SPOOKS Controversial Article - What is Your Opinion?

The following recent 'entertainment' article re Spooks has caused some controversy in the RA Universe.  The disagreement among RA fans concerns quotes contained in the article.  Do you believe all the quotes attributed to him are accurate and reflect his actual feelings?  Plain & simply--I do not.  Having had personal experience with 'reporters' in the past, I've learned the hard way that their so-called 'quotes' are often inaccurate and often reflect the spin the writer wants to give the interviewee's words.  What's your opinion? do you really believe Richard responded with a disgusted tone IF he actually said "Oh, Christ" when Nicole Lampert mentioned his large, loyal contingent of female fans?  The writer then added her spin that he tried to muster enthusiasm with his next remark.  Ms Lampert, IMO, deserves to receive negative feedback from those of us who feel she merely tried to include something startling in order to draw attention to her work.  Do you agree? 

Please keep in mind while reading the following article that Richard recently said he takes full responsiblity for what's written about him in interviews despite the fact he can't control a writer's negative spin on his words.


Is Ros facing the Spookiest death of all?……By Nicole Lampert

Last updated at 12:54 PM on 11th December 2009

Every week, the team has to save the UK from death and destruction. Everything is almost impossibly slick, and everyone almost impossibly beautiful. Yet there is nothing predictable about Spooks.

Now in its eighth series, the BBC1 spy drama is as fresh as ever - which may be down to the writers' kamikaze delight in killing off their main characters.

No fewer than nine key characters have been disposed of in the past seven seasons. There have been car bombs, radium injections, piano wire strangulation, plenty of bullets and, oh yes, one character had her head plunged into an industrial deep fat fryer.

Even the indomitable MI5 head, Harry Pearce - the one main character who has so far survived all the culls - appeared to be at risk when he was kidnapped by the Russians at the end of the last series. But to the relief of actor Peter Firth's many fans (apparently, he is the real heartthrob of the show, with bulging sacks of fan letters), he escaped death this time. But this season has already seen Jo Portman accidentally killed by her own colleague, when a bullet meant to stop a murderous anarchist hit her, too. Talk about a bad day at the office.

According to rumour, time may also be up for the show's coolest cookie yet - ice-cold MI5 counter-terrorism section chief Ros Myers. With the series set to end in Christmas week, might it be that Ros finds her goose well and truly cooked? Typically, no one on the show will confirm anything.

Hermione Norris, the actress who plays Ros, did not giving anything away when we met at the Spooks' set in unglamorous Bermondsey. Only in retrospect did I realise she may have been giving me a Spooks- style coded message when she said: 'It's been lovely playing Ros. This is probably the nicest job I have ever done.'

Hermione, 42, was best known for playing cold, middle-class housewife Karen Marsden in Cold Feet before taking the role of Ros in season four of the show. Surprisingly warm in person, Hermione admits she would prefer to be like her Spooks character.

'She's great, isn't she? Wouldn't you like to be like that? Have an answer for everything, go around and shoot people, and know that you'd win. 'She is so contained; she never has any self-doubt. I'd love to be that eloquent and confident and physically able.'

Hermione, in real life, has two children and admits she struggles with her dual life of working mother. 'You're constantly striving for equilibrium as a working mum,' she says. 'It's hard for women, really hard. Men don't have their internal organs ripped out of them every time they leave their kids and walk out of the front door.'

After a 5am rise with her two-year- old daughter Hero, she is in make-up for Spooks by 7am. And then, after a day shooting terrorists, defusing bombs and being the strongest female character on British TV, it's back home for bathtime and stories.

'I could have been blown up, shot down, done really difficult dialogue and the rest of it, but as soon as I get home and my kids are shouting "Mummy!", then everything else is forgotten,' she says.

Richard Armitage, who plays fellow Spook Lucas North, says: 'Hermione is a gift for the show. She has got the gravitas, the intelligence, yet she's lithe and fit.

'We did a shot today where she is sprinting out of a house that has just been blown up. I've never seen a girl run so fast - and she was wearing heels. I was well impressed.'

Richard is Spooks' new leading man after former favourite Adam Carter - played by Rupert Penry-Jones - was blown up at the start of the previous series. Producer Chris Fry says the smooth transition from Adam to Lucas shows just how forgiving Spooks fans are when it comes to killing off their favourite characters.

'Spooks fans are very loyal, and they have been used to key characters being killed off since series one,' he says. 'It helps us keep the suspense going.

'But we know we have to be careful when we do it. We don't do it simply because we want to kill someone off. It's because the actor wants to leave, or we decide we've reached the end of their journey.

'I think the audience sort of expects it, and secretly loves it.

'Adam was the most fancied and loved character on television. The audience didn't like it when he went - but by the end of episode two they were huge Richard Armitage fans.' Richard, who has previously appeared in Robin Hood and the costume drama North And South, also brought his own fans with him - they call themselves the Armitage Army.

But I have never met an actor as ill-at-ease with his good looks as Richard. He murmurs 'Oh Christ' when the subject of the Armitage Army comes up, before trying to muster up a less-than-enthusiastic 'Yeah, it's great to have that kind of support'.

He admits that he hates being regarded as TV totty. ' I am constantly trying to shake it off,' he says. 'But when I started on Spooks and said I wanted to shave off my hair for the role, they said no because it wasn't very attractive. I realised then that that was how they wanted to box me. 'It does annoy me a bit - but I guess that is what television is about. The ladies have it worse.'

BUT as the slickest and glossiest drama on British television, Spooks needs its spies to look good. In fact, the production owes more to 24's Jack Bauer and The Bourne Supremacy's Jason Bourne than anything on British TV.

'In every series, we keep on raising the benchmark and have become more and more slick,' says Hermione.

Surprisingly, for someone who has been so successful on British television, she admits: 'I love American drama. It's the only drama I watch, actually. 'The writing is brilliant, and the production values are amazing. They are streets ahead of us with shows like The West Wing, The Wire and Damages. Phenomenal TV. 'I do think when we do a brilliant drama, it is absolutely brilliant. But we don't do it as consistently as the Americans.'

Spooks is the one show that really does try to keep up with the Americans - which has meant it is a hit show over there, as well as in 45 other countries. As well as its fearlessness when it comes to killing off key characters, the show is also famed for being uncanny when it comes to its predictions. The very first series featured race riots - and on the night it was broadcast it was followed by a news bulletin about race riots.

One series was almost canned for showing London's transport network being bombed by Muslim fundamentalists - an episode which was filmed just two months before reality caught up with fiction in Central London.

Last season started at almost exactly the same time as the world's financial markets went into meltdown - and it was all about the country facing a banking crisis.

'I read an article in the paper last night about India commissioning a new submarine and what this could mean for China and Pakistan - and that was exactly what we were already filming,' says Richard. 'I couldn't believe it. I was gobsmacked. They have some very clever people on this show.

'We are a fictional drama - we go beyond realism - but we do try to keep it truthful. And when it comes to the political truth, I do sometimes think, "Crikey!''.' The storylines were all started over a year ago, and the writers have to try to imagine what will be the big news when the show airs. A big inspiration for them this year was the Naomi Klein conspiracy book, Shock Doctrine, about aggressive capitalism. ‘There is an element of luck,' says producer Chris Fry. 'But we also have a team of extremely bright writers. We are not afraid to change things at the last moment - scripts are always being altered.

'There was recently a deal between America and Russia which we added into a scene just before it was shot. Sometimes we even change things afterwards. We bring the cast back to add in some additional dialogue.

'Yes, we are a drama. Every week, we have a ticking clock and our guys are heroes.

'But we have also learned lessons from shows like 24, where they've pushed the truth too far. We want our audience to watch and think: "That could happen to us tomorrow." '

Seeing as this series has already featured an energy crisis and abduction of the world's most powerful men, we can only hope the writers have got it wrong this time.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1234933/Is-ice-cold-Ros-facing-Spookiest-death-all.html#ixzz0ZaQQEZFc