Aidan Turner is showcasing his versatility as an actor in the new series The Suspect. Based on the bestselling novel by acclaimed crime writer Michael Robotham, Turner plays Joseph ‘Joe’ O’Loughlin, who appears to have a perfect life. He has a beautiful wife, a loving daughter, and a successful career as a clinical psychologist. But nothing can be taken for granted and there’s always a threat that things can unravel in unimaginable ways. In Joe’s case, all it takes is a murdered girl, a troubled young patient, and the biggest lie of his life. Caught in an increasingly complex web of deceit, Joe risks everything as he embarks upon a search for a killer that will take him into the darkest recesses of the human mind.
All five episodes will premiere as a binge on Thursday, Nov. 3 on Sundance Now and AMC+. From the producers of Bodyguard, The Suspect sees Turner in a new light. Ahead of the series becoming available for streaming, PopCulture.com spoke with Turner about how he prepared for the role, why method acting is not his thing, and what he hopes viewers will take from the character.
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PC: Congratulations on The Suspect from my understanding, it was a novel before being adapted for the series, correct?
AT: Yeah, that’s correct.
PC: Were you a fan of the novel or had any knowledge of the novel beforehand?
AT: No knowledge whatsoever. I didn’t know about it. It’s one of those embarrassing things that I didn’t know and I read the scripts first. The scripts came in and then I was aware of the novel and then I read the novel after. But then I was speaking to people about it and would tell them, ‘Yeah, I’m doing this thing the suspect.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, Michael Robotham’s book.’ It’s like how many people have read this book? It’s slightly embarrassing when you’ve done something, you’re doing something, you’re in the middle of your shoot and other people are aware of it and you’re not. And I felt a bit out of the loop.
But thankfully, these things are available to us at any stage. And I think even given if I had a choice to read the scripts first or the book, I think I still go with the scripts. I found it informative afterwards to read the book, but it felt quite different to me. I mean tonally, it feels quite different to the scripts. I love the book. I think it’s great. It does its thing very well, but I think we’re doing something a bit different.
PC: What about the role were you the most attracted to?
AT: Because I’m figuring Joe [my character] out. I read the first two, or three scripts, I’m like, ‘I still don’t have a grasp of who this guy is.’ There’s this real sort of sense of ambiguity around the whole piece itself. And particularly with Joe, he just feels very real, very flawed, complicated. We’re trying to figure out all the time, ‘Is he telling the truth? If he is, then why is he doing that thing or saying that thing, or if he’s lying then? But then he says this other thing that seemed like it could be true.’ And it’s that constant for me that I found really interesting as a reader. And then I just thought, ‘What’s it like to play him? It’s going to be a lot of fun.’ I don’t think that the audience is spoonfed, which is quite nice.
We’re not told straight away, ‘This is the bad guy, this is the good guy, here’s the narrative.’ And off we go. It’s more complicated. And he does things that are never really, even to this day you kind of go, ‘But what was that reason for… Is it just nerves? Is it because you’re cold and you’re trying to cover something up? Or maybe it’s the Parkinson’s diagnosis, is that what it is? Is it the trauma of now having this illness? What is it?’ And those questions I find quite interesting. That’s refreshing to read.
It doesn’t always happen. Even with bigger budget things that have a lot of serious names attached, you kind of read it and go, ‘Oh see this a million times before I could tell you what’s going to happen in the next episode.’ And then you can and with this I couldn’t. I kept switching and changing it up all the time. And I found that really interesting to read and play.
PC: Now the role is slightly dark. What did you do to prepare for it? Primarily because of your character’s profession. Did you work a lot alongside any clinical psychiatrist or psychologist for additional research?
AT: Yeah, I did that quite early. I thought that was something that I should get involved with and they gave me some really good reading material. And that was invaluable, or so valuable I should say. You want that information from the people who do it. And I think we’re so accustomed to it. I bet you’d play a great psychologist. We probably all would. We’ve seen it a thousand times on television and the way it’s portrayed and some better than others. But also I wanted it to talk to people who do this on a daily basis and then ask all those silly obvious questions. ‘How much do you let somebody talk if somebody doesn’t want to talk, what is it you do?’ Cause I hear sometimes with the Freudian ways, maybe you just sort of sit there sometimes and you allowed them to talk and what’s your opinions about that?
And I had spoke to one psychologist who works for… He’s quite a famous guy over here, actually works for the Crown Court in different places and deals with some really dark materials sometimes too. And he said, ‘I’ve been through to the top colleges, I’ve several masters degrees, all of these things. And the advice I give to you is one sound, mm-hmm mm-hmm.’ Just that one noise and it was interesting and it always stayed with me and what it said was: be supportive, listen, but also allow the person to talk.
And I think sometimes ego can get in the way of all of us. We all have a certain amount that… But particularly in some of these professions too, especially people around who like to talk, who get paid to talk and give advice sometimes that can get in the way. That was a small but huge thing – that piece of advice that he gave me. But also just spending time and just talking about different cases that he worked on and what was the resolution there and what made him get into this. And just to try to formulate the disposition and the character of Joe.
But I also worked with… I say worked with, but I did work with him, Drew Hallam, who’s was a young man who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. He was diagnosed at 35, he’s 39 now the same age as I am. And we talked at length several times about just how his diagnosis worked, how he felt around that diagnosis. The kind of medication he’s on, the way he deals with the illness and how it makes it feel on a daily basis. And all of these kind of things felt so important to mold Joe. It’s not something you can sort of fudge as an actor. Just go, ‘Oh I got a sense of what this could be like.’ You really want to work with these people who know this world so well and then try to find in that an authenticity that works for drama. So hopefully, we found it.
PC: Was it hard for you to remove yourself from the role when it was finished? Because I’ve heard a lot about actors who are method actors who get stuck in their characters.
AT: Yeah, I don’t know. I think this was something that… I don’t know, I think a lot of British actors I’ve worked with and European actors, they do laugh a little bit at this method thing that exists I think a little bit more in the States. I think method is great. Whatever works for the actor, whatever it gets to that great performance, it’s amazing. But sometimes, it can be really hard on everyone else around you. Crew, other actors who don’t partake in your particular method while you have a pair of Bose head speakers on and you’re doing somersaults to try and get into the scene cause this is what your character might do. But in the meantime, you’re just crashing everyone else’s parade and their preparation.
And it’s not something that happens a lot in this country, to be honest. I’ve seen a lot more of it in the States. I’ve spoken to actors, and there’s no judgment on it. Again, I think whatever gets you there is whatever gets you there. And if it helps with the performance, that’s great. Do it, go for it. But no, I think it’s important for your own personal health and for the mental health of the people around you. I got a family and I have friends and I have people that I hold dear to me and I don’t want to be going home and not shaking off the darkness of that particular character, and the day that he’s gone through it just sounds weird and selfish.
And it’s never helped me. Sometimes you can shoot a scene all day where it’s dark stuff, and you’re not going home, you’re on the way back in the car, and you’re feeling like, ‘Why do I feel sad about this? I feel like I just want to go to bed. I don’t feel like I want to talk.’ It has an effect on your emotions for sure. But I think a conscious effort to stay in that or to indulge that for me, I just, I’ll never understand that. That way is not for me. There’s a conscious effort to try it as best I can to shake off whatever that day is and then be fresh for the next day where you’re going to be doing something entirely different.
So it doesn’t help to carry… Every day, I might be shooting a scene from episode one in the morning on a Monday, and in the afternoon or the evening of that same Monday, I might be shooting bits from episode five, and the next day I’ll start off with episode two. So it’s important to be able to let these things go, to start fresh, to start clean. Always keep in mind the following questions: ‘Where is our character? Where’s our story? What are we doing?’ And if I have the shackles of all these, of the gemstones of all these other little treasures that have brought along the way and have not been able to shake off, I don’t know whether it’ll help my performance. Again, these is just my thoughts and opinions on it. I hold no judgment for any actor who uses method in any way or other ones. This method is Lee Strasberg’s, there’s Stella Adler, there are lots of different ways and different methods if you like. I don’t judge any of them. It’s just not for me.
PC: Well my final question to you is, what are you most excited about people being able to see this project? And it’s on the AMC streaming service. So does that make you more excited that it’s more accessible in that way?
AT: Yeah, it really does. I’ve had shows that I’ve shot in the UK that have gone on to American networks. I did the show Being Human many years ago that went on BBC America, I think it was at the time. And Poldark and different things like that. Poldark went on, I think, was PBS. And obviously, there’s the public movies and different things, so things have traveled. But I think this kind of platform with AMC+ and Sundance Now, seems very accessible. It seems like a quick text to a friend to go, ‘Here’s where you find it.’ Instead of them trying to search the internet go, ‘Oh, but I don’t have PBS,’ or whatever might be. I’ve heard all sorts of excuses before for things. Or ‘BBC America, where the hell do I find that thing?’ And it’s sometimes been tricky. So yeah, this seems pretty accessible and I’m excited that it’s on these networks where it can be viewed quite easily and it’s a show that I’m really proud of.
I think people are going to really like it. It’s quite different from some previous work that I’ve done. I tried to mix it up as much as I can. There have been lots of different genres over the years. Everything from fantasy, there’s some of that. I played a vampire years ago, as I said, and there have been costume drama things and some indie movies and all sorts of different things. So it’s nice to do something contemporary for an American audience I think.
