\u201cI would love to have gone back to do season two, but it was a closed story,\u201d Armitage tells RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cSo when the opportunity came to do another one with the same team, same writer \u2013 different cast, obviously \u2013 it was a no brainer. I said \u2018yes\u2019 immediately and then started reading the book, and just thought, \u2018here we go again\u2019. It\u2019s a complete page-turner.\u201d<\/p>\n Both stories involve an individual\u2019s seemingly perfect life being thrown into chaos by buried secrets, but Cush Jumbo (The Beast Must Die<\/a>) portrays the polished middle-class suburbanite this time around. That side of Armitage has been firmly locked away as he inhabits the role of dishevelled photographer Ray Levine, whose once-promising life was reduced to shambles following a devastating trauma 17 years ago, from which he has never recovered.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s where me and the character are so poles apart, because actually I move on from things really quickly,\u201d the North & South star reveals. \u201cI can pick myself up, compartmentalise it and move on. I mean, you do that all the time as an actor. When you\u2019re faced with massive disappointments when you don\u2019t get work, you just forget about it and you find yourself in a forward trajectory. But Ray hasn\u2019t been able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Armitage attributes this stagnation to the memory problems Ray has experienced since that fateful night and the fact that he has nobody \u201cto guide him\u201d through the recovery process. His understanding of the character is clear and confident, having carried out exhaustive research in preparation for Stay Close, creating a \u201crich\u201d biography for Ray that extends far beyond what is laid out in the source material. Not only did this inform his performance, but it also proved an invaluable resource when it came to crafting the look of certain scenes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe production designer would email me and say, \u2018what do you think Ray\u2019s flat looks like? What kind of things does he have?\u2019 And of course, I had the answers, because I\u2019d done a lot of the background work,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo when I got to set, it\u2019s almost like nothing needed to be touched, it was so perfect down to the half-finished Pot Noodles on the couch and the cheap white bread that he was eating\u2026 In-between takes, I would just flop down on the couch as if it was my apartment because it felt so right, which I just love.\u201d<\/p>\n The disparity between Ray and The Stranger<\/a>\u2018s Adam Price is quite deliberate, as the team at Red Production Company were keen to win Armitage back, but \u201cconcerned\u201d he would feel the material was \u201ctoo close\u201d in style and tone. The actor speaks highly of his collaborators there, including founder Nicola Shindler, describing them as \u201cgood friends\u201d that he hopes to work with again, but adds the caveat that their next project is unlikely to be yet another Harlan Coben adaptation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always looking to do something radically different to what I\u2019ve done before,\u201d he begins. \u201cI\u2019d be really surprised, [as] much as I like Harlan and how much he likes me, I think it would be pushing our luck to do a third. But never say never.\u201d<\/p>\n Netflix has certainly invested heavily in the mystery author, brokering a deal in 2018 that will see up to 14 of his novels turned into streaming shows or films over the next few years. So far, these adaptations have been spread across Europe, with productions setting up shop in the UK, Poland, Spain and France, despite most of the books being set around the United States. Armitage credits Coben\u2019s understanding of human behaviour for why these stories have resonated so strongly all over the globe, while he also hails Netflix for bringing the consumption of international content into the mainstream.<\/p>\n \u201cThese shows are not curated specifically for Spain or for Eastern Europe [or] whatever it is\u2026 they\u2019re not embargoed,\u201d he continues. \u201cSometimes in the past you\u2019d think, \u2018well, that\u2019s never going to work in America, so we won\u2019t sell it to America\u2019. With Netflix, anything goes anywhere. So we\u2019re watching stuff from all over the world and whether it\u2019s got subtitles or not, I think people are just fascinated with how it works.<\/p> \u201cIt makes it more interesting if it\u2019s not in your language. [When] I watched Money Heist<\/a>, Netflix dubbed it for me by default, and I spent a day looking for how to watch it in the original language\u2026 because the voice is so connected to the person. I\u2019ve got great people that dub me all over the world, but I want to hear the actor\u2019s real voice. I don\u2019t want to hear another actor voicing their words in English; it\u2019s like you\u2019re removing such a huge chunk of the character, particularly in high drama.\u201d<\/p>\n Armitage himself has been part of this global push. Not only has he just finished work on a Spanish film, but earlier this year he appeared in South Korean blockbuster Space Sweepers, which landed on Netflix seven months before Squid Game<\/a> brought increased attention to the country\u2019s cultural output. It\u2019s the latest in a long line of genre work, having previously played Marvel\u2019s Wolverine in two audio dramas, as well as bagging key roles in animated fantasy series Castlevania<\/a>, psychological horror Hannibal, and Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit trilogy.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a teenager, I was really into fantasy, magic, and then science fiction, so the Tolkien world, the CS Lewis world, [and] then sort of moved into Isaac Asimov and the early science fiction writers,\u201d he recalls. \u201cSo when my agent came to me and said, \u2018Look, they\u2019re scouting the world for the cast of The Hobbit\u2019, I was immediately engaged because I knew those books, I knew the world and I was almost salivating.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when somebody comes to me with a brilliant science fiction script, like Space Sweepers, I\u2019m immediately transported and my brain goes into that place. It doesn\u2019t necessarily put you in line for any awards or anything like that, because they\u2019re often sidelined in terms of critical acclaim. But in terms of an audience and a practitioner, I love it, so I dive straight in\u2026 The whole green screen thing doesn\u2019t bother me, because my brain is so full of the imagery anyway, I can project myself into that world.\u201d<\/p>\n Armitage agrees that sci-fi and fantasy is deserving of more recognition on the awards circuit, naming The Hobbit co-star Andy Serkis as someone who \u201cshould have won an Oscar by now\u201d for his work in the field of motion capture. Nevertheless, he\u2019s far from done with either genre, revealing he\u2019s keeping an eye out for an as-yet-unrealised dream project.<\/p>\n \u201cScience fiction is still an untapped fantasy of my own. I\u2019d love to do a really, really well executed comprehensive science fiction series, which is not so far away from us [in terms of realism],\u201d he says, explaining his ideal project would be closer in tone to Black Mirror<\/a> than Star Trek. \u201cSo if the door opens for me to take part in those things, I\u2019ll jump.\u201d<\/p>\n Stay Close is available to stream on Netflix from Friday 31st December. Check out more of our Drama<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> to see what\u2019s on tonight. <\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By David Craig Published: Friday, 31 December 2021 at 12:00 am It\u2019s hard to believe that Netflix nail-biter The Stranger only came out last year. The first collaboration between Harlan Coben and Richard Armitage dropped on the streaming service at the tail-end of January 2020, making a big splash upon its initial launch and no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":9361,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/richard-armitage-talks-stay-close-netflix-and-his-untapped-fantasy.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By David Craig Published: Friday, 31 December 2021 at 12:00 am It\u2019s hard to believe that Netflix nail-biter The Stranger only came out last year. 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