10-16th September
RPJ takes pictures on the set of Spooks for RT
In the first of an occasional series, we gave an actor a camera to play with while they’re on set. Here Spooks star Rupert Penry-Jones gets his snaps out…
"We film most of Spooks in a studio in Bermondset in south London" says Rupert Penry-Jones, who plays agent Adam Carter. "It’s in an unglamorous industrial estate. You get photo shoots in the car park for men and motors. There are often busty blondes milling around, which isn’t a bad thing to see first thing in the morning. Otherwise, filming can be tiring and a bit monotonous, so it was great fun running round with a camera of my own. When the others spotted me with it, they started grabbing it off me and taking their own pictures. It was a Spooks family effort."
"The first two episodes of the news series centre on a terrorist attack on London. It was filmed prior to the 7 July attack and in it MI5 intercept several bombs, one of which goes off. In real life, MI5 can’t tell the public about bombs that they stop because they don’t want to cause panic. In our story, we’re similarly unable to celebrate our success so we get stick for what we apparently failed at."
"After July 7, there was much discussion over how to handle the episodes. The problem is that they’re pivotal to the series. If we lost those episodes, the rest of the series wouldn’t make any sense.’
‘When I watched the episodes, I found it shocking because it was so close to what happened in London, and it made me cry. There were some really horrific things – not gory, just sad and horrible – that they’ve taken out. But it’s still basically how it’s filmed. Hopefully, it won’t be upsetting to people, but it’ll bring home how terrible it was."
Photo - Rupert Hugging Miranda (Jo)
"This is me and Miranda Raison, who plays Jo Portman, the new girl. It was basically just an excuse to put my arm around her, which I try to do whenever I get the chance"
"Other than that, it was a dreadful day. We were running round parkland near Heathrow filming an episode about a terrorist who's planning to take down a plane as it takes off using a rocket launcher. It was hot and the pollen count was awful. Everyone was sneezing and their eyes were streaming. I'd taken my antihistamine too late. Once hayfever gets a hold on you, you're a goner"
Photo - Raza, Nicola and Peter sitting in a grubby stairwell
"Here's Raza Jaffrey, who plays Zafar Younis, Nicola Walker, who plays Ruth Evershed, and Peter Firth who plays Harry Pearce. This is where we hang out when we're not in our dressing room. The fire escape's the only place where we can get some air and sun during the day so we try to get out as much as possible. It gets so hot in the studio that it becomes pretty unbearable. They let us out because we all start to get grumpy if we're trapped inside for too long"
Photo - Hugh Simon with a pipe leaning on a wall next to a huge 'no escape' sign
"This is Hugh Simon, who plays Malcolm Wynn-Jones, having a smoke at the top of the studio fire escape. I've no idea why it says 'no escape' because it's the only way out if we want to avoid the lift. Funnily enough, hardly any of the actors smoked at the begining of the year, but by the end of the shoot, pretty much everyone, apart from me, was puffing away. I don't blame them. The catering food was so awful, I think people would rather smoke than eat the rubbish that we were served up. Is the pipe a prop? No, Hugh does actually smoke a pipe."
Photo - Rupert standing in a pretty empty room, concentrating on doing up his shirt
"This picture was taken in my dressing room. I brought a portable telly in, and everyone used to come in to watch the tennis from Wimbledon. Most of the cast, extras and crew were squeezed into the room at some point. It got very rowdy. Here, I'm getting changed before a scene and had no idea I was being snapped. It could've been anybody. I like to think that it was Miranda though. Shes lovely"
Photo - Rupert as Adam running through fire
"Me playing the hero. Ha-ha-ha! In this scene, Raza's character has been tied up and held by terrorists, so I get Martine McCutcheon's character to create a diversion. She's got some bottles of booze in her bag that I make a Molotov cocktail out of and throw at the terrorists. I then leap through the flames, disarm them and basically save the day"
"I'm not wearing a shirt because I had to tear it up to make the Molotov cocktails. It was pretty gratuitus, actually. I'd heard that one of the producers wanted me to get my top off and that was the real reason for the scene. The nerve! The worst thingwas that the shirt I was wearing was a gorgeous Nicole Farhi-style designer thing. Must've cost about ?150. I have about 5 of them and had to rip them to shreds. I was gutted.
"The flames came from special canisters and they wer pretty high. I didnt have any protective clothing on, so I felt very heroic when I singed a few nipple hairs" maybe he doesnt shave...?
Photo - Peter reading a newspaper
" I took this picture of Peter Firth reading the racing post at Walthamstow dog track. He's probably got a pint of guinness under his chair. He had to eat jellied eels in this scene. He scraped off the jelly, but was suprisingly keen on the eels themselves. Disgusting stuff. We were filming in the evening while the dogs were racing. Did we place any bets? We most certainly did. It became difficult trying to concentrate on our scenes because all we could think about was what position our dog was going to finish in"
"The little boy who plays my son in the scene got involbed, too. He was telling his mum which dog to put money on, and he won nearly every time! We started secretly listening to his recommendations and following suit. Peter won ?60 on his first race. He was over the moon. I won absoluteley nothing and was devestated"