evening.
00:24I went three times.
00:25I don't think I told you that he's tired.
00:27Wow, that's a commitment.
00:28I would definitely have watched it again as well.
00:30Well, I went initially for Mark,
00:32having done Sherlock with Mark.
00:33Oh, yeah.
00:34And then we were just astounded by this one.
00:37And do you know, bizarrely, I don't know if I told you this,
00:38but we were at the season two cast dinner,
00:40and at that stage,
00:42we didn't know who they'd cast as your character.
00:44Uh-huh.
00:45And I was sat opposite Phil Glasser,
00:48who is one of the producers at 101 who produced Mobland.
00:51And I said, I've never done this before.
00:52I've never even made a casting suggestion.
00:54I said, but do you know who's playing this role yet of Frankie?
00:58He said, no.
00:59I said, have you looked at...
01:00And I literally pierced my lips and said,
01:02and he went, Johnny Flynn?
01:03He said, that's exactly who we're looking at.
01:05Hey.
01:05I was like, do, do, do, do, do, do.
01:06I thought you were going to say I owed the job to you.
01:09No.
01:09Which, maybe I do.
01:10No, I'm not that powerful.
01:12It's interesting because Johnny is a fantastic actor.
01:16In my mind,
01:17my preconception was like a great indie actor almost,
01:21plays kind of offbeat characters sometimes,
01:25lots of soul and heart.
01:27And I don't know if that's because I've listened to a lot of your music over the years,
01:30so you kind of put that on you.
01:33But then seeing you in the moment with the cue playing this like very famously powerful presence,
01:39and then in this, this unhinged and brutal presence,
01:44how fun is that to kind of switch around people's misconceptions almost like that?
01:50It's great.
01:51The gift of the job, isn't it?
01:52Yeah, it's really fun to, yeah, I'm not, I'm not doing it to wrong foot people,
01:59you know, that might be a nice byproduct.
02:04But, you know, for me, I'm hungry for variety and to play as many different types of character
02:10and different energies, different styles and tones,
02:12and work with as many different interesting directors and writers.
02:17You know, for me, it's just the creative, you know,
02:19trying to go as far as possible in terms of creating something unique.
02:23And then it's, it's nice that that leads you to very different adventures.
02:28Sometimes, you know, early on in my career,
02:30I think I got maybe a bit typecast as quite sort of sunny characters,
02:34and my first TV things were quite sort of cheerful, you know, sweet characters.
02:39And then to get to do something really dark or very different colour is really fun.
02:46Yeah, I think kind of sweet is almost,
02:48it's kind of in the vicinity of the right word, isn't it?
02:51Because your characters are usually people you think you can maybe not, like, rely on.
02:56What was the Christmas movie, almost a Christmas movie, you made?
02:59Oh, what, Goodbye June?
03:01Yeah, yeah, where you kind of, like, he's a soulful person
03:04who didn't always make the right decisions,
03:06but you're the kind of person who, like, you can imagine as a big brother,
03:09but then in something like this, when you turn up, you're like,
03:12and thank God this person's not my big brother because I'm still alive.
03:16Laura, what's it like coming back to a series like this?
03:20After the success of the first, I guess you feel a bit more sure-footed,
03:24a bit more of a swagger when you walk on set
03:25because you kind of, you've felt your character out,
03:28you've kind of gotten used to the dynamic of how you're working,
03:31the people you're working with,
03:32and you've seen that people are responding positively to it.
03:34Or do you go in with, like, a, oh, crap, now we've got to follow this again.
03:39It's going to be just as good or better.
03:40I think we were all so blown away.
03:42I mean, for Mobland to stream as the third biggest international show
03:48on a platform that, you know, it doesn't compare with Netflix,
03:53subscribers numbers-wise, that's extraordinary.
03:58And I think that blew up our minds at the beginning of season two.
04:02We also shot an episode in season two in Mallorca.
04:06And just when we flew internationally,
04:09you can imagine there's Tom, Pierce, Helen, myself, Paddy,
04:11and then we all land in Parma.
04:14And then you get this response from the Spanish.
04:17You suddenly realise, oh, it really has been a bit of an international phenomenon.
04:22And what also blew my mind was the demographic.
04:25I was having, like, grandparents say to us,
04:28oh, it's our Sunday night date is to sit and watch Mobland.
04:32And there were 20-year-old, you know, office assistants
04:34that I speak to at my agency in L.A. or something.
04:37And they'd be like, oh, we're loving it.
04:38We're loving our weekly hit of Mobland.
04:41So it's obviously hit an audience.
04:45Going into season two, I think it just makes it even more fun, really.
04:50It's notched up another gear, I would say,
04:52even if I didn't even know that was possible, to be honest.
04:56And so I think everyone has naturally become bolder, braver,
05:04possibly from all sides, from the writing side, like, everything.
05:09There's no ceiling on this show.
05:11Presumably they watched it on their own,
05:12but I love the idea of some grandparents getting their grandkids together
05:15and then watching that and watching, like, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren
05:18just shooting up the room and going,
05:20grandad, that's what we're watching.
05:23Probably not.
05:24Johnny, do you...
05:26When you, like, play characters that have been played before,
05:28some people choose not to kind of go over the old text,
05:30the old performances,
05:31because you don't want it to kind of colour what you're doing.
05:33When you go into a new show that's been successful for a series already,
05:38did you, like, binge out the first one
05:39to kind of get a feel of this universe,
05:41or did you try and want to go in a bit more cold?
05:44No, I watched it, because, I mean,
05:46I had no idea what it was about, really,
05:48and it got me so excited to be in it,
05:51because I thought it was brilliant,
05:52and to be honest, you know,
05:54I'm not usually a kind of, you know,
05:57gangster film kind of fan,
05:59but, and I'd seen it on the buses, right?
06:02I'd seen Tom Hardy, and, you know,
06:06and I love all those actors,
06:07but, you know,
06:09I thought it wouldn't necessarily be, for me,
06:11a kind of, like, very macho, kind of laddie show,
06:16because, you know,
06:17and then it, I just thought it was brilliant,
06:21like, the writing's so good,
06:23you know, it is violent,
06:25but there's this kind of almost, like,
06:27epic, Greek sort of quality,
06:31you know, it's like Titus Andronicus,
06:33or Ishaelus, or Sophocles,
06:36or something, in terms of the scale,
06:37and the betrayal,
06:39and the grief,
06:40and the, you know,
06:41and then in between that,
06:43there's this just brilliant kind of dialogue,
06:46and fantastic writing,
06:48brilliant situations to play,
06:50where somebody's got a secret on somebody,
06:52and then somebody turns it on them,
06:53and so to be in those scenes is really, really fun,
06:56especially with a character like mine,
06:58who is intelligent,
07:00and well-read,
07:01and gets to kind of dance rings around people,
07:04it's like a perfect, you know, gift.
07:06But Frankie doesn't really shout about that,
07:09that's what I loved about watching your character back,
07:11it's so quiet,
07:12his intelligence is so quiet,
07:14do you know what I mean by that?
07:16Yeah, I mean, he's got a confidence,
07:20he's not peacocking in any way.
07:22Yeah.
07:22It's a lovely parallel, actually,
07:23with Tom's character,
07:25because he's this incredibly powerful character,
07:28but it doesn't need to peacock,
07:29kind of a bit more subtle and relaxed,
07:32but yeah,
07:32going up against kind of a psychotic James Bond,
07:35and Tom Hardy,
07:36and Helen Mirren,
07:37Christ,
07:37he's very formidable,
07:38and this must have been,
07:39must have been a lot of fun,
07:40I'm looking at Toby Jones as well,
07:41he's just like one of the most brilliant screen presences,
07:44I think,
07:45we've had for years in this country.
07:46I could ask about 84 more questions,
07:49and then go back and talk about Motive in the Q again,
07:51but my time is up, guys,
07:52so congratulations.
07:54Oh, cheers.
07:54Looking forward to seeing what happens in the future.
07:56Maybe you survive this one,
07:58I'll press you on that,
07:59and if not,
08:00if you do,
08:00then I'll see you again in a year.
08:01All right, awesome.
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