It was the genre-bursting thriller that received both critical and audience acclaim, with a shocking twist that made it a word-of-mouth hit. Now Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine are bringing their captivating characters back to our screens for season two of The Devil’s Hour, a show that demands and rewards your attention.
The series – which loops along several lifetimes – is both a sequel and a prequel to the events of the first series.
It sees Raine’s character, Lucy, form an uneasy alliance with the terrifying killer Gideon (Capaldi) in a series that blends ostensibly straightforward crime thriller storytelling with supernatural and even horror elements.
Capaldi, the star of such iconic shows as Dr Who and The Thick Of It, embraced the opportunity to take on a show that intrigues audiences in the first series and develops a new life in the second.
“I think it was quite an unusual thing,” says the Glaswegian. “I’d never seen this concept before – it was very cleverly done. It leads you to believe that you are just watching a serial killer-type thing, whereas in fact it’s about Lucy and her struggle to understand what’s going on in her life.
“And then we reveal that there is a whole other side to existence which no-one has been aware of. So that was not a concept I’d seen, certainly not one that had been created so efficiently and so effectively – it was a no brainer, really.”
While Gideon was chained to a table for much of season one, this season takes another turn, as it builds thriller elements into the mystery that was its predecessor.
“What’s part of the attraction for me is that this moves on, in the sense that season one really had me chained to the table. I shot that in two weeks with Jessica across the table from me. So season two, first of all, I got to stand up and get out of that room and get some fresh air!
“Although he still is a scary character, there’s probably less of him threatening. In season one, he was a dark presence, and he still has that darkness, but we see him much more involved in getting on with what he wants to do. There is a tightening, a ratcheting up of everything as the story moves forward, it begins to accelerate into this increasingly dangerous place for the pair of them. So that was very exciting to do.”
The series, created by Tom Moran, marks the latest success for the Scottish actor, who also brought an edge to his four-year tenure as Dr Who.
The young Capaldi made a name for himself in movies such as Local Hero and December Bride, along with well-known series including The Vicar of Dibley and Skins. But it was his role as the British Government Director of Communications in Armando Iannucci’s brilliant political satire The Thick of It – and its movie spin-off – that made him a household name. It was a performance for the ages, with Capaldi milking Tucker’s often foul-mouthed takedowns for all their worth.
But Capaldi says he’s an actor who likes to hit the ground running, preferring it to the lengthy rehearsal process sometimes favoured by other actors.
“I always fear that I discover something in rehearsal that I can’t replicate when we’re filming, so I would rather we make the discovery while we’re filming,” he says. “There’s an energy that comes to it and an abandonment of ownership of the material, which is probably quite useful.
“There’s no good delivering a performance that’s in the shadows or that isn’t helping your fellow actor. This is only me. I don’t know how other actors are, but I have to try and keep everything for when we film, leaving some unexplored areas for when we’re filming. And if you work with Jessica, who’s brilliant, and the rest of the cast, that’s fine, because if if something unexpected happens just go with it. They’re not hugely drastic – you don’t suddenly shout when you thought you were whispering. It’s just the little alterations.”
It’s an approach that his co-star Jessica Raine also favours. Reading Moran’s completed script for series one convinced her she had found something special. The actors were also aware two further series were planned.
“When we began filming series two, everything was written again,” says Raine. “I mean, he was tapping away behind the monitor during filming of season one. A big pile of scripts, cup of tea, complete silence – because they’re very complicated – and you just read them all through. I was excited to do some fighting and some stunt work, and also really attracted to the challenge of playing two Lucys.”
Her character is the heart of the show, and she embraced the opportunity to play such a multi-faceted character. “I’m not too fond of an overly earnest piece of theatre or television, but I just love a bit of humour.
“Despite this being a really high concept, gritty, sometimes quite grisly drama, at its heart there’s a deeply romantic element with Ravi. There’s the lengths a mother will go to to save her son, which I found incredibly moving. And then knowing that he had a plan for seasons two and three and where they would go, it was never going to become formulaic.”
Above all, Raine loves how the first series captured the imagination of audiences. “I was stopped in the fish section of Sainsbury’s by a woman who wanted to talk about it! I got stopped so much for this show, and it was really gratifying, because you never quite know if anything’s going to land. This really felt like it was a word-of-mouth success, and we got an Emmy nomination. I was so happy to talk to people and hear their theories and hear what chimed with them most.”
- The Devil’s Hour series 2 comes to Prime Video from Friday, October 18
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