Crime thriller Culprits centers on family man Joe Petrus who is living the American dream with his fiancé and step-kids. However, unbeknownst to them, Joe was involved in a mysterious crime three years ago and now his dangerous past is about to catch up with him. When a killer starts targeting the crew behind the crime, Joe realises it’s only a matter of time before his family is targeted. He returns to London to track down his old gang and find out who is coming after them. The stellar British cast includes Nathan Stewart-Jarret, Niamh Algar, Gemma Arteton, Eddie Izzard and Kirby.
Culprits premieres December 8th, only on Hulu.
Who do you play in Culprits?
I play Specialist aka Inga Beatrice, who is also known as Psycho. She’s a specialist in the field of being able to kill people in a very quick and un-messy way, so basically, she’s a badass assassin. She’s tactical; she’s a hunter, extremely intelligent, fearless, tough as nails, and quite wild! Though she’s brought into the group to help carry out the heist, she’s definitely a loner and she finds it quite difficult to work in group environments. This is the first time she’s worked as part of a team and I think she would in many ways rather work alone.
Why did you want the role?
The story and the character excited me. It’s the sort of role I dreamed of playing. When I was a kid I watched James Bond and I wanted to play the villain because they get to have the most fun! They are also the most intriguing characters to study due to their actions and so naturally you lean into them, try to understand them and make sense of why they do the things they do. It makes you question how a person gets to a place like that in their lives. Reading the script and seeing what Specialist does in the story I knew it would be a really fun and action-packed journey to go on and try to make this character human and challenge the “Psycho” stereotype. But most importantly I wanted to work with J. I loved his work and was really keen to work with him on something. I was so excited to see what J would do with this story. He has such a fascinating style of filmmaking, and I was keen to see his own twist on a story like this.
How did you try and understand a character who gives so little away?
I used the analogy that hurt people, hurt people, and she’s someone who’s definitely been hurt. Specialist’s body is covered in scars so visually that tells a lot about this woman, she’s been through a lot and survived, and she wears her scars with pride. Although she appears disconnected from others, she has a remarkable ability to read people. I had a lot of fun with J hashing out her backstory and figuring out what she got up to in the years between the heist and the present. I found her such a fun character because she doesn’t give much away, it’s a joy and a challenge to play around with that. Specialist is fascinating because she makes unusual choices. Who knows what madness she got up to after the heist with all that money, but where we find her in the present is living in complete exile; she chose to disappear into the wilderness, completely off the grid. It takes a certain type of person to be able to do that — that’s their version of the best life that they can have now that they have this endless amount of money. Money is a huge factor in what drives people, and it was interesting to see once you have money, what actually drives her as a person.
Specialist is a mystery, who knows what she did with all her millions! I also looked at her as someone who was either hurt or broken by someone and has built these barriers around her. It’s easier for her to disassociate from people than to get involved. She looks at the world in a non-materialistic way and she’s grounded in nature. But when she’s been given a task, to solve a problem, her problem solving is by process of elimination. If the problem is that a person is doing something they shouldn’t, her solution is to take them out of the equation. She looks at it very clinically because that’s what makes sense to her – hence why she’s quiet and (what appears to be) calculating — she doesn’t waste time. Small talk is pointless to her, there’s nothing to be gained.
She’s nicknamed ‘Psycho’ by the Officer. Is she a psychopath?
Well, it’s not for me to judge. I don’t think she’s a psychopath, or maybe she is, but I don’t know if psychopath’s themselves realise they are psychopaths. She’s psychotic maybe in her job – she looks at it like a game. There’s a sense in why she doesn’t allow herself to get involved emotionally with people, which is rooted in some form of deep trauma, so from the outside she acts in a way that’s abnormal, detached and at times wild and unpredictable. She’s been hurt so many times that she finds it impossible to trust people, so she has to be guarded and therefore not emotionally involved with anyone. She’s quite practical and clinical in her relationships so when it comes to having to hurt people, it’s easier — she doesn’t have to switch into that empathetic part of herself because she hasn’t invested in the person, she’s efficient and moves on. So maybe, actually, she is a bit of a psychopath but that doesn’t mean people can’t empathise with her!
How does she change over the course of the series?
She started as a loner and as the story progresses begins to realise that there is something to be gained from working as a pack, as a family. She definitely grows fond of Muscle, I think they see parts of themselves in each other. All of these people are outsiders and yet when they come together, they understand each other because they don’t fit into normal society. I kind of looked at it like a film set — you have all these people that come from different walks of life and who don’t conform to the usual nine-to-five jobs. And yet we’re all on a project, all with the same shared goal. Everyone is very different, has very different personalities and have vastly different skill sets but they have to work together to get to where they’re going. It’s the same idea with this: they each have a very specific job and they can’t do that job without the other person. Specialist, by the end, I feel finds her purpose, her people. She’s someone who lost everything from a young age, was orphaned and feels like she’s got nothing to lose, but then finds a place in this dysfunctional family. Her fearlessness catches up on her – the others are wary of this, it’s good to be wary of the person that has nothing to lose. That’s why she’s able to face death with such ease. For her, dying’s fine: she’s not leaving anyone behind that counts on her anymore.
Specialist is a very physical character. Was that something that appealed to you and how did you prepare?
Yes. For me, when I was a kid I saw GI Jane with Demi Moore and she’s doing those pull ups, fighting with the guys… I always thought that that was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen. Just that physical strength… and she totally incorporated it into the role, I love it when actors go for it. But she did it in a way where it had to apply to the physical requirements of the character and not just aesthetically. On Culprits, I knew the character would have to endure a lot of large fight sequences and stunts, so I worked with a trainer called Marc Mene. Marc went through the script and said, ‘There’s a part where you’re physically dragging a dead deer through the snow. If you’re trying to ground this character, you have to be able to do that’. Marc is about 20kg more than I am and I had to drag him up and down in the gym. By the time we got to filming those sequences, I was pretty strong. We trained 6 days a week, incorporating boxing, strength and conditioning exercises. Most days I trained before and after set. I worked with an incredible stunt and armoury team on this job and spent a month before filming going through a rigorous safety armoury training course in order to feel comfortable with the various fighting styles and equipment. The key physical characteristics of Specialist is her ability to disarm and take down anyone in her path with complete ease and so to be able to do that you have to be well prepared!
What’s her look?
Ian Fulcher is our costume designer. He said that when the culprits all come together they have to look like a band. They complement each other, but none of them is the front-man. Specialist’s colour is white and that’s the thing that we want to play the whole way through. She wears no other colour, she has a clinical and pristine fashion. She always has this one, kind of military look, and when she’s fighting the evidence of her destruction is evident on her wardrobe. It’s my favourite costume I’ve had the chance to wear due to the insane level of detail and practicality. We don’t want her to be an army girl or something in a SWAT team, we have to find a middle ground, something fresh. I talked to Ian about the fact that she knows all these mixed combinations of martial arts, and her fascination with that has to be incorporated into what she wears, because she has no other hobbies in her life. So, this is her all-consuming frame of mind — we need to incorporate that into the clothing. We looked at the early 1900s war jackets and brought it back down from there. We ended up looking at Swedish military jackets and then stripped it all back. That was her character silhouette. She is also covered in scars, but there’s only two moments in the show when we see that and it’s at quite a pivotal moment in the story. Practicality played a lot into the costume design, Ian was amazing by working in the fact that she had protective bullet proof layers and places for concealing weapons. She looks intimidating and ready for battle. But at moments when she’s injured, and she has to take everything off, and she’s just there in the tank top, you realise this is someone who can die. As the show progresses, she begins to show that she’s actually human and so the idea of this bruising coming through or seeping out is important – it shows that this character that we think is invincible is very much human.
How would you describe Culprits overall?
It’s along the lines of Fargo meets Wanted meets Money Heist meets Hanna. But that’s the thing: it’s something new that you can’t really compare to anything else. The Culprits themselves are unique and bold. Tonally, it’s kind of dark but there’s humour in it as well and there’s a lot of heart. The heartbeat of the story is Nathan’s character Joe. He’s the way in for the audience to see and allows us to be introduced to all these characters. I suppose it’s an unconventional crime series with a drama narrative running through it.
