The Cast on Their Characters
short | 03:16 | CC
Hugh Laurie, Helen McCrory, Pippa Bennett-Warner and more describe the characters they bring to life in the all-new series.
(dramatic music) - I play a character called Peter Laurence, an up and coming Tory cabinet minister, who begins the story just sort of mid cabinet level.
He's a transport secretary.
And he has ambitions to move up the greasy pole, and the story, I suppose, in some regards is about the price that he's prepared to pay to get to that top position.
What's the one thing that you and I have learned?
You can get away with anything if you just brazen it out.
He does care about his constituents.
He does care about the country.
He may care about it in a way that you don't agree with, or that I don't agree with, but he is sincere.
He sincerely enjoys the company of people.
He enjoys persuading people to his point of view, and he's good at it.
- Well, don't you sound like a lovely man.
- She is probably privately educated.
Her mum told her very young that she'd make a lovely prime minister.
And then, she's probably been a candidate for a seat that she just got in.
And she's just worked her way up.
Because she's never questioned that she shouldn't be prime minister.
Her journey with "Roadkill" is she starts, and you see her in the prime minister's position in a very, very perilous Britain.
We know that she needs money because the first time we see her, she's having to beg businessmen for money through gritted teeth.
Her journey is about politics and about personal politics.
I mean, that we've had some bad ones, but no one is as bad as Dawn.
- People don't hire me to investigate.
They hire me to win.
And that's what I did.
So, Rochelle is a sort of high-flying barrister, and we meet her at the beginning of the piece.
She's just won Peter Laurence case.
- I never doubted it for a moment.
- I'm glad you're happy.
At the beginning, we meet her sort of doing what she does on the regs, which is win cases.
She's very competent at her job.
I think she's very concerned about being the best, and she ends up receiving some information.
- You're going to take that file home and throw it aside.
And then one night, you're going to get up 'cause you can't resist reading it.
- She wants to be the best, but she also wants to do the right thing.
- Not you.
- Duncan, he's Peter special advisor.
They work within a governing party.
They're employed by them, essentially.
So they're on salary.
So, not actually voted in by the public.
They've just come out of the back of winning this big case where, you know, they've got away with something where they probably weren't completely telling the truth.
He's ambitious and he's kind of married to his job.
He's there first thing in the morning.
This kind of occupies a lot of the space in his mind.
So, I think a big part of his identity now is kind of merged with Peter, I think.
Minister, have you read any classic literature?
Don't you know there's something called justice, and it always wins in the end?
Whilst their relationship is primarily or predominantly professional, it's a very close relationship.
So, you know, he knows where the bodies are buried.
(dramatic music)
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