Toby Jones, Monica Dolan and more on playing real people in Mr Bates vs The Post Office | BAFTA

all my dealings with him have been great they haven't helped me play him very much but they they've been great the computer system post office spent an arm and a leg on is faulty no one else has ever reported any problems with Horizon no one you're responsible for the loss I haven't got that money and I don't know where it's gone it's an incredible untold story of uh Injustice and uh and a Mis carer of justice and it was a story I was aware of but I wasn't um I didn't know all the details and so when I read the script I was immediately struck with just how important this story was to tell and how compelling and and tragic and awful and horrifying and and important it was that we told this story and we got this incredible ordeal out to the general public um I mean I'm a director that looks for I love doing true stories and factual dramas um but you look for something um unusual in each choice and this was something truly remarkable I got a phone call um from James strong the director saying he was making this and he wanted me to play one of the parts in it which was a real person um which is different for me I don't think I've ever played a real person before um and the story of the post office Scandal I'd only heard bits about it um and so I went and looked into it um couldn't believe what I'd found but also didn't even scratch the surface to once I started playing the character on understanding what he'd been through um and what these people have been through and what the post office have put put them through this script revealed to me you know the appalling everyday cost of what happened to these people the fact that I I had misunderstood what had gone on was as much a driving force as just the honor to play the character of Alan Pates really when I was given the opportunity to be part of this amazing project I jumped at the chance because this is such an important story in the history of of British Justice and uh and it's a story of David and Goliath of ordinary people taking on the might of a huge institution so everything takes all the boxes for everything that I love about a good drama and something that has something to say about the world when I first came across this story I didn't believe it um actually like all the best true stories it is actually unbelievable to think that something as awful as widespread as as as destructive as this could happen in Britain you know in our country we're just not accustomed to thinking of um our country being as a pres as this um and for people to be um accused of of crimes they didn't commit sent to prison had their life savings taken off them all for nothing and be told constantly you're the only one that is happening to and I thought I was just completely outrageous and unbelievable so when I was asked to uh to talk to all the sub postmasters and turn their accounts into a drama well I mean I bit their hands off the casting of this series was a big challenge because first of all there's a lot of parts and we wanted to have amazing people in as many in all of the roles so you know the budget was a challenge um but we had to sort of aim as high as we could and I really wanted to create an ensemble that was brilliant actors but also those actors that who really inhabit the roles that they kind of take on and you know it began with Toby Jones to play Alan Bates he was just perfect as this um every man who fights back in this David and Goliath story um but we wanted to surround him with an ensemble that was um kind of real realism was a big kind of consideration for me that I really wanted these people to feel like you were watching the actual people these deficits were most likely caused by you that is the post off this case all our hopes all our savings down the pan that was a lie actually Alan is a quite extraordinary man who presents as one of the most Ordinary People you can meet and indeed that's true of a lot of the sub postmasters so then when you come to play someone like that I needed to find out who he was what made him do this extraordinary thing of unite hundreds and of of you know thousand people in one place and take on the might of the corporate post office and that was a great shock because he was quite clear that although he was you know totally up for the the drama because it drew attention to the the struggle he felt that he himself wasn't worthy of being heroic because there was nothing unusual about him he wasn't a great source of material I mean he was very friendly and warm and said I you know the thing is I don't not a very emotional guy uh so I then went to chat to other people who knew him and they said that Alan Bates is one of the smartest and inspirational people they'd ever met there a paradox about him all my dealings with him have been great they haven't helped me play him very much but they they've been great luckily I got to meet Joe um you don't always get to meet the real people you're playing but I met Joe at the read through and actually as soon as I walked in the door for the readr I saw her we saw each other and um uh we got quite tful actually I asked Joe after a few email exchanges and a few chats if she wouldn't mind recording um her life story for me up to the point where the scripts starts so she very kindly did me an audio recording of her life story and that was extremely useful because it meant I had records of her experiences but also I had her voice so I could listen to that going to the set in the car in the mornings I could listen to her voice and then that would put me put me in the right place certain performances you do with different characters um the way you play them this one you had to just be very real and make sure the emotion came through and make sure it was believable and honest and that's all I wanted to do show his journey through what he went through um and tell his truth um and hopefully that's come through in what I did for Lee um I met him today and it was quite emotional meeting him because i' i' i' i' played him and I know what he's been through and I've read his story so I just give him a hug and I was like mate I understand what you've been through I can't feel what you've been through I play Suzanne in the series who is um Alan bates's partner I was very lucky to be able to go and visit Alan and Susan at their home in North Wales just before we started filming it's been a really really wonderful experience for me suzan is very much behind the scenes in the The Wider campaign there's not very much about her in the news or in any archives um she's very much I think the wind beneath alen's wings but she is incredibly active and supportive in the campaign she would take the minutes for the meetings for the justice for sub post Masters campaign and uh she would draw them she's a really talented artist so she would draw these elaborate diagrams showing where people sit and where they are and she'd also do sketches during the court cases so she has a very unique perspective of the whole history of the campaign I played sumon kfal who's um British Punjabi seek woman from Birmingham runs a post office ran a post office in Birmingham with her husband and I was lucky enough to meet the real life couple and um and talk to them about a little bit about what they went through um I guess I got the character generally from the script and just from my initial reactions to to that and connecting to the story but also for meeting her and kind of getting a sense of who she is and and kind of the britishness of her and which is in the story but like the Birmingham identity and and how it all just merges together I think it just kind of through some sort of process of osmosis made sense I play Paul lenel who was the um CEO of the post office her remit was to turn the post office around into a multi-million pound business the contradiction in her character is that she's also um an Anglican priest uh which I found kind of fascinating I suppose in many ways people could portray her as the villain of the pece but in order to play a character you kind of have to find the humanity in the character um and villains in my head um don't know that they're villains they don't think that they're villains and they find justification for all of their actions and um and to have faith as well kind of protected her in a in a way I play Angela vanen bogar uh who works for the Post Office uh she is Paula's second in command and she is right at the heart of the story it was a real privilege to be part of the show a highlight for me was um sitting in the green room just offset with uh fellow actors who I've admired for years um listening to Toby and Alex and Monica talking about their uh life and stories and careers was it was a real real highlight of my career in general actually this is about the reputation of the post office it's not it's about people's lives you finally 555 of us now ready to tell our stories the challenge of a role like this is to you are playing someone I am playing someone who not only exist who's an exceptional human being but one of the things that he is makes him exceptional and makes him very interesting to play is that he's extremely modest self of facing and will not rise to provocation who is thorough meticulous dogged determined and honorable uh so when I chatted to him I'm constantly looking as an actor you're constantly looking for but where's the con where's the there's the other side of you where's the where's the where's the cost of all of this my character goes through um some some quite deep suffering and a lot of distress so I guess the most challenging thing was getting to the psychological point and emotional point to really authentically portray that um so it was a challenge but it was great because um it was just really satisfying to kind of get my teeth into the part was written in transcript I.E I could only say what Paul of venel had said in transcripts emails phone calls um text exchanges and I had to make that language fit into my mouth and um I've never had to do that before uh and that was that it was difficult to to sound like um to be convincing first part of the filming for me um was very much being on my own uh being on my own in the post office being on my own on the helpline and experiencing everything in quite an isolated way and um sort of recreating the problems that that Joe had had in in quite an isolated way so my what I was really looking forward to and what was wonderful was the moment when I got together with the other sub postmasters it was a great moment when we came together firstly to form the group and I remember this trickle that turned into a stream of the post office work uh postmasters arriving from all over the the country to this Village Hall that Allen had arranged and that being very moving on the day as well you suddenly see all these actors who've been through similar scenes elsewhere but in isolation and then laterally also the scenes where we take on the uh the post office in in court there's a lot of moments in the drama that I'm I'm PL proud of and there's there's a sort of you know you're like a kind of parent with your favorite children and some weeks it's that and some weeks it's this I I I think the the I remember the day I remember the most was when we reconstructed the um the the the the characters coming out after receiving their compens their kind of criminal convictions being overturned outside the real Royal courts of justice and we had a large crowd lots of extras and the and the emotion that was running through that day um with the real actors with the with with everybody the crew people were crying people were kind of you know felt the the enormity of what we were doing and the power of what we were doing and that hopefully that will be you know in some way captured and conveyed to the audience what we really want to achieve with this show is just to to make sure that more people know what went on it's really extraordinary how even after 20 years so many people I meet have never heard of this story I think the story needs to be seen in its entirety it's you can't really pick out a highlight certainly not a highlights real um the enormity of the tale how long it lasted for and what these people have been through is is something that uh I'm ke for the nation to witness I think it's a universal story you know I think it's everywhere the idea that corporations and big business can shaft the people who work for them um but the invigorating message to take from that is that um from this particular story is that uh there's a fight back

Channel: BAFTA

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Keywords: bafta, bafta 2023, baftas 2023, Toby Jones, Monica Dolan, Will Mellor, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Lia Williams, Krupa Pattani, Katherine Kelly, James Strong, Gwyneth Hughes, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, ITV, tv drama, real-life drama, post office scandal, british tv drama, british television, christmas tv 2023, what to watch, Post Office, Post Office Drama, ITV Show, Mr Bates vs The Post office, Toby Jones interview

Id: 5omjVEU9uvs

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 01 2024