Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Matthew Macfadyen plays it straight on 'Ripper Street' on BBC America (Philly.com)


Ellen Gray, Daily News TV Critic
POSTED: Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 3:01 AM
* RIPPER STREET. 9 p.m. Saturdays, BBC America.


PASADENA, Calif. - You might not guess it to see him as Mr. Darcy to Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride & Prejudice" or the somber Victorian London police Inspector Edmund Reid in BBC America's new "Ripper Street," but Matthew Macfadyen sometimes has trouble keeping a straight face.
In fact, Jerome Flynn ("Game of Thrones"), who plays Reid's sergeant in "Ripper Street," says Macfadyen and co-star Adam Rothenberg ("Alcatraz") are "the two biggest gigglers I've worked with."

"Adam's terrible. He's terrible!" said Macfadyen in an interview earlier this month during the Television Critics Association's winter meetings. "We . . . got to a stage where we couldn't look at each other."

Given how many of their scenes involve dead bodies - Rothenberg plays a former U.S. Army surgeon with a murky past and a few forensics tricks up his sleeve - some gallows humor is understandable.

But then there was "Frost/Nixon," the 2008 film in which Macfadyen played David Frost producer John Birt.

"There's a lot of giggling with Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and I, because for much of it we were kind of in the back of shots . . . so there was a lot of naughtiness. And the more serious Frank [Langella, who played Richard Nixon] and Michael [Sheen, who played Frost] were, the more hysterical" the three became, Macfadyen recalled.

READ MORE: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/television/187997591.html

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