10 Things We Learnt About Luther: The Fallen Sun From Radio Times

Maverick Behaviour

Luther: The Fallen Sun sees Idris Elba return as maverick detective in this Netflix one-off film and here’s 10 things we learnt about it from a feature over at our friends at Radio Times…

1. Even though rumours have circulated for a number of years that have suggested Elba would make a good James Bond, the actor has no interest in stepping into 007’s shoes, with a little nod to Bond in the Fallen Sun there: “”My Bond audition? Oh my God, no! I’ve been saying for years, no!…The martini line is a bit cheeky, isn’t it? I was like, ‘Neil, are you sure you want to put that in?'”
2. But he is at pains to point out that both the London detective and the world’s most famous fictional spy both have their plus points: “Not ‘better’, no…Luther’s equally engaging, equally sexy and great to see visually. But Bond is from a universe where espionage was the way to capture. Luther is from the world where you bang on the door, ‘Are you in there? I’m coming in.’ I think Luther fits with a bit more of a modern-day bad guy as opposed to someone from the taking-over-the-world style.”
3. He is happy to be returning to Luther one time: “”That character is so well written…You could have Luther opening an envelope for 10 minutes and you’d still go, ‘Oh my God, what’s in the envelope?’ because he’s just that kind of character. It’s still exciting to me because we’re not talking about season 1 of Luther. It’s evolved and grown and we’ve got bigger and braver.”
4. There is a moment in The Fallen Sun when Luther stands on a rooftop above London and he admits that this scene wasn’t easy to film but well worth it: “That moment…because that’s one of the anchors of the show, isn’t it? Being above London, looking out at the town. It’s a trope, that coat and standing on the rooftop. It’s sort of become a national treasure. Although, I don’t want to ruin it for you, but the flappy cape moment was very hard to actually orchestrate. It wasn’t very superhero. I had a guy under me with a leaf blower and that didn’t work so in the end we had to get some string! But that was a great little moment when I was like, ‘Man, we made it.'”
5. The move from episodic TV to a longer form story gave the production a lot more freedom and ambition, the actor reveals:”I was in Dagenham in a tank, 10 feet underwater, and I had to have a chuckle to myself like, ‘What have you got yourself into this time, Luther?’ I did a lot of prep both mentally and physically because it’s really tiring being John, he’s relentless. Stunts or no stunts, you’re constantly shooting in the pouring rain at four o’clock in the morning.…I’m like, ‘Can we do a story in the Caribbean?’ Mind you, it would still be raining if we did – that’s just part of the texture of Luther.”
6. The team needed to be careful with the switch from series to one-off, as the show’s creator Neil Cross was aware of the potential pitfalls here:”The history of moving from TV to bigger screens is not a happy one…but that’s because they get a bit more money and immediately take them out of that world and send them somewhere else. We were clear that whatever we did had to belong to the same territory that we’d established in the TV series. It couldn’t be Luther in Marbella. It still had to smell and sound and feel like Luther.”
7. Elba shared Cross’ anxiety to make sure that Luther still worked in a different setting if they took him out of London: “”We could take him out of Luther-land, drop him in Thailand, and he’s still going to have that grit. He carries a bit of rain everywhere he goes. [But] of course you could get it wrong and it would be devastating because everybody would be like, ‘It was a great show, why did you need to do that?’ For those who knew it on the BBC it’s our little thing. I felt like I was giving my baby away. We know the fans love it, it’s just whether they love this iteration of it. The audience are smart. They expect Luther to be really, really good. You’re not allowed to be a bit rubbish, you’ve got to keep that standard up all the time. And we want a new audience to love it, too.”
8. Even though the film doesn’t feature Ruth Wilson as psychopathic killer Alice, Elba says that Cross doesn’t rule out seeing her again in a future one-off: “I don’t think anyone can replace Alice in Luther’s heart,” he says. “I think as storytellers we are custodians of something that a lot of people also own, and Alice is a big part of that. I think we all want to see that happen but you’ve got to be careful not to do it badly. There’s an idea, but I don’t want to over-speak because I think Neil wants to own it.”
9. Although nothing is definite, the Luther actor hints that there is likely to be more big-screen Luther adventures on the horizon: “I can see us doing a three-hour film one day,” he says. “Doing a film gives us time to really unpeel John like an onion. I want to know so much more about him: where’s his dad, what toll has his wife’s death taken on him? Films give us the space to explore that.”
10. Even though the character debuted back in 2010, Elba sees that he is still relevant thirteen years later: “Luther’s superpower is conviction. He’s going to get there, no matter what it takes. Fiction plays a massive role in our absorption of the real world. We can live in escapism just so we can breathe or be scared or let out some anger or some laughter, and Luther does sit in that space at a crucial time. It’s just entertainment but, come on guys, don’t we want people like that in our lives? People who will break out of prison to keep a promise. Don’t we want people like that, a little bit?”

Read the whole piece here