Juliet Stevenson on new crime thriller Wolf: ‘You really, really can’t see anything coming’
It is fair to say that new BBC crime thriller Wolf pulls no punches in the “thriller” department.
Dark, disturbing, cruel and gripping, the series, based on the terrifying crime novels of Mo Hayder, tells a horrific tale of a psychopath’s sadistic games and a young DI’s attempt to uncover what happened to his brother, who disappeared when he was a child.
With a cast packed with familiar faces, Wolf will see Game Of Thrones’ Iwan Rheon and Owen Teale perform alongside Truly, Madly, Deeply star Juliet Stevenson, Doctor Who’s Sacha Dhawan and The Midwich Cuckoos’ Ukweli Roach.
Wolf’s story is split over two parallel narratives: one following DI Jack Caffery’s mission to solve the mystery of what happened to his missing brother, and the other focusing on the wealthy Anchor-Ferrers family who, in their isolated house in Monmouthshire, become trapped and terrorised by a cruel psychopath.
Of course, these two narratives eventually collide, resulting in a nail-biting thrill ride that’s as disturbing as it is engrossing.
“They’re (an) upper middle class family, quite well off, but there’s a certain frailty to the family,” says Stevenson, 66, who plays Matilda Anchor-Ferrers.
“They’re returning at the beginning of the series to their house in Wales, where they haven’t been for a long time, because it was so haunted by this murder five years ago. The whole area was so steeped in that horrific memory of that double murder that they hadn’t been able to return.
“So this is sort of the beginning of them coming back and reclaiming this kind of paradise spot where they can be a family together.
“But, as we shall see, it’s not quite so straightforward.”
“There’s a lot of lovely cars, and clothing, and (a) beautiful second home, but you’re very aware that they’re carrying some baggage with them from the past – as people, as families do.” adds Teale, 62.
“And very quickly, it will be brought to the surface, shall we say…”
When something horrifying happens outside the Anchor-Ferrers’ family home, DCI Honey and DC Molina, played by Sacha Dhawan and Iwan Rheon respectively, are sent to take a look.
“You meet DCI Honey and DC Molina, they are initially two very kind and considerate detectives, particularly Honey, he reassures the Anchor-Ferrers family when something pretty horrific is happening outside their four walls,” explains Dhawan, 39.
“These two detectives are invited into the house to kind of put the family at ease. And you do feel quite safe with them. But it quickly conspires that they aren’t quite who they are.
“By the end of episode one, Honey reveals himself as a complete psychopath, basically, and I think what makes it quite scary is he is not here to rob them of their wealth or take their possessions, he’s here for a mysterious reason that they don’t know.
“And he says to them, he’s here to hold them hostage. It could be for a couple of days, it could be three weeks, it could even be a couple of months.
“And he puts the family through quite a horrific event.
“But it quickly also conspires that yes, Honey is slightly deranged, but his intentions of why he’s doing what he does are… there’s a clear motivation behind that, there’s very clear intentions, it’s not just being crazy for the sake of it.”
Meanwhile, DI Jack Caffery is trying to put together the pieces of his brother’s disappearance, and employs some unconventional policing tactics thanks to the impact the loss has had on him.
“The impact is huge,” says Roach, 36, of Jack’s brother’s disappearance.
“To be honest… the way that I saw it is that it’s stunted Jack, in a lot of ways.
“I think that trauma of him losing his brother, and always blaming himself, is something that is unresolved and so … he’s always had this tumult inside of him.
“And that’s kind of fuelled him onto everything else.
“And also a desire for revenge, I think that he has, that he takes out on those who target the weak. I think that’s propelled him into the career in the police, I’m not sure he really would have gone into a career in policing if it weren’t for that trauma initially.
“So I think it’s really shaped the whole direction of his life. And his outlook on bullies, on people who target the vulnerable.”
Despite his trauma, Jack does not fall into the typical stereotypes of a TV detective, but that’s not to say he’s without his demons.
“His willingness to break the law that he works for, number one, I think is a big one,” says Roach of the darker side of Jack Caffery.
“And also that he’s willing to use unorthodox methods to solve a crime, or to get answers.
“Whatever it is, he’s willing to go above and beyond and to go into dark places, I think, dark recesses of himself and almost act criminally in order to catch a criminal.
“That was one of the things, for me, that really excited me about the part, is his willingness to go into a dark place as opposed to play the white knight, so to speak.”
The two narratives explored in Wolf are, therefore, distinct both in tone and in content: you have a viscerally terrifying, and at times darkly comic, plotline with the Anchor-Ferrers, and a slow burn character mystery with Jack.
“You really, really can’t see anything coming,” says Stevenson.
“I mean, we’re all quite sophisticated now at kind of guessing where something might be going, or where the criminals might be lurking in the narrative.
“But actually, on this one, you really, really don’t see anything coming. It’s constantly surprising in both stories.”
