When you first told people you were working on a show called Sherwood, would you inevitably have to explain that, no, it’s not a new Robin Hood?
Yeah, exactly. The word “Sherwood” has massive connotations to it. But I think that’s deliberate on [creator James Graham’s] part. He’s playing on the idea of a certain place being both hindered and helped by its legend and its past. What happened in season one was, effectively, two outlaws went and hid in Sherwood Forest, and there was a manhunt. He was mining that for all it was worth . . . But yeah, I did have to explain that I wasn’t playing Robin Hood or Friar Tuck.
One of the intriguing things about this show is how it really dissects crime as the symptom of larger social ills . . .
A certain strand of British television has always been about examining “where we are now” . . . With this particular one, I think James is interested in shifting the emphasis in local government and social services away from dealing with the consequences of crime to dealing with how we prevent crime, how we get ahead of the curve as a society — and how we create opportunities, particularly for young people, to take them away from a life of crime.
Your character, Ian St. Clair, is no longer a cop in season two. He’s pivoted to social work. How has that changed his perspective, his mission?
He was a policeman who truly believed in the function of the police as serving the public. And he was disillusioned of that in season one — once he found out about the “spy cops,” once he found out that there were things happening behind the scenes he didn’t know about which were designed to destabilize a whole community. He was really heartbroken. He’s now outside of the police force, but he’s advocating change. Like he says in episode one, he couldn’t change it from the inside, so now he’s going to try and change it from the outside. What he’s really trying to do in the Crime Reduction Unit is be someone who can bring all of these [disparate] elements of social service together . . . make it easier for people to get help when they need help — rather than months and years later.
You’ve been on both The Walking Dead and Doctor Who. Do those utterly rabid fanbases still follow you wherever you go?
Yeah, of course. But in both those shows, I came in, I did my bit and I went out. Obviously with The Governor, I was there for two seasons. With Doctor Who, I was there for one episode. So, it’s not like I’m Andrew Lincoln or Norman Reedus or David Tennant. It’s not like I have been the front-and-centre of a massive, iconoclastic show . . . yet [laughs]. They loom large for me in certain territories, but I’m not the poster boy for them, which is great.
You really have jumped from project to project in your career. Could you imagine if you’d booked, say, a Law & Order and spent 10 years on one show?
I like the opportunity to mix it up — possibly because I get bored quite quickly . . . I think there’s something about being a travelling player, there’s something about never knowing what your next job’s going to be, having the opportunity of change and adventure . . . Another word for that is “insecurity.” I work and live in a very insecure profession, and there must be something about me that enjoys that insecurity — because I don’t want longevity in terms of a long, long job.
Sherwood, streaming Thursday, November, 21, on BritBox
MEMORABLE ROLES:
A prolific star of stage and screen in the U.K., Mr. Morrissey is best known to North Americans for his turn as The Governor — the first and still most iconic “Big Bad” in the Walking Dead universe. He’s also led such hit British crime dramas as The Driver, The Missing and The Long Shadow. In 2006, he matched wits with Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2, playing the court-ordered psychiatrist of notorious femme fatale Catherine Tramell.
CURRENT GIG:
The strapping Brit returns for season two of Sherwood, the gritty, complex drama about a small mining town where long-buried secrets, feuds and sins of the past are always just a murder away from being dredged back up.