If an actor really nails an accent other than their own,you won’t notice – they’ll just sound like it’s their regular voice – but when an accent is done poorly,public scorn can be immense. But to really convincingly adopt an alien accent,to the extent that native speakers themselves can’t tell the difference,is a great achievement.
Martin Freeman as troubled Liverpool police office Chris Carson.Rekha Garton
It’s one that Martin Freeman pulls off brilliantly in his intense police dramaThe Responder,in which he plays troubled cop Chris Carson,a Liverpool local. While it may seem a minor point,the skill with which Freeman adopts Carson’s Scouse accent testifies to just how seriously he took the role.
According to series creator Tony Schumacher,a former Liverpool copper himself,the accent wasn’t a deal-breaker. “It was never a big issue for me whether or not Chris was from Liverpool,” he says,in his own magnificent Scouse brogue. He turns to Freeman. “But I never doubted for a minute you’d do it.”
“It was important for me that he was from Liverpool,” Freeman insists.” I knew if I couldn’t do the accent 100 per cent convincingly,I would just play him like he was from London or from the south-east.
“Tony would always say,‘It’s fine,he doesn’t have to be from Liverpool,people on Merseyside police aren’t all Scousers by any means.’ But I knew he was written as a local,you know,so I would’ve taken it as a bit of a failure if I couldn’t do it. And also it makes it more rich,I think.”
As the actor points out,the accent isn’t just a matter of local colour – being able to convincingly portray Chris as a local made the story,in which the character is a policeman whose background makes him intimately familiar with the criminal world he has to deal with,stronger too.
“He was likeAngels with Dirty Faces,” Freeman says. “Chris could’ve gone this way,or he could’ve gone that way. So all the scallies he’s locked up,all the people he’s arresting,he knows them,he went to school with them,he could’ve been one of them. So I think for him to have come up from London and for you to believe that he’s made all those relationships in the last few years is a bit more stretched.”
The in-depth discussion of acting technique and the importance of specificity in dialect is punctured somewhat when Schumacher breaks in to add,“What Martin doesn’t know is in Liverpool,it’s actually dubbed by Ringo Starr.”
Freeman nods. “It’s not me – it’s Thomas the Tank Engine.”
If the discussion on accents illustrated the dedication Freeman brought to Schumacher’s creation,that interlude demonstrates perfectly a dynamic between actor and writer that stands out for the obvious understanding and affection between them.
When they came together to make the first series ofThe Responder,which aired in 2022,there was a significant imbalance in experience between actor and writer. Having transitioned from the police force to the entertainment industry,Schumacher had a handful of acting appearances and one previous writing credit – for an episode of women’s prison dramaClink – on his resume.
In contrast,Freeman was an international star,having broken out two decades before with his starring role inThe Office,before going on to critical acclaim in myriad TV shows,includingFargo,and scaling Hollywood heights in the title role ofThe Hobbit trilogy,and even popping up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was,on both sides of the Atlantic,a heavy hitter,while the creator of his new show was an unknown. Yet the pair gelled in a way that has a great deal to do with the show’s success.
“It’s relatively rare,” Freeman muses. “I don’t always have the ease that I do with Tony. I feel absolutely like I can say anything to him. We can agree or disagree or whatever,but we’ve never had anything approaching a falling out. I think I understand where he’s coming from,and I think he does with me as well.”
It’s clearThe Responder is a show that,however much violence,trauma and moral ambiguity may reign on screen,enjoys good vibes on set,something that Freeman puts down to the respect that the creator’s work commands.
Actor Adelayo Adedayo,creator Tony Schumacher and Martin Freeman at the season 2 launch ofThe Responder in Liverpool.Anthony Devlin/Getty
“It’s a very happy band of people,” he attests,“because I think we all,starting with Tony’s material,we all really love that. We want to make it better;we certainly don’t want to mess it up. So our job is to elevate it,and we all take that very,very seriously. But I mean,a day on set is quite funny. People are laughing a lot of the time,or just talking rubbish a lot of the time.”
Such is very much not the atmosphere seen in the finished product:Chris Carson is a morally compromised character,loyalties divided between opposite sides of the law and his genuine desire to be a force for good hamstrung by violent tendencies,childhood trauma and a chequered past. The second series sees Carson trying to properly reform and put his history behind him,but once again events conspire to suck him into the underworld,and he finds himself caught up in a drug war. For Freeman,the complexity of the character was the main draw when he originally read the pilot script five years ago.
“It’s a fascinating character,” he says. “There’s so much going on for him in his life and his work and his family life and his own brain. And it was something that I hadn’t done before. If a script feels like it hasn’t been written by a committee,if it feels authentic,if it feels written by somebody who has something he or she wants to say or explore,then that hooks me in quite well.
“It’s really up my street. It does a lot of the things that I like to do in acting,a lot of the challenges that I like. I gave an immediate response when I read it:I want in.”
The Responder (season 2) is on SBS,Thursday,May 30, 9.50pm.
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