IF any criminal wants to outrun Jim Bergerac, the perfidious perp better be quick. When the second incarnation of the Jersey detective, Irish actor Damien Molony, sat down for an interview with the JEP while filming the latest series, which first aired last week, he had that morning run from Gorey to Bouley Bay and back along the coast – all before a full day of shooting.
Running for 42-year-old Damien Molony is not just a way to keep fit; it is also when he runs scripts through his head and discovers parts of Jersey that other brilliant-yet-flawed detectives rarely reach.
After his early coastal yomp, Mr Molony was fresh as a daisy speaking to Jim’s favourite newspaper at the Radisson Hotel, where his crew was based that day.
There was method in his active morning madness. Method-acting madness, if you will.
He said: “Running is not only important for my mind but it is also important, obviously, to stay in relatively good shape to play a detective who can sprint after the baddies.
“In this job, you can have some very early starts on set, when I might be picked up at 5am. Often, if I don’t run, I find that my face and body is waking up while we are already shooting the first scene.
“But if I can get out and run for 10 or 15 minutes every morning before filming, it means that I’m already up and at it and full of energy and bright eyed and bushy tailed.
“Also, I think the best thing about this job, being an actor, is the travel and the opportunity to explore new places. I have just lived in Malta for the last five months, so I was running there every morning.
“I think running is a great way to get to know a place and this year I’ve been able to starting to link places in Jersey together. So, this morning, for instance, Archirondel became Rozel which them joined up with Bouley Bay. I’d visited all those places individually, but running meant I could start putting the pieces of the Jersey jigsaw together in my own head.
“And that cliff path is extraordinary: the bays, the views and some of the houses … wow. I then I thought ‘God, if I put one foot wrong here both Damien and Bergerac could be a goner’.”
After the first series was well received, with 2.4m people watching it across U and U&DRAMA, making it the highest-rating show on UKTV’s network last year, series two is with us, with cherished British comedian Ade Edmonson joining the established cast of Mr Molony, Zoë Wanamaker, Robert Gilbert, Chloé Sweetlove and others, as well as a willing band of local extras – including this reporter.
After Mr Molony’s enthusiasm for his morning run, the next question for the star of his eponymous show is probably a bit too obvious: pleased to be back in sunny Jersey for round two?
“Absolutely,” was the reply, given in a lilting Irish accent which does jar somewhat with the more plumb English accent that viewers are more familiar with.
“It is great to be back for more Bergerac, but it is also great to be back in Jersey. One of the many good things about a second series is another chance to come back, which is my fourth time.
“I came for a weekend with my family earlier last year and did a walking tour of the oyster beds in Grouville and visited Gorey Castle; it was fabulous. Of course, it would be easy to say that liking Jersey is part of my job, but I genuinely love it here.
“I love Gorey especially and that part of the Island, which is where I asked to stay during filming. There is a lovely catering company who work out of Anneville Farm and I have been going there to eat in the evenings, and I had a great meal at Quayside in town last night.
“I also had a delicious meal at the Oyster Box when we filmed there for the first series – it is just so beautiful there.”
For those who are yet to dive into series two, it continues from the first outing of the reboot in that Jim continues to put his life together after the loss of his wife.
However, before his at-times troubled relationship with his daughter and mother-in-law has time to blossom, Jim has to investigate another murder – this time revolving around a wedding.
How has Jim’s character developed for this second series and how much of that has been Mr Molony’s input?
“Toby [Whithouse, the writer] does not really need any of my input because he is just so good at writing characters. In fact, he writes such a brilliant character-based show about this very troubled man that the crime element is almost by the by.
“At the heart of it is a family unit that is kind of missing this central piece. So, in series two, everyone has moved on a little bit. Time has passed but the wound is still there. I can talk about grief as being kind of a grief bullet that you get hit with it and it stays in your body. You never get rid of it, but your body just gets better at dealing with it.
“So, the grief bullet is still within him, but now Charlie [Hungerford] is dating, and Jim’s daughter Kim is moving to the mainland to study music in college, and so – without really realising it – he is losing his support network. Everyone is very worried about what happens when Jim is left to his own devices, and he’s worried as well. He is also starting to date.”
“That all said, the crime element this year is as thrilling as it was in the last series.”
Mr Molony said that there was continual dialogue between himself and Mr Whithouse to make sure that the actor’s output matched the vision of the writer.
He added: “Toby is always at the end of a phone call if I don’t understand anything so we can discuss any idea. He is also watching what we are filming every day so is free to chip in and say ‘listen, I’m not sure about that; it needs to hit slightly harder’.
“I also have this wonderful working relationship with Joss [Agnew, the director], who is just so fantastic at bringing a wonderful positive energy every single day.
“He also really understands character. So, it’s episode one and it is my first scene with Kim: we are sitting down, and she is saying ‘it is just five days before I have to head to the mainland’.
“And I am like, ‘oh my goodness, wow’. And so, she is saying how excited she is – she’s lying. I’m saying how excited I am for her – I’m lying.
“While the camera was setting up for the scene, Joss just said ‘everyone, just listen to this’. And he played the Beatles’s She’s Leaving Home. At that time, the scene was 90% men, setting up lights and cameras, and it was astonishing how the oxygen was sucked out of the room and everyone became very quiet and pensive.
“People suddenly felt this huge weight and it was very moving. The scene had this electric energy of sadness and longing, and I describe this series for Jim in those terms: he is incredibly lonely and longing to make a connection with someone, and he finds someone who excites him and this thrills him, but it slowly but surely becomes evident that she might be part of the case and that makes it difficult.”
Mr Molony said he was sure the second series would be as well received as the first.
“When we heard that it was happening, there a huge sense of pride and happiness because a lot of people worked incredibly hard to bring it to fruition: Toby’s writing, the effort of our Jersey producers to get things off the ground and Visit Jersey’s input to help make this Island look incredible, although they do not need much help in that.
“There was also a sense of relief that we had got it right in series one because we were bringing back something which was sacred. That show ran for ten years, and shows do not run for that length of time anymore.
“But you want a second series because it validates everyone’s hard work and the brave idea to bring it back. It was a lovely feeling knowing that people enjoyed watching it, and whereas some Islanders who were passing would ask what we were filming during the first series, this time everyone knew. It would be lovely to come back for a third series too.”
And since Mr Molony me the JEP, that has moved a step closer with government support confirmed and negotiations in train.
So, Bergerac looks likely to come back and with it, Damien Molony may be returning to a cliff path near you.
