BritBox, is known for their array of British thrillers, comedies and innovative shows, has made their appearance at New York Comic Con to debut their new thriller, Passenger, which had the audience glued to the screen.
Written by debut screenwriter Andrew Buchan, who is best known for his acting roles on Broadchurch, The Honourable Woman and Better, Passenger explores a close-knit community who are unwilling to face their fears of change, of outsiders and of the unknown. Set in the fictional small Northern town of Chadder Vale, Former Met Police Detective Riya Ajunwa (Wunmi Mosaku) investigates a series of strange and inexplicable crimes that have the townsfolk spinning on an axis. Riya arrived in decaying Chadder Vale five years ago and has since been searching for that ‘one big crime’, the challenge that will make her feel alive again. Then one night local girl Katie Wells (Rowan Robinson) mysteriously disappears. The town barely has time to register her absence before she reappears the next day, apparently safe and sound. The townsfolk ask few questions and normal life resumes. But for Riya, a relative outsider to the Chadder Vale way of life, none of this sits right. As a series of strange happenings and increasingly shocking crimes start unfolding within the town, the residents resort to short-sighted theories and blame outside influences such as the fracking site and its manager Jim Bracknell (David Threlfall). As things become stranger, the people push back on Riya’s absurd notion that something is not right with this town. But what are they so afraid of?
NYCC attendees were treated to a screening of episode 1 of the limited series followed by a panel with Mosaku, Sloane and Buchan moderated by award-winning editor and media personality Cori Murray.
Passenger promises to explore many different aspects of living in a small village while unveiling plot threads which will take viewers on a roller coaster ride through Chadder Vale. The eccentric but credible cast of characters is top lined by Mosaku and Sloane‘s central roles within the show. Chadder Vale, the snowy town, becomes a character in and of itself within the program. While the inhabitants each have their own quirks, you can rest assured in Buchan’s hands that by episode six, you’ll be thrown for a loop, according to the creator.
Andrew you we know you from a lot of series that you’ve done for British TV this is your first debut as a screenwriter why Passenger? Why now?
“I’ve always wanted to write but it’s been a niche I’ve always wanted to scratch. Acting is my main love, but I would say writing is a very close second. I’d say honestly the idea for Passenger has probably been percolating away in me for quite some time, maybe since childhood. I grew up in a small town in the north of England called Bolton not far from Manchester or Liverpool and there’s a warmth to the communities up there and a short hand to the way they act and speak, but the one thing you realize is that in the face of adversity, no matter how dark or desperate the struggle, they fight back with way it and they make light of life. They gather around fires and pubs and no matter how deep or desperate the struggle, anecdotes are the antidote. They fight back with stories and flatten it with wit. I wanted to create a fictional Northern community and puncture with something obscure and other worldly something they hadn’t seen before and detonate as much wit as I possibly could and push their reactions to the limit. It’s been something that’s kind of been brewing in me maybe since childhood, so it was it was complete joy to be able to bring it to life.”
Andrew, were you drawn to these types of stories as you were coming up?
“I’ve always been drawn to the shows that kind of lure you into a false sense of familiar and then slap you at something unknown. The shows I’d say that have always gripped me are Fargo, True Detective, Stranger Things. They are shows that take something familiar and then shake it; moments where you feel okay and then something happens out of nowhere and your back catalog of explanations doesn’t really have an answer for that.”
Tell me about the choice of the title.
“It operates on several levels. In its simplest form it may or may not refer to what is inside the back of the bread truck but on another form, we’re going deeper or more philosophical with it. You may or may not have gathered a sense of restlessness within the community of the people who feel like they belong or don’t belong and so I wanted to explore that, and Passenger could also refer to the people in life who feel contented with being in the driving seat. I feel like they are in the driving seat of their own lives and the people who are happy to be carried along levels.”
Wunmi and Barry, knowing that Andrew was an actor or is an actor, did that help you say yes to this series a lot quicker because you knew that he was coming from a place that you all know?
“When you read a script written by someone who is a really great actor and knows great dialogue, it’s so joyful. I found myself reading it out loud and the characters all felt like really rounded and their voices sounded specific. It was joyful getting the words, sounding them out because a lot of the time when you read scripts the story might be there, but the dialogue can actually be really hard because it’s not written by someone who actually says it out loud and he knows the dialogue. He knows bad dialogue and so more important he was only going to give us something that was juicy and delightful to play in. Then hearing the northernness of it for me, it was such a treat because I feel like I’ve been in an American accent for the last like five years and it was so nice to play in my own accent and actually ramp it up a bit and be able to kind of um even improvise. It just felt really familiar, really lovely and I don’t think every writer can write dialogue like that. It felt really special. He’s also asking the questions that as an actor you ask of your character and he’s done that for every single character so they’re rich,” said Wumni.
“The very moment I read the script it was apparent to me this was a world I knew, and these are the people that we’d all kind of grown up around. Since it was a place I recognize, it was very easy to understand these people and where this the story was going to go. I knew instantly I needed to be a part of this. I knew it was special; it wasn’t like any script that I read. As Northerners, to have a piece which is so brilliantly British in the northern sense and celebrating most communities and the way it looks, to see these beautiful Green Hills covered in snow but something dark and sinister like,” said Rowan.
How long did you take to work on this and when did you film this because this didn’t look like a sound stage.
“We were definitely a victim to the elements. We started filming February last year and we wrapped June. We started in winter, it’s cold. We actually we got snowed off on a good few occasions like when didn’t need the snow. It didn’t snow when we needed the snow, and we decided to snow, and we did not we no longer needed the snow. The village that you see there is Todd Mor and when you walk into that space and it’s got this energy to it that was just palpable. It was a real big character there. You’re in the shadow, I don’t think the sunlight completely gets out there, it’s dark for most of the day but it’s a fascinating place to spend time. We finished in June, so we all had too many layers.”
Please explain to us, starting with Barry what your character is.
“I play Eddie Wells. Eddie has been sent away to prison, and he’s been released the day his daughter’s also gone missing. He is viewed by the community as a monster in the place where all trouble starts. If you’re led to believe that you are that person for long enough, eventually you can become that. He is a character in the sense of Johnny Cash, the man in Black with his with his coat, his tattoos and his hair. He’s got this attitude and his energy to him but he’s a very complex man. It was a real pleasure and I’m very thankful for this character to have been able to play with him. I want to feel timeless, as we move through the episodes, you don’t quite know what time he the mans for. He’s got elements of like 50s Teddy boy grease, he’s emo as hell from and all of it was intentional. I love this guy, you’re going to enjoy his family, they’re really important to him and it’s an intriguing family, they are a big part of this community, and they play a big role.
“Ajunwa is someone who feels really lost. I was like, ‘Why is she still there? What is keeping her in this town? That was a really interesting question for me to answer and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do the role because I really felt like she needed community. She needed love, she needed to feel, she needs to feel purposeful but ultimately, she’s really afraid to be a small fish in a big pond. She’s afraid to reach out to the community and be really a part of it, she has all these defenses up and it’s all from fear, it’s all because I feel like she’s not living in her purpose. She’s too scared to really search for it and she feels abandoned, lost and, instead of looking in, that’s too scary for her, so she looks out. She’s like, ‘I’m going figure out this town instead.’ She’s intuitive she can feel what’s something is rumbling underneath; she has this pit in her stomach something’s not right and that’s what kind of keeps her there and that becomes part of her focus. But focus is a distraction from what she’s really missing and what she really needs to do is embrace the vulnerability and inspiration. Her origin story is she’s originally from Manchester and she went to work in the met in London met husband down there and then they relocated to Chad Vale so he could be closer to his mentally unstable mother and that’s how she came to be there,” said Wumni.
“I really love working with Barry. Barry is a really exciting actor. He goes so deep into his character that I just feel a little bit scared sometimes. He does some stuff that I would freak me out. I found that really quite inspiring. There’s an improvised moment where Eddie’s kind of intimidating and he’s calling her a pig which is a reference to law enforcement in the UK and the reaction um sold the whole thing so beautifully.”
There’s a lot of issues of trust anxiety, mental health, and forgiveness. Which of these themes was most fulfilling for you to explore in your character? Andrew, when you were writing which one was most important?
“For me the theme at the forefront of my mind while I was writing it was fear. Who we fear in life as communities and how that fear is often just something within us. The fear of monsters and Eddie coming out being portrayed as a monster, it’s how and who we deem to be the monsters in life and how we often look in the wrong places. That’s one of the major themes of the show,” said Barry.
Barry said before, but you often think of something scary by either looking left or right and we just look straight ahead because we prefer to ignore it, but it’s who we label as the monsters in life and how we’re so often wrong that’s honestly one of the biggest themes of the show. Outsiders and the feeling of belonging and questioning your identity by asking, ‘Is this my place? Are these my people? Do I really belong here?’ What gives you an identity? Is it a jacket you wear? Is it a phrase that you come out with? Is it your best mate?’ What really is it that gives you an identity and what is it about people that other people are so afraid of? So often we look in the wrong places.”
To learn more about Passengers, check out the full audio.
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