ARTICLE
Cast of Mad Dogs Season 3 Reveal More about the Show!
By InCinemas / 05 Jun 2013 (Wednesday)
The creator, writer and cast of Mad Dogs Season 3 talked about the show at the press conference held in London earlier in May.
The anticipated show premieres tomorrow (same week as UK premiere), 6 June 2013! Find out more after the jump!
About Mad Dogs
Created and written by Cris Cole, Mad Dogs is a British psychological thriller television series which stars actors John Simm as Baxter (Doctor Who, The Devil’s Whore, Life on Mars), Marc Warren as Rick (Mutual Friends, Messiah: The Rapture, Hustle), Max Beesley as Woody (Survivors, Hotel Babylon, The Last Enemy), and Philip Glenister as Quinn (Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars, Cranford).
The series follows four long-time, middle-aged friends who get together in a villa in Majorca to celebrate the early retirement of Alvo, a fifth friend. However, the group finds themselves caught up in the world of crime and police corruption after Alvo is murdered.
This June, Woody (Beesley), Quinn (Glenister), Baxter (Simm) and Rick (Warren) are reunited for the third season where the holiday from hell spirals even further out of control as the lads find themselves imprisoned in a secret camp in Morocco. Blazing rows, explosive spectacular stunts and, as befits a drama that is as much about male friendship and getting older as it is a darkly comic caper, moments of surprising tenderness are expected and audiences will be left wondering if the four will ever make it back to Britain…
Mad Dogs Season 3 premieres first and exclusively in Asia (Same Week as UK Premiere) on KIX (StarHub Cable TV Channel 518) and KIX HD (SingTel mioTV Channel 309) at 9pm on 6 June, Thursday!
Cris can you tell us first why you decided to move it from Majorca? Did you feel it was time to move on?
Cris Cole: We wanted to go somewhere new. We wanted to separate out the three seasons as much as possible. Not reinvent it but start in a new precinct and as you know from episode 2, we’re actually moving forward in time as well to sort of make a big change.
John, we saw a very moving scene where you were saying goodbye to your children via your ex-wife. How do you think these characters cope with these very testing circumstances that they find themselves in?
John Simm: Not very well which probably makes for better drama, they say goodbye and then we fast forward two years. The beginning of this series is very different to the other two. It takes it to new territories. We [the characters] went on holiday apparently a week ago so [season] one and [season] two have been over the course of two weeks and then in the beginning of [season 3] episode 2, it says two years later. So that in itself is a whole new plot device.
Max, how does Woody cope in the new situation in South Africa?
Max Beesley: Well he’s gone from being a tea total guy who looks after situations and cares about people, to falling off the wagon a little bit from the pressure. But what I like about Woody is [that] the other chaps; if there is some kind of dilemma [or] there is a problem, they congregate toward him because he’s a survivor through his journey as an alcoholic, drug addict and though his ex-girlfriend killing herself; and coming out on top through that which inevitably most ex-addicts do. They become a lot stronger.
Phil, Could you tell us a little bit about where Quinn lands up?
Philip Glenister: He ends up in South Africa running a dodgy club in Capetown. I think out of all the characters he is the most removed in many respects. In his background he’s the one that would probably embrace change more than all the others because coming where he came from, a broken marriage and two grown-up children that have gone on to do their own things. I think he’s in a different sort of place in that respect, he’s slightly removed from it all and if anybody is going to start fresh he’s the best equipped for it at this stage.
Cris, one of the striking things about the series is how unpredictable it is in a good way. So many dramas are very formulaic and [you] can see what’s coming next. Is it hard to sustain those twists and turns that keep surprising us?
Cris: It is but it’s also one of the biggest challenges that we try to embrace. For me, surprise is the most important thing of all. When I watch something that’s what I enjoy the most, is the big surprise and things happening that I don’t expect so that’s always the challenge as we start the storyline. How can we make it as surprising and different and weird as possible.
One of the sadder scenes is when Quinn walks past your character and completely ignores him and I think that’s very touching because you know how close they are but because of the situation you can’t have any contact.
John: Yeah, that was an extreme situation. How would you deal with that yourself?
Max, there’s obviously a good chemistry between you four. [Is it] important that translates to the screen?
Max: Yeah, we first got together for this show we’d all crossed each other’s paths….throughout the years we’d all been on the same sort of platter within the dynamic of jobs and gone for the same sort of jobs. So initially it was a recipe for disaster but we got on set on the first day and I remember it vividly, we were doing a pretty heavy scene and John and I had a face-off moment. I remember thinking he’s doing great work and I said that was awesome and I think John thought I was taking the piss [laughter] but very quickly by the end of that day we all realized that it would be incredibly beneficial to support each other’s work and what that gives us by now in the third series [is] we’re incredibly close friends, we speak to each other probably once a week and email each other and that gives you the dynamic and the area to be able to push all the other nuances within the show. The hatred and the anger here can be pushed because deep down there’s a very solid relationship and as actors that’s wonderful because it gives us a plethora of stuff you can go through; you can really push it out there.
Marc, they’re all great characters. How similar are you in real life to these characters?
Marc Warren: I think we’re all really very different. Who’s the most different? I would probably say Max is the biggest difference between what he is in person…it’s a compliment! I just remember when it started I said to Cris I just wanted to shout at John a lot.
John: Where did that come from though?!
Marc: I like shouting at you! Another thing that Cris said that I sort of nicked was that he thought of us as a family and I really liked this. So Phil would be the Dad, John would be the Mum, Max is the good child and I’m the naughty one; I quite liked that. We also like to think of each other as the Beatles!
Phil, What advantage does shooting in South Africa add to the series?
Philip: I think a lot of the time as a viewer you tend to see South Africa and particularly Cape Town used a lot but for commercial purposes and it’s such a beautiful city so it’s nice to be able to film there and show off Cape Town for its actual beauty.
Cris, you already shot the forth series. What can you tell us about that or absolutely nothing at all?
Cris: The forth series sort of picks up from where the first series ends and then spirals out of control in very exciting and unexpected ways. It has a phenomenally unexpected ending.
Max, I wanted to ask a question about acting with your Dad. In the second episode he appears, what was that like?
Max: It was amazing; my Dad gets on with all the boys. He comes out on jobs that I do occasionally when he’s not working but he’s been acting for the last five or six years. He’s an impressionist and musician… Cris and Adrian said “look, there’s a part here could your old man do it?” and I said “Yeah, he’s gonna be out there anyway.”…Inevitably, when you’re guesting on the show and have got one or two lines, there’s more pressure than having a soliloquy. It’s horrendous so I think he was a bit nervous but he was just great and the boys just love him.
What did Phil do for his birthday on set?
Phlip: We had a lovely day because all our families were out there. John’s family was out there and it was John’s daughter’s birthday the day before mine…she was 9 and I was 50 [laughter].
John: She was 6!
Philip: Oh, sorry she was 6. That’s what happens when you get to 50! So we had a really lovely day, we just went out to this place which was a farm with stunt horses and so we went riding for the morning and went for a very long lunch. I just remember Max’s horse kept stopping off to eat and you [to Max] refused to give it a nudge because you we’re terrified that if you gave it a nudge it would go over…
The exciting thing was that out of all the boys I got put on the one that if you pull it to the right a bit, it thinks it’s been shot and falls over. [laughter] You do the math!
After season 4 will you do more?
There’s only so much you can do with the audience where you’re keeping them involved and bringing them on the journey. What I think is great about this show is it’s a very unbelievable dynamic what the boys get into; however, most audience members really believe it when they’re there and I think that’s what’s been successful about this show. It’s going to be sad because the forth is probably going to be the last one.