When trying to convince Hollywood icon Christopher Walken to come to Bristol to star in his new series, Stephen Merchant told him he’d be able to enjoy the area’s fine venues.
Sadly the pandemic happened leaving Merchant feeling responsible for the health of the 78-year-old.
“I promised him, ‘Come to Bristol, it’s a great city, there are great restaurants so we can take you out to dinner’ – and of course we couldn’t do any of it because we filmed it through lockdown,” recalls Merchant.
“He’s 78, so I was just terrified the whole time – I didn’t want him to catch Covid on my watch.
“Any time anyone even looked like they were going to sneeze, I would jump in front of him like a guy taking a bullet for the President.”
The Outlaws, the six-part comedy-drama which Merchant co-created with American writer and producer Elgin James, and also directed, follows a group of misfits renovating a derelict community centre in Bristol, as part of community service for various crimes they have committed.
The seven strangers working together are lawyer Greg (Merchant), teenager Rani (Rhianne Barreto), who is meant to be off to Oxford University, socialite Gabby (Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson), young doorman Christian (Gamba Cole), right-wing businessman John (Darren Boyd), radical activist Myrna (Clare Perkins), and con man Frank, played by Walken.
Merchant considered writing himself a more heroic character “but the BBC persuaded me otherwise”.
“They said ‘No one is going to accept you as that, so why don’t you play an awkward, gangly nerd?’,” explains the co-creator of The Office.
“I said, ‘All right, it’s in my wheelhouse, so I’ll give it another shot’ – and so that’s what I’ve done again.”
The plan was always to make The Outlaws a “low-level thriller”, says Merchant.
“I find it odd when they don’t have any humour and they’re a bit po-faced and a bit over-earnest and everything’s just depressing,” he adds. “So I wanted it to be that you could still enjoy it, have some crime elements and some politics with a small p, and some social stuff.”
The thriller aspect of the series meant the cast got to try their hand at action sequences, which Merchant absolutely loved: “I’ve always wanted to make an action movie, but no one comes to me and thinks, ‘This is the guy for an action movie’.”
The Outlaws, BBC1, Monday, 9pm
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