With only a couple of months to go until Idris Elba walks the East London beat once more as DCI John Luther, here’s an exclusive shot of the growly detective in full brood. The two-part series adds Rose Leslie join the regular team as they hunt a cannibal killer.
We spoke to series creator Neil Cross to find out if we’re ever likely to see Luther on the big screen and whether fan favourite character Alice Morgan will make a final appearance before Elba hangs up the tweed coat for good.
How does the new series fit with the seismic events at the end of the last one? What kind of place is John in psychologically?
Luther’s in pretty much the same mental place as me and Idris: he’s thinking that an end is also a beginning. In fact, he’s probably on the edge of quoting something from the Four Quartets. Except he’s holding back because he thinks it would make him look a bit of a dick. As to where the new series fits in: what we last saw was the end of Chapter One. What we’re about to see is the beginning of Chapter Two…
Can you talk about Rose Leslie’s character and how she fits into the series?
I’d love to, but I can’t say much because I don’t want to give too much away. But Rose both fitted Lutherland like a glove and expanded it wonderfully. She’s a great actor. Her character is brilliant and smart and brave and vulnerable and hurt and angry and brittle and tough. I can’t wait for you to meet her.
This series has been a very pleasant surprise as you’d saidthe last series would be the final one. What changed?
It was a surprise to me, too! When it came to Luther, I was with Doctor Seuss: Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. I honestly thought we were done — and I thought being done would be like finishing a novel, that accidentally catching an episode on repeat would be like looking at a photograph of friends I used to know and love who’d since drifted out of my life; that happy sad tug at the gut. But it wasn’t like that at all. I kept wondering about John Luther: what would happen next? What would he do? Where would he go? Was he happy?
It was Idris who raised the idea of coming back — during a press interview at an award ceremony, I think. Seeing a glimmer of opportunity, I didn’t hesitate for a second to put the band back together. And here we are.
Is there still a chance Luther will get the movie adaptation you’ve long talked about?
The truth is, for a while a Luther feature felt like a natural and desirable progression, and we were lucky enough to be in a position to consider approaches from a number of people. So I had to do a great deal of hard thinking, which is the very worst kind. Naturally, there was a big part of me that wanted to make a Luther feature; but I had to interrogate and ultimately distrust that desire.
The only viable reason to move Luther to the big screen would be if that enabled us to do it better — but more importantly, only if we could do so while treating the show’s existing fans with the respect they deserve. I’m acutely aware that we owe our audience a massive debt of honour, and in the end I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do by them.
And okay, not only that. The BBC is our home. The BBC commissioned Luther off the back of a deranged and haphazard pitch I delivered one afternoon, where I did a lot more arm waving than talking sense. The BBC stuck with the show after series one, when a large and apparently baffled chunk of our original audience walked away. So when I seriously came to think about leaving the BBC to set up shop somewhere else, I felt pre-emptively homesick.
So we’ve shelved the plans for a feature; perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. Who knows? What’s most important is that we do what we think is right by the show, by the characters, and by the audience.
Will Ruth Wilson’s Alice Morgan return this series?
I love Alice unreservedly. In fact, on a boozy night out with the cast before shooting the very first episode, I seem to recall telling Ruth Wilson that I considered Alice the perfect woman. It has to be said that she looked at me with some horror and may have inched subtly away to begin a conversation with Paul McGann. But I was telling the truth. If I could be anybody, I’d be Alice Morgan. Or The Doctor.
But Alice won’t be returning in this series. Like I say, it felt important to begin a new chapter in Luther’s life; to tell a different story, to meet new people, to expand Luther’s world — to keep making the show new and surprising. And scary, I hope.
Luther series 4 airs in December on BBC One. To read our exclusive on-set feature, pick up the December issue of Empire, on sale October 29.
from Empire News
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