Hurtling to disaster
A high-adrenaline thriller set on a “hackjacked” train gives Joe Cole and Alexandra Roach roles with alarming resonance in the age of cyber warfare
BBC
- Caroline Frost
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"I love to travel – just not on a train" – Joe Cole
Joe Cole in Nightsleeper. BBC
Your character — also called Joe — is an off-duty police officer who tries to stop a runaway train whose controls have been hacked following a cyber attack, as it hurtles across the UK. Did you film on a train?
There was no real train. We shot in a studio in Glasgow, where they had three different carriages in a row. We’d jump on one of them at 8am, run up and down for several hours, have a lunch break, go to another carriage and do the same. A few of the actors got travel sick and vertigo. They couldn’t even look out of the window.
It looks incredibly realistic as the train heads south from Glasgow through different towns.
They’d already filmed the entirety of the nightsleeper train journey, so depending on what time it is and where we’re meant to be, they stuck that city up on an LED screen. The lights reflected on our faces and we could react to them. It’s all brand-new tech.
Joe spends a lot of time on the phone to Abby Aysgarth, a cyber security specialist in London, in a bid to help him stop the train. How do you create chemistry without your co-star, Alexandra Roach, being in the same room?
Firstly, Alex is an amazing actor and she could have chemistry with a rock, but I also think good actors can always create chemistry. Alex was on set for the first episode, reading off-camera. After that, an amazing reader would read the lines, and I’d have a device near the phone so I could hear. It’s a different challenge, thinking, what do I look at? It’s quite fun, instead of just looking in someone’s eyes.
Do you fear a cyber attack could happen in real life?
Well, I was out of the country at the time, but I heard the NHS and parts of the transport network were shut down this year, so yes, it can, because it just did! Cyber attacks are the future of warfare. We’ve seen it in the past few years – affecting elections, manipulating people – and it’s the tip of the iceberg. We have to be careful.
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Are you a fan of trains?
I’ve never been on a sleeper in the UK, and this isn’t really the best advert! I always use the Tube in London. I get a few double takes, and I don’t mind people asking for a picture if they spot me, but having people take secret shots feels incredibly invasive, so I don’t sit down any more. But people are for the most part very respectful and very sweet. Playing wrong ’uns on screen so often probably doesn’t hurt – people keep their distance.
They would include John Shelby, in Peaky Blinders. How much of a game-changer was that role?
An abundance of parts have helped my career – Black Mirror was great in showing people I could play different things, along with Prayer before Dawn. But in terms of public profile and not having to announce who you are, Peaky definitely didn’t hurt.
A film’s being made of Peaky Blinders, but your character won’t be in it as he was killed off at the start of series four. Do you regret that?
No, I had an amazing three seasons on Peaky, and nothing but fond memories. I’ve been out of it for a few years, doing other stuff, and I enjoy watching the show a lot more when I’m not in it. As soon as I left, I was able to appreciate how good it was.
With work taking you away often, will you always live in London?
It will always be my base, but I’m a bit of a nomad, I love to travel. Just not on a train…
"It's chilling – viewers will start cycling to work" – Alexandra Roach
Alexandra Roach in Nightsleeper. BBC/Euston Films
Nightsleeper sits firmly in the dramatic thriller genre that’s so popular with viewers. What do you think sets it apart?
Having the story play out in real time feels quite immersive. Plus, it’s very character-driven, with the relationships between the different characters, both passengers on the train and at the intelligence centre. Pressure brings out the best and worst in people, and because we’re following them in real time, we see them pushed to extremes. Sometimes they get it right, but often get it wrong. It feels human and real.
Abby Aysgarth is a hacker turned government cyber security specialist — what kind of research did you do to play her?
I really like to immerse myself in a character. This community of hacking is everything to Abby, but it’s not to me. I’m amazed she goes through the whole series without saying, “Have you tried switching it off and on again?” It was hard learning all the tech jargon, the acronyms, the different departments, but I loved it. It’s a world I didn’t know anything about – I know a little bit more now, but I’m no expert.
As a result, do you feel more informed about the risk of a cyber attack on the UK?
I was naive before. It’s a lot closer than we think. My screen character has all the knowledge, and she won’t get into lifts. I haven’t gone that far, but it’s definitely had an impact on me. That element of not knowing just how possible it always is, I think the audience will find quite chilling. Perhaps some viewers will start cycling to work.
How does Abby fit into that world?
She’s amazing at her job, but the more I researched, I realised how male-dominated that kind of work is. For Abby, a working-class girl from Swansea, to get to where she is takes resilience, tenacity and ambition, which really brought her off the page for me. She’s got a lot to prove.
Do you relate to some of those aspects in your own career?
Abby is given this dangled-carrot opportunity, and I definitely felt echoes of that in my own experience. I’ve never led a BBC1 show before, and I brought what I was going through, the pressure and the excitement, into Abby on screen.
You’ve spoken before about how your Welsh accent stopped you being considered for some roles. Has that changed?
That did happen years ago. We’re in a different place now, so it felt important to mark this – to make Abby come from Wales, to give her a strong Welsh accent and for her to be working class. It felt exciting and rebellious to put her into this world of suits and government agencies. Even just looking at her, dressed in a bomber jacket, she doesn’t appear to belong in that world, but she can do great things.
Will you be using your Welsh accent more often in roles now?
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It’s a project-by-project thing. When I was auditioned to play the young Margaret Thatcher [for the 2011 film The Iron Lady], I went in and tried to do the famous Thatcher voice, but the director shouted, “Stop!” They wanted the essence of the character, not just the voice or the mannerisms, so I stripped it all back, building it from the inside out. The voice was the last thing to come, the cherry on the top.
Authors
Caroline Frost
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