{"id":48345,"date":"2024-03-22T20:01:58","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T19:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=2013754"},"modified":"2024-03-22T20:15:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T19:15:51","slug":"andrew-buchan-on-stepping-behind-the-camera-for-itvs-passenger-and-the-seed-that-inspired-the-drama","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/andrew-buchan-on-stepping-behind-the-camera-for-itvs-passenger-and-the-seed-that-inspired-the-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Buchan on stepping behind the camera for ITV\u2019s Passenger, and the \u201cseed\u201d that inspired the drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best known for his roles in Broadchurch and The Honourable Woman, actor Andrew Buchan makes his screenwriting debut with ITV’s Passenger. <\/p>

By Andrew Buchan\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 22 March 2024 at 19:00 PM<\/p>

\n\n

I\u2019ve always loved writing. Whether I\u2019m any good at it remains to be seen but I\u2019ve always enjoyed it. Back when I was a boy I\u2019d write stories with my gran on rainy afternoons in Oldham \u2013 little collaborative half-a-pagers that usually revolved around an incident at a local haberdashery or the hunt for a crumpet. Even when I started acting, writing was never far away. There would always be slivers of stories in my back pocket, tiny imaginings etched on the back of bus receipts.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of people now ask me how I\u2019ve found the change from acting to writing. As an actor you sort of join the process halfway through, unaware that the writer has been shut in a windowless box for three years, getting notes from all and sundry on structure, character and plot. As an actor you turn up, put your gear on, say your lines, then swing by The Swan and Three for a rack of self-congratulatory pints. It\u2019s all very different.<\/span><\/p>\n

I should say that acting is still where my heart is, but writing is something I\u2019ve been burning to do for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I approached production company SISTER, I had an idea for a story that I felt I hadn\u2019t seen before. Something that combined several worlds, several genres. I\u2019ve always been drawn to shows that lure us into a false sense of familiar, then slap us with the unknown. Shows like Ben Mendelsohn\u2019s The Outsider, Fargo, True Detective<\/a>, The OA, Stranger Things<\/a>. They take something known, something traditional, and shake it, oddify it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The seed for Passenger<\/a> came from growing up in the North West. I grew up in Bolton, have family in Oldham and have mates in small villages dotted across the Pennines. There\u2019s a magic to these places. A warmth. A shorthand to the way people act and speak. In every corner of every pub, anecdotes are the antidote. Whatever the hardship, whatever the struggle, people fight back with stories. With wit. No matter how dark or desperate the situation, they flatten it with humour, make light of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was these characters that gave me the idea for Passenger. I wanted to create a fictional northern community and puncture it with something obscure and other-worldly, something that would detonate as much humour as possible and push their reactions to the limit. A small, grounded community colliding with something they\u2019ve never seen before.<\/span><\/p>\n