Sam Spru­ell: ​‘We had to leave set when the polar bears arrived’

Sam Spru­ell has a won­der­ful knack for play­ing hor­ri­ble bas­tards. His CV reads like a laun­dry list of rogues and repro­bates, from a venge­ful gang­ster in Paul Andrew Williams’ Lon­don to Brighton, to a dam­aged sol­dier-turned-cop killer in TV’s Luther, to real-life hit man Jack ​“The Hat” McVi­tie in the Krays biopic Leg­end, to a racist bob­by in Steve McQueen’s Man­grove. Cavendish, one of the chief antag­o­nists of Andrew Haigh’s bruis­ing, frost-bit­ten BBC mini-series The North Water, about an Arc­tic whal­ing expe­di­tion that goes south, might be the mean­est of bunch.

It’s tes­ta­ment to Spruell’s skill as an actor, how­ev­er, that the ​‘vil­lains’ he so often plays are nev­er car­toon­ish or two-dimen­sion­al. Even if they’re not nec­es­sar­i­ly sym­pa­thet­ic, his char­ac­ters are always com­pelling and hope­less­ly, trag­i­cal­ly human. With its stark 19^th cen­tu­ry set­ting and Melvil­lean themes of male arro­gance, greed and hubris – ​“mas­culin­i­ty fail­ing,” as Spru­ell sees it – The North Water is an engross­ing sea­far­ing dra­ma and a per­fect ves­sel for Spruell’s for­mi­da­ble on-screen presence.

LWLies: The North Water was filmed on loca­tion in the Arc­tic. What was that expe­ri­ence like? 

Spru­ell: We took three boats: one set boat and then two boats hold­ing all the props, all the actors, all the crew, every­one that’s need­ed for three weeks in the Arc­tic. One of the boats was a sail­ing boat that was built in the 1950s; they spent weeks strip­ping it all back to the bare essen­tials. That’s exact­ly what their brief was: ​‘We love this boat, but can we strip it all back, take all the bells and whis­tles out and make it spare.’ Then we went to the Arc­tic. It was an extreme place to shoot but it was also amazing.

Did you have to do any spe­cif­ic prep for it, to accli­ma­tise to the cold­er conditions?

We trained in Sval­bard har­bour, row­ing and just get­ting used to being on the water. But I think actors are real­ly good at just throw­ing them­selves into a sit­u­a­tion. Essen­tial­ly, when you do any­thing, you learn your lines, you think about the scene, you decide how you’re going to pre­pare for it. But then you arrive and what­ev­er you pre­pared for is always going to be dif­fer­ent, whether it be a room that you didn’t imag­ine you were going to be shoot­ing in or what­ev­er. This felt like a moment where you should learn your lines more than any­thing because of the cold, the wind. You were deal­ing with the ele­ments quite a lot of the time.

Was that dis­rup­tive for the filming?

It was dis­rup­tive in the sense that we all had to leave set when the polar bears arrived. We had spot­ters, these amaz­ing guys from either Scan­di­navia or Green­land, and they would be able to spot polar bears from miles away. When­ev­er they arrived, we’d leave every­thing on the ice – cam­eras, kit, every­thing – and just walk on back onto the boat. They’d come and sniff around a bit, and after a while we’d fly a drone towards the bear and it’d freak them out and they’d leave.

Just being there, you accli­ma­tise very quick­ly. We spent a lot of time not shoot­ing, and a lot of time look­ing for ice which was real­ly telling in terms of where we’re at with cli­mate change. It’s inter­est­ing because I think the show is about man’s rela­tion­ship to nature – the scenes with the seals and the whale real­ly cap­ture that unre­pen­tant urge to con­sume that defines us as human beings. There’s no notion of preser­va­tion. Yes, there’s West­ern nations mak­ing moves in rela­tion to cli­mate change, but Chi­na, which is the biggest pol­luter, are still say­ing we haven’t reached peak coal. There’s a dis­con­nect and an enti­tle­ment that is explored in The North Water that I think is very relevant.

The show real­ly makes you appre­ci­ate how bru­tal nature can be.

Yeah, that’s what’s so good about shoot­ing it in the Arc­tic. We’re here in Lon­don, where on the whole you go any­where and there’s quite a lot of peo­ple. In the Arc­tic there’s no one. You feel com­plete­ly cut off. You can’t make a phone call, there’s no Wi-Fi. That sense of iso­la­tion cre­at­ed a real­ly appro­pri­ate head­space to shoot the series in. It could’ve gone either way though. It could’ve been a fuck­ing disaster.

In what sense?

Just in the sense that you’ve got so many vari­ables, so many unknowns. And you’re work­ing with an obvi­ous movie star in Col­in [Far­rell], who I’ve got to say behaved com­plete­ly un-movie star-ish. His work eth­ic, his com­mit­ment to the piece, was unerr­ing. He was some­times doing scene in ‑17 degrees with just a shirt and a jack­et on. When you’ve got some­one like that it sets the tone. It was bril­liant that that hap­pened, but it could’ve gone either way because any­thing can hap­pen when you’re at sea for three to four weeks. We fell into a great rhythm of eat­ing, work­ing, sleep­ing. No dis­trac­tions. No one could go to the pub. No one could go back to their fam­i­lies. Absolute­ly every­one had to make it work on this trip, which imbues the dra­ma of what you’re mak­ing with some spe­cial spice.

It’s inter­est­ing you say that because obvi­ous­ly the sto­ry is very frosty and frac­tious; every­one is play­ing their own game.

On the face of it it’s an explo­ration of mas­culin­i­ty. Or mas­culin­i­ty fail­ing, let’s say. Being lim­it­ed in its scope and vision in order to find a solu­tion. God, we’ve seen so much of that and I think it’s real­ly brought into sharp focus here. Andrew gave me such a bril­liant role. He said, ​‘Just think like you’re in love with Drax,’ who’s played by Col­in Far­rell. It’s like how at school you idolised and adored the most con­ven­tion­al­ly able kids some­times. Whether it be the ath­lete, or the most pop­u­lar, or the most good look­ing, every­one fell behind that. I think Cavendish is a prod­uct of that sentiment.

Obvi­ous­ly, Col­in is a very good look­ing chap with an abun­dance of Irish charm and sex appeal, you know. And that can have its draw­backs as an actor, because peo­ple are con­stant­ly try­ing to push him into parts that sell tick­ets. He can do that all day long, no doubt, but he’s also got a real brain on him. He wants to do good mate­r­i­al and push his under­stand­ing of him­self and every­one else. I’m sure he can speak for him­self here, but I think he saw that in Drax.

It’s a very anti-movie star kind of role. He’s almost unrecog­nis­able physically.

He ate like an ani­mal! I was like, ​‘Oh my god, he’s eat­ing anoth­er kebab’ [laughs]. He was unbe­liev­ably com­mit­ted. I don’t know whether that’s for me. That’s the kind of thing every­one seems to love to talk about nowa­days, but the thing that’s most inter­est­ing about The North Water is the dark­ness that he and Andrew and all of us want­ed to explore through our own char­ac­ters and through our inter­ac­tions with his character.

What was it then that appealed to you about this script?

When the offer first came through it was more about Andrew. I think he’s done some real­ly clever, var­ied work and I just real­ly like his stuff. I loved the basic sim­plic­i­ty of the writ­ing. It felt like a west­ern on the seas. When you read a script and you see that you’ve got a great char­ac­ter to play with, it’s just a joy. There’s lots of dif­fer­ent facets to this guy, he’s so flawed but he’s always try­ing to keep it buried under this blus­ter and brava­do. This sto­ry is deal­ing with the envi­ron­ment, it’s deal­ing with – for want of a bet­ter phrase – tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty, it’s deal­ing with phi­los­o­phy and reli­gion and cap­i­tal­ism. There’s loads of themes buried with­in it. I remem­ber fin­ish­ing the job and just feel­ing total­ly exhausted.

Is that a good sign?

It’s a great sign! It sounds pathet­ic, but I had a lit­tle cry and I’m not real­ly a crier. We all put in so much and we had all been through the mill with these char­ac­ters. There are jobs where it’s just a real­ly intense expe­ri­ence, and this was one of them.

How did it com­pare to Mangrove?

That was dif­fer­ent just in the sense that it wasn’t a sto­ry about PC Pul­ley. I can give him weight and I can try and find dif­fer­ent lay­ers to the char­ac­ter but in the end he is a func­tion of a big­ger sto­ry about the Man­grove Nine. The script can only dic­tate how dimen­sion­al a char­ac­ter is, do you know what I mean? In act­ing, you try and approach every­thing like you’re the lead of your own mini film with­in the film. You’ve got to almost trick your­self into think­ing that your sto­ry is the most impor­tant sto­ry, espe­cial­ly if it’s a char­ac­ter like PC Frank Pul­ley. For that day, or for those weeks you’re film­ing, you’ve got to give it large.

Man­grove was real­ly intense though. Just the nature of the whole piece. Also, it’s a sto­ry about a group of young Black peo­ple com­ing togeth­er to fight injus­tice. Essen­tial­ly you have this group of char­ac­ters, this group of actors com­ing togeth­er, shar­ing a space, being warm and sup­port­ive of each oth­er. And then I was sit­ting by the side in my own space, being a pret­ty despi­ca­ble human being. It was real­ly a lone­ly job. I had real­ly great sup­port from Steve and I real­ly enjoyed the demands he put on me – because you want to be pushed by your direc­tors – but I do remem­ber being real­ly glad when it was over because it was a real­ly lone­ly time.

Did it take you a while to decom­press after The North Water, being such an iso­lat­ed, immer­sive film­ing experience?

No, but actu­al­ly, just to go back to Man­grove quick­ly, that was very immer­sive as well. In The North Water the sur­round­ings, being in the Arc­tic, was huge­ly help­ful, but in Man­grove, putting on a uni­form, being in a court and see­ing all the white faces in the jury and see­ing all the Black peo­ple in the dock, that divi­sion cre­at­ed an atmos­phere which in the con­text of act­ing out those scenes gave every­thing a charge. Every­thing, if it requires it, is equal­ly immer­sive. With Frank Pul­ley, between every scene I would read a good chunk of Enoch Powell’s ​‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which seemed to have a tone, a voice to it that I want­ed to embody.

Is that how you think Frank saw himself?

I think some­one like Frank Pul­ley would’ve felt reas­sured and vin­di­cat­ed by the sen­ti­ment of that speech and how it was expressed. It’s actu­al­ly very help­ful to con­jure up the dark­ness, to estab­lish the lifeblood of that char­ac­ter. It sounds so pre­ten­tious but you’re using any­thing you can get to cre­ate tex­ture and depth, and that speech was very help­ful. One thing that was dif­fi­cult is that I’d be com­ing home to my fam­i­ly every­day, because we were shoot­ing in Lon­don, and that was real­ly hard. My wife would say, ​‘Your ladish­ness is a few notch­es high­er than it nor­mal­ly is, just try and bring it down.’ I nev­er want to be that per­son but you can’t help it bleed­ing in some­times. I sup­pose it’s a good sign in some respects but it’s exhaust­ing for her and my son. The great thing about The North Water was we were so far away. Being on loca­tion is just easier.

What is it that makes you suit­ed to play­ing these types of characters?

Some actors can access being upset, they can cry on cue; I can some­how access feel­ings that pro­voke fear or dis­com­fort in the audi­ence, or the oth­er peo­ple I’m act­ing with. I think it comes from my dad. He was a very love­ly, warm, bril­liant man, but he was also very scary. He could be emo­tion­al­ly detached in a way that made him quite unreach­able and that gave him pow­er. I think it comes from where I grew up as well. I went to school in Kid­brooke in Green­wich. Around that time I knew quite a lot of nasty kids and quite a lot of hard, white Eltham kids, sons of hard, white Eltham dads. There was a lot of racism and bad feel­ing. I feel like I car­ry some of those peo­ple with me, even though I don’t very often play char­ac­ters close to myself. I play char­ac­ters that feel fur­ther away. Maybe all actors say that, I don’t know.

We’ve talked about Col­in Far­rell but The North Water also stars Peter Mul­lan, Stephan Gra­ham, Jack O’Connell, Tom Courte­nay… What was it like work­ing with such a mus­cu­lar cast?

Peter Mul­lan is one of my favourite actors. It’s almost like ​‘Don’t work with your heroes,’ but he is one of my heroes. But the whole cast on this were great. Loads of actors are real­ly good at work­ing with a cam­era, but not as many actors are real­ly good work­ing in a two shot, and that’s what’s real­ly excit­ing. Two shots are great because there’s no escape, there’s no edit, it’s just you two fir­ing togeth­er. That’s what you live for as an actor. I have a scene in a tent with Col­in doing that. I think the take is about four min­utes, which doesn’t sound that long but it’s real­ly long! That lev­el of con­cen­tra­tion and inten­si­ty… Both of us were work­ing for each oth­er and also a bit for our­selves. It’s that ten­sion, you can’t beat it.

One oth­er thing to note about The North Water is that it’s a peri­od dra­ma about work­ing class people.

That nev­er hap­pens in a peri­od dra­ma does it? When you do see work­ing class peo­ple in peri­od dra­ma they’re usu­al­ly there for sea­son­ing. What I loved about The North Water, it’s like a fac­to­ry on a boat. You have a lead actor in Jack O’Connell who pro­duces an intel­li­gent, mea­sured and instinc­tive per­for­mance… If one of our Har­row or Eton boys pro­duced that per­for­mance they would be laud­ed for their intel­li­gence. Jack’s telling a work­ing-class sto­ry with the same degree of intel­li­gence, but it won’t get laud­ed in the same way. Well, I hope it does because he’s a bril­liant actor and it’s a bril­liant performance.

What if any­thing did you learn from mak­ing The North Water?

I sup­pose the thing I did learn was film­ing in that envi­ron­ment with loads of mov­ing parts, on a ship, is a com­pli­cat­ed busi­ness. Some­times when you’re try­ing to work out the struc­ture and tech­ni­cal ele­ments of a scene, it’s real­ly hard. Lots of voic­es, lots of opin­ions. Some­times there was a sense that it wasn’t work­ing, that the com­po­nents weren’t com­ing togeth­er. I saw Andrew lis­ten, take every­thing on board, and have faith that it would come good. He wouldn’t pan­ic, he would just con­cen­trate on the task. That was a real les­son to me. Just keep focused on the task, don’t let oth­er emo­tions come in and it will come good, espe­cial­ly if you’ve got good peo­ple and a good script. In a place as com­pli­cat­ed to film in as where we found our­selves, that was pret­ty inspir­ing to observe.

The North Water airs on BBC Two at 9.30pm GMT on Fri­day 10 September.