Thomas Coombes – Save Me Too

By starrymag | April 1, 2020

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

 

 

Q) What can the fans expect from “Save Me Too?” Are we picking up where we left off or is the Jody storyline a springboard into a new story?

A) So, we’re picking up seventeen months later, so a little time has passed and Lennie [James] the writer (who plays Nelly as well) sort of used that time because obviously the first series came out in 2018. So, he’s used that gap to his advantage with the story. He always had this arc in mind and where Season Two was going to go, even when he was writing season one.

Q) The finale of “Save Me” gutted the fans. While it was a realistic conclusion to a missing child case, it ended in a tone of hopelessness. Was there always a plan for a series 2 or did that idea come from heartbroken fans and critics clamoring for more?

A) [laughing] Well, I’ll try and break that down. It does end on not the happiest of notes admittedly…definitely. But Lennie, I think he comes across with this in mind; he and Nick [Murphy] the director didn’t want to make a drama that is a TV drama, if that makes sense? They wanted to use real life circumstances and they wanted to be…For example, the way Season One ends, he said, “Life is not always happy endings,” and life is like that. You don’t always luck out and have the hero win and that’s in mind throughout the whole series, I think. People saw some of the pub scenes and they were not long after they (Claire and Nelly) lost their kid. They were telling jokes and laughing and smiling and that’s just what happens in real life. You kind of cover up that pain. So, basically, all the TV tropes Lennie steered clear from. He always wanted to carry this on. He had a bigger arc in mind to where the story was going to go. It’s kind of hard to give too much away, in terms if there would be another series beyond this one, but he says there was potential and places it could go. He would just want all the characters back since it’s such a character driven ensemble show. He would want a purpose for every single person in this world he’s created.

Q) Without spoiling anything, what will Goz be up to in “Save Me Too?” More dangerous missions for Nelly and telling jokes at the pub?

A) Yeah, yeah, [laughing] all of that. He’s sort of obsessed with these stupid bits of silly trivia, of which he takes very seriously. He likes to challenge people’s knowledge of them and he’s sort of proud of his trivia and that carries on into this new series. His love for his family carries on and possibly we delve into that even more. Some of the characters that we didn’t delve into their home lives so much in series one we do go into in this series. For example, my character’s life and his other half Daisy (Remmie Milner). In terms of missions, yeah, we start the series where he (Goz) is helping out Nelly on one of his escapades or missions. I’d say with the time jump, for Goz, these seventeen months he’s been carrying a weight of guilt and a burden because inadvertently he kind of feels he had something to do with Jody going missing because the students he was hanging around with had obviously quite a lot to do with her disappearance and he didn’t lock it. He wasn’t aware of it. So, when we find these characters in Season Two, I think it’s almost like Goz is still trying to make it up to Nelly in his own way and Nelly is using it to maybe to his advantage. Calling out Goz on favors to the point where maybe he’s taking a Mickey, taking a pee a little bit. Pushing his favors to the point he’s pushing friendships and they’re being tested. Nelly, he’s a desperate man now.

Q) When you step into Goz’s shoes, what or who inspires you to bring the character to life? Is he modeled after anyone?

A) I think it’s weird to say but there is a little bit of him within me. I think there was just something that I kind of got about his sense of humor and randomness; it was sort of innately within me which helped. You know, I’ve played characters where I’ve had to do a lot of research and read and be like, “What the hell is this guy about?” But with Goz, it helped to find the similarities and start from there. I mean, I don’t deal drugs on my estate like he does and I don’t have two little kids. So, there is definitely things within it that are different, but I started with the similarities. Mainly it really is as with all the characters in this, it’s all on the page. It is such a rich and detailed palette of characters and you just get it when you read it. For me, the key with Goz is he’s a real family man. Sure, he happens to do a little bit of weed on the estate, but he does love his family and they’re probably the strongest unit in the whole series. And like, when he’s telling those facts at the pub, we sort of decided (me, Lennie and the director Nick) that he’s serious about it. Everyone else might mock him and take the Mickey, but he’s 100% like, “No, no, no! These are facts and you might laugh but it’s true!” Throughout the whole series, the more ridiculous the facts, the more he takes pride in it. There’s definitely a few more useless…Well, not useless in Goz’s eyes, but there’s a lot more nuggets he found, Lennie. He actually called me for a couple of them. I think one actually made its way into the series, which I was quite proud of. I looked all the ones up that Lennie sent and they’re all true!

Q) Speaking of Nelly, played by the incomparable Lennie James who not only wrote the show but stars in it too. How hands on is he with giving you advice when it comes to filming scripts, understanding points of view, dialogue, etc.?

A) So, he’s really trusting. He’s very much like he said from day one, “I’ve written it, but now it’s yours.” He’s on set, obviously, most of the time but he wants to keep his acting cap on and take his writer’s hat off. He said, “If you got any questions, always go to the director,” which was Nick the first series and Jim [Loach] and Coky the second series. Basically, if there was a real problem with a line (which didn’t often happen at all) he would be up for having a little chat with the director and you, but mainly he was really trustful. I think after series one was done, Lennie knew what the characters sounded exactly like and looked like and behaved like. He kind of wrote it with a lot of us in mind, except for the new characters. Though I do think he said he had Lesley Manville in mind when he was writing for her character.

Q) The show has gathered some of the best actors working in the UK today like Susan Lynch and Stephen Graham, but Suranne Jones in particular has given viewers an overwhelmingly heart wrenching performance. Should fans have hope that Claire will find some peace in this follow up series?

A) Yeah, I mean that’s…I can’t really one hundred percent answer that because it’s kind of one of the big questions within the new series, but I would say even after the last series all the characters always have hope. I guess where we start back in series two, they’re desperate but there are still people who are clinging on to hope in their own form, which is Nelly and Claire, Lennie and Suranne’s characters, in their own way. Even if they’re desperate, they’ve got this hope. So, I would say it’s hard to answer that question, but there are quite a lot of the community that has moved on in their own way; not completely forgotten about it. But it’s been seventeen months. They’re still sensitive that this has happened but it’s harder for Nelly and Claire to forget and move on, obviously.

Q) Over 700,000 people binged series one in its first week of release. What was it about “Save Me” that ignites such passion in TV viewers?

A) I think it comes down to a couple of things. I would say mainly Lennie’s writing is really unique, unlike anything I’ve read or unlike a lot of people have heard. So, I think it stems from that. In an essence, there’s a real truth to his writing. It’s all on the page and we tried to get that when we performed it. All the overlapping scenes in the pub, which is all there – even though it sounds like it’s improvised. It is almost like it’s kind of surreal, but it’s literally in the overlapping bits on the page and you can see it. At the same time, and as well is being really authentic, there’s a massive sort of poetry to it. It’s like his own vernacular and he’s written in such a specific way that sometimes you have to read the lines a few times to get your head around it, but he’s adamant that he’s written it exactly as it should be said. Lennie will say he didn’t want his lines paraphrased or generalized at all. It was very specific and they’re all the better for that. I also think people responded to its very specific story. It’s a very London story. It’s a story of a working-class estate and maybe a lot of the people don’t necessarily have jobs or they are on benefits, but it’s not like all these people are doom and gloom, even though the situation is. It’s such a community piece and among this community, when this tragedy happens it’s really felt because they are such a tight group of people living in this community. Together, in the pub, you see it. So, I think it’s a really unique voice and a really unique look at London and all of its characters and all the life and background that you see there all play a huge part of it.

Q) Besides television and film, you are also a renowned theater performer. Do you have any plans to head back to the stage in the near future?

Q) Oh, I’d love to, yeah! It’s always kind of job to job, what comes up, but yeah. The way my sort of jobs and career is going at the moment I’ve been mostly doing screen stuff, but I started out in the theater and I miss it if I haven’t done it in a while. I try to do at least one play a year and my most recent job was a play I started back in December and finished it in January at the Royal Court Theatre in London. It’s a play called A Kind of People, which really got people talking. It kind of pushed a lot of buttons, which was what we wanted to do. So, yeah, I miss it. I haven’t done it in a while, and I’d like to get back to it.

Q) Other than “Save Me Too,” are you working on any other projects (quarantine depending) that the fans can look out for?

A) Yeah, a hundred percent the whole industry has shut down. Everything that was kind of ready to go has stopped. So, there’s a whole backlog of things to be made. I literally just managed to finish this film called Boiling Point, literally the day or two before London closed down and we were lucky to get it done. That’s Stephen Graham’s film for his production company and which he stars in and is a producer on. So, that was a real challenge that we were delighted to get done in time. The release is kind of TBD depending on all of this virus stuff and when it all dies down, but we’re pleased with it. It was a one take film which apparently has never been done in the UK before and so we’re all quite pleased with it.

Q) Is there anything you would like to say to the fans and supporters of your work?

A) Anything I’d like to say to them? I just hope that with this series in mind, I hope they really enjoy it. I think Lennie has stepped it up a gear from the first season and I thought he did an amazing job. I really hope people love going back into the world he’s created and I we were all so amazed that it got the figures it did in the first season. I think it broke binge records on Sky, it was the fastest binge on Sky TV. So, we hope we’re going to carry that on to series two and people get gripped with it weekly, since it’s being released weekly in the UK. Hopefully, the American viewers will get a chance at some point to see it, too.

 

 

 

 

All episodes of Save Me Too are available on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV on 1^st April In the UK