Fiona Shaw Talks BBC’s Baptiste Series Two

Diplomatic Behaviour

The BBC’s detective show Baptiste just came back for a second series and here’s one of its stars Fiona Shaw who plays Emma Chambers talking about the new run…

What was it about the scripts and story which enticed you to this role?

I can say that I very rarely get a script as good as this one. This is beautifully honed. Jack and Harry have got a Dickensian type of ability to make stories weave one into the other. As you read pages and you turn over, particularly the new episodes, you cannot believe the turns, the twists, and the surprises!

I was daunted by the script as it is six episodes and the things that happen to this woman are unbearable. I have done a lot of Greek tragedy, they take a long time to prepare but they are an hour and a half long to perform. This is six hours of quite diabolical events and discoveries and you could be scared that the tone would be similar, but it isn’t because it keeps changing. The effect on the character, when I read it, felt like a human soul going through Dantes Inferno! I didn’t think television could be made like that, I have very much enjoyed the other series of Baptiste and The Missing – I don’t know if I dare say this but, this is even darker!

Can you outline the story for series two?

It’s split between two timelines which means that you’re always tracking the story. One morning she wakes up and her husband and two children are missing, so that is the premise of it. And then of course her meeting Julien Baptiste who, because of his psychology, wants to help her and they go through various horrendous events trying to discover what happened to her family.

Introduce us to Emma Chambers and her role in the series. 

Emma Chambers is the British Ambassador to Hungary in Budapest, and she had previously been the ambassador to Thailand which she very much enjoyed, and her children had enjoyed. Emma brings her family to Budapest, which is a landlocked land in that it has no sea and Budapest is moving slightly to the right politically, so one gets the feeling that she’s in a much more arid situation as ambassador to Hungary than she was in Thailand, so there’s been a change to their social fortunes.

To prepare for this part, I went to visit the British Ambassador to Hungary, and that was a very interesting moment of course because Brexit was in the middle of being achieved and they were having to both pick and unpick the bond between Hungary, as a rather reluctant member of the EU, and us British not being a member of the EU. None of that is directly dealt with in the story but there is definitely consciousness of political issues within the series.

What’s Emma’s relationship like with her husband?

I suppose it is not in any way a perfect marriage. Richard is obviously a very nice man who has probably relinquished a lot of his ambitions. He is an avid bird watcher and had a wonderful time photographing birds all over the world from where they’ve lived, but you definitely get the feeling that Emma’s been the career person and maybe he has been a better father and mother to the children than she has, so they are not in any way perfect people.

Her marriage to Richard is benign, but they have been scarred by the death of their daughter two years earlier. They’re in recovery and have certainly had huge fights, and they do quarrel in a way that frightens them both, so they’ve come up with a system where they always stop their quarrels at a certain point so that they don’t actually destroy their marriage. They do not want to say something unforgivable during a quarrel. I would say that they are stuttering along.

How does her family feel about her job?

We first meet the family when they are on a walk on their first weekend away for a while. Certainly, Emma is a workaholic so that has not helped with her maternal duties and maybe the boys have been able to develop slightly independently because of that so they are very close to their dad.

Emma is desperate to find her sons. What lengths does she go to in order to try and find them?

To be in a different country when your family goes missing, to not be able to go home, to be the ambassador; all these rather lonely feelings, as diplomatic families must endure, are very much little islands of their own. Emma meets Julien Baptiste and they both decide to go in a contrary direction to where the police are looking.

How is Emma first introduced to Julien Baptiste?

It’s an astonishing scene actually, Emma’s sitting in a hotel and starts looking frantically for her boys and she has been on the television making appeals to anybody who has any information to come forward, and obviously Julien Baptiste has seen it. We shot their first meeting very late at night in a hotel in Budapest, and Julien sort of sidles behind a pillar, appears and says, “I’d like to help you”.

Describe the relationship between Julien and Emma?

There’s something about Julien, which I think is true of both Tchéky and the character, that Emma is drawn to. There is something calming about him and as he sits down next to her, Emma feels she can trust him. Actually, one of the great pleasures of filming the whole six episodes has been spending time with Tchéky and exploring the relationship between this ambassador and the retired policeman. It’s both formal and incredibly intense. It’s a really unusual thing, you don’t often get to play that on a television series.

Why do people like the character so much Julien Baptise?

Julien’s an outsider so he often represents the people he’s helping because they become outsiders by virtue of what’s happened to them. He’s also speaking a language that isn’t his first, so it makes language focus in a different way. Every word seems to matter more as Julien must think in translation. Julien’s a man sort of on one leg or on the edge of a diving board, he is in the precariousness of life, somewhere between life and death, somewhere between life and tragedy. This sort of person is revered as the poet of the community, so he is a natural wondering minstrel poet who understands human life, just not necessarily the best person to live it.

What does Tchéky Karyo bring to the role of Julien Baptiste?

The many things that Tchéky brings to the character are the things that people like about him – his handsomeness, his wisdom, his calm pursuit and his stillness and thoughtfulness. I’ve enjoyed very much working with him. Tchéky talks a lot about the new wave French cinema that he was a part of, and I very much enjoyed our conversations whilst waiting to go to set. Tchéky is a unique person.

Tell us about the relationship between Emma and Zsofia

Zsofia is played by Dorka Gryllus, who is a great Hungarian actress. Zsofia is a major in the police force and Muslim, as is her father, so even though she is part of the police system in Hungary, her father is suffering at the hands of the right wing. That adds another complication, she’s someone standing on the precarious world between two sides of what is acceptable to the forces that be. Overall, Zsofia is partly someone who is observing and a part of the situation itself.

Can you tell us more about Emma’s relationship with Nadeem?

I wish there was a whole other series called Nadeem and Emma because I’ve loved being with Ace. Ace Bhatti always plays wonderful characters, and here he is, nearly head of the embassy.

Nadeem is Emma’s assistant who understands everything, who knows everything and who has to deal with everything. There is a bit where they both meet after the first search for her family and he’s there at the hotel and just sorts things out. He’s a very stabilising character. The story is so good that no one is ever in a still place. Nadeem is also a bit fed up with always jumping to the Ambassador’s tune, and crucially he misses a queue that he perhaps should have taken.

How was it filming in Hungary and why is it such a good backdrop for a drama like Baptiste?

Budapest is a unique city. It has a beauty that belies its history. Its history is utterly chilling, you have of course the blowing up of their bridges after the war, then the reign of terror in the 50s, you have a huge exodus of people, so it’s quite an empty city. It’s got all the grandeur of the Austrian Hungarian empire, but all of the horror that they haven’t quite cleared themselves out of yet.

It is very much a character in the show, and as always, it’s a privilege to film in these cities! We filmed in the famous railway station that was designed by Eiffel, as in the French Eiffel, so it is like this Parisian glass jewel box above the station. We of course filmed on the bridges and in the city – walking down Andrassy, which is the big main street, was a privilege. It’s got a strange sort of turn of the century feel about it, it has a darkness from its history, even though it’s got magnificent architecture and beauty.

What is it about crime drama and detectives that people like so much?

It is the intelligence. The great detectives are usually very quirky in their private lives, whether it’s Miss Marple or Columbo, they have a raggedness about their own lives with this searing ability to make judgements that are correct. It’s also very helpful that we have these ‘angels’ in our society who make quantum leap connections. They are lateral thinkers and usually instinctive as well. It is that instinctive element mixed with their intelligence and logic.

Often in crime drama, the police are looking logically through everything and then this person comes in from the left wing using a slightly different part of the brain and I think we all identify with that. We all want to be that person and say,” ah yes I have a hunch it’s here!”. We’re comforted that there is an asymmetry to the way in which humans function, and I think Julien Baptiste is that person because he is not necessarily the person you might make prime minister of a country, he’s not a great leader, he’s a loner and he is full of sympathy. People are charmed by him because he suffers no bullshit.

What type of journey are you sending audiences on when they watch Baptiste series two?

I’m hoping the plot, which could not be better, it’s a labyrinth of a plot. It’s so strong, so true, so well worked out and so dazzling that within it, I hope, the audience go on the journey of Julien and Emma as two human souls just trying to get to the other side.