The Hack: Robert Carlyle interview
The Hack is a brand new real-life drama from the makers of Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Robert Carlyle talks about what's in store, and his character Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook.
Written by BAFTA, Tony and Olivier award-winning screenwriter Jack Thorne, The Hack is a 7-part ITV Studios co-production with Stan Australia about the phone hacking scandal. Starring David Tennant, Robert Carlyle and Toby Jones, and produced by the team who brought us Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Set between 2002 and 2012, the drama deftly interweaves two real life stories, the work of investigative journalist Nick Davies, played by David Tennant, who uncovered evidence of phone hacking at the News of the World, and running parallel, the story of the investigation into the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, led by former Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook, played by Robert Carlyle. Toby Jones plays former Editor-in Chief of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.
Q: Why did you want to play Det Chief Supt David Cook?
“I was filming Toxic Town at the time with writer Jack Thorne and he approached me then with the scripts for The Hack. I just thought it sounded like a really interesting thing. Obviously, I was aware of the News of the World stuff that had gone on back in the day. But I didn’t really know anything about Dave Cook and his investigation or the way these two seemingly unrelated stories - phone hacking and the Daniel Morgan murder - were going to link together.”
Q: Who is Dave Cook?
“Dave Cook was a Detective Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police. He started off in the police in Glasgow and worked his way up through the ranks. He had worked on various high profile cases through the years and he was a top man. Absolutely honest, straight as a die. “Through getting to know him, he said he could have gone even higher in his career. But he didn’t want to go any higher. Because that was a boys’ club that he never ever felt he was really part of. And didn’t want to be part of. So, he was always a bit of a loner within the force. “He was married to Jacqui Hames who was a presenter on BBC’s Crimewatch programme. But I didn’t know she was also a Metropolitan Police officer. Like a lot of the people who worked on Crimewatch. And she was a good friend and colleague of Jill Dando, who was shot dead on her own doorstep in 1999.”
Q: Did you know about the Daniel Morgan murder case before this came along? “My memory is a strange thing. I had a vague recollection of Dave Cook appearing on Crimewatch in 2002 with presenter and fellow Metropolitan Police detective Jacqui Hames, who was also his wife. Then they sent me the Crimewatch footage and I thought, ‘That’s it.’ I had remembered it. “Daniel Morgan was a private investigator working for a firm called Southern Investigations. He was murdered in 1987. He was found in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. It was a brutal murder with an axe.
“Dave Cook was involved with the fourth and fifth attempt by the Metropolitan Police to solve this murder. He simply wanted justice for the Morgan family, who have been through hell. Dave did his best to try and give them the justice they deserved. It was also a challenge for him. He took it on willingly.
“But by the time the 2002 investigation came along, that was maybe where things started to go badly wrong for Dave personally. Healthwise and with his relationship with Jacqui Hames. He paid a price. I think he tried his best. He thought he knew and the police thought they knew who was responsible for this murder. There were attempts to bring these people to justice. “But they faced immense challenges. That is what the police face. They have to jump through so many hoops, hoops that are on fire, to try and get a conviction. They may think they know who did it. But it just doesn’t work like that. They have so much to prove and so many rules to navigate. It was incredibly difficult for Dave. That is why he didn’t follow the rules at times. And that came back to bite him. “Dave’s appearance on Crimewatch was one of the most interesting scenes for me. Because I had the footage. I had to forget about being an actor. The way an actor would do it. The delivery, the pitch, the tone…it’s not mine. It’s quite flat. So I had to learn Dave’s style. And it’s quite robotic as a police officer. It’s maybe a brave thing to do. When you look at that scene you think, ‘What’s Carlyle up to here?’ But it’s almost word for word, gesture for gesture, exactly how he did it.”
Q: We first meet Dave at the start of episode two. Which appears totally unrelated to what viewers have seen in the first episode?
“I loved that. I thought that was incredibly brave. I think it’s true. If you enjoyed the first episode of The Hack and you tune in for episode two, you’re going to think, ‘I’m on the wrong channel here.’ It’s an entirely different thing, different style, different approach. “Dave’s story is a crime procedural. Whereas David Tennant’s stuff as Nick Davies is different. Even the colour is different. The director Lewis Arnold explained how he was going to link all of these things together and I thought it was a brilliant idea. “It’s not going to be easy for viewers. You’re going to have to think about it. But if you stick with it, by the end of the seventh episode you will have learned some stuff for sure. You are going to be taken on a really amazing journey.”
Q: Were you aware of Gordon Brown’s role in this story before The Hack came along?
“To be honest, I wasn’t. No. Ultimately, once the paint had dried, you go, ‘Oh, right. Gordon Brown was involved in that.’ But I didn’t really know about it. I thought Dougray Scott did an absolutely fantastic job as Gordon Brown. He played it brilliantly. Dougray had met Gordon Brown quite a few times. They are both from Carnoustie.”
Q: Gordon Brown says in this drama that Dave Cook’s story is a “cruel and unusual” one. What does he mean by that?
“I think it’s the fact that Dave Cook is someone who is fighting for justice. And through that pursuit of justice his whole family life is shattered. His career is shattered. That’s the cruelty. Someone who was just trying to do their best. That’s exactly what Dave Cook was trying to do. And his life is shattered because of that. He contracted vertigo with the stress of the whole thing. Really cruel.
“Dave Cook was not perfect but I hope people understand why that was the case. That’s certainly the way that I’ve tried to play it. To try to show this is a human being. There was that sometimes slightly robotic and emotionless nature of a police officer. So, I tried to be true to that but at the same time give something else to show there is a heart here, there is a man here, a human being here. We really don’t understand what people like Dave Cook go through. And I think that Dave was done wrong. “It’s very difficult sometimes for actors to remain true to the matter-of-fact nature of police officers who have to be detached and cannot get emotional but then also give it some kind of flair. A lot of the time you see that kind of stuff on screen and it is uninteresting. But the writing was strong enough from Jack Thorne. It gave me that platform to do that. So hopefully I broke through that barrier.”
Q: Eve Myles plays Jacqui Hames. Had you worked with her before?
“I hadn’t worked with Eve before but I got on great with her. Because she’s a Welsh Valley girl. So as a Glaswegian we got on very well together. She was fantastic to work with. Very easy to get on with. It’s not always the case.”
Q: Why do the stories told in The Hack still matter today?
“I think what it is about now…how do we get the trust back into journalism? From whenever that expression ‘fake news’ suddenly appeared; it’s really been very difficult for good, honest journalists to be believed. For them to get their point across. People are too quick to go, ‘Oh well, do you believe that?’ And, of course, this is the poisoning of that profession from social media and from artificial intelligence and so on. 38 “It makes it very hard. If you don’t have it in you to trust what’s been told to you by honest and accurate journalists, we’re in trouble. Where do we turn? Some might spend months or years investigating something. Only for people to turn round and says, ‘Ah, fake.’ It’s just horrific. What kind of world are we living in?”
The Hack starts 24 September on ITV1 and ITVX.