Elliot Knight
Six-part drama 'By Any Means' concludes at the end of this week, so we stole some time with star of the show Elliot Knight to chat about his role, what to expect from the final episode and the possibility of a second series.
For those of our readers who aren't familiar with 'By Any Means', can you tell us a little bit about it and your character Charlie?
'By Any Means' follows a team of behind-the-scenes crime prevention team - not police - they basically go to the areas of crime where the police can't touch, and organised crime fighting units can't go to - in the public eye - to bring about real justice, treading the line between 'true' justice and what the law says is justice.
My character Charlie is a policeman who joins the team at the end of the first episode of the series. He ends up going undercover with them to help them bring down the guy that they want to. He ends up getting suspended as a police officer so he can't do that anymore so he decides to join the gang. That is his way to bring about light in the world, shall we say?
How do you find getting into character on-set?
I guess with any show it takes a while to settle in to your surroundings and figure out what you're trying to do, but it helps that I really like Charlie.
When I was working on developing the character it was very much trying to make the right choices for a young guy in this day and age who actually wants to do something good with his life - not for himself, for other people - and what he might be like. So it was quite fun to try and put that kind of character - for the show.
Once you get that I think we just all were so comfortable around each other when filming that it soon becomes something that you thought about doing and putting on it was just - we were the team. It's like we were a team off-set as well, as we were on camera. So yeah, it came almost like second nature really.
You touched on this a little bit - how was the chemistry between everyone on-set?
Really good! Which is a very helpful thing. Obviously when you're playing a team who are so closely in contact with each other all the time, it's almost a bit like 'Big Brother' - you think that there would be squabbles and different things but what was nice is just us people as well as the characters - we all represent different aspects of what makes the team good and I think for that reason we all got on very well. There were no conflicts or anything like that, so yeah we just had a lot of fun, that was the main thing, we enjoyed ourselves and what we were trying to do so it didn't really feel like work, most of the time.
How would you say the experience was of filming this series?
I got to come back home which was nice - obviously I'm from Birmingham.
We filmed a few locations - in fact where my character's house was, was right around the corner from where I actually grew up - a happy accident! So that was interesting.
Really fun though. Nice to be back home and with a new group of people and getting to show them around as well.
Any show you do where you create something new for people to watch is always very exciting so we had a great few months making it.
How does it compare to other projects that you've done?
The other big job that I did was 'Sinbad' a couple of years ago and that was the complete polar opposite of this character and this show. So not quite as exotic as shooting for nine months in Malta, as it is to be in Birmingham, but every show has its own merit and value and it was nice to do something that was based moe in the realms of reality with a more believable, realistic character. It was nice to be able to do something like that again.
The show comes to a head next week - what can you tell us about the final episode?
The final episode is going to be the most shocking, dramatic, daring episode of the entire series.
It's gonna go to places that the other five episodes haven't gone but were working towards.
I don't think the people who've been watching the series will expect the things that are going to happen, or how they'll feel about that even, but it's definitely one not to miss.
Should we expect a second series?
I hope so. I don't know if there's one happening or not definitely so we're gonna have to wait and see but the response that we've had has been really positive, so at the moment all signs point to yes but we'll have to wait and see.
Do you personally have any other projects coming up that you can share some details about?
Nothing I can talk about. There's lots of typical, secret things I'm not allowed to talk about but hopefully some exciting things. I'm going to L.A. next week, hopefully I'll have something to report pretty soon.
The final episode of By Any Means airs this Sunday at 9pm on BBC One.