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Auto Talk: Life on Mars star Phil Glenister
14 February 2007 Alex Eckford gets the lowdown on the time-travelling detective show from star Phil Glenister. Find out why the actor thinks the show is a victim of its own success, and why this series will be the final one. If there's one meeting I don’t want to be late for, it’s one with TV's toughest cop. Will he crush my neck in a headlock? Push my head into a sink-full of water? Ask me to detect him a packet of Garibaldis? As I arrive at our pre-arranged central London meeting point, I'm relieved when, instead of running me over with his trademark orange Cortina MkIII and calling me a stupid berk, Phil Glenister greets me warmly. Life on Mars crashes back onto our screens this week. The hit BBC1 show stars John Simm as Detective Sam Tyler, a policeman who gets knocked down by a car and wakes up in 1973. The question is - is he mad, in a coma, or really back in time? The second series of the show will be the last. So why finish it now? "We felt pretty strongly that there's only so long you can keep a guy in a coma," says Phil. "The danger is, if you write something which becomes a long runner, you lose sight of what you were writing about initially. "One of the reasons for winding it up is because it's a victim of its own success - but in a good way," says Phil. "Hopefully we'll end up with something which will be remembered as a bit special. "The last thing you want is to be five years down the line with people coming up to you saying 'Why are you still doing it? It used to be a brilliant show.' "But having said that, everybody's re-forming at the moment. The Police re-formed at the Grammys, maybe we could reform as '70s police in five years time!" The gruelling film schedule has also taken a toll on the cast. "It's a long shoot - we're making eight hours of telly, but it's six months of your life. And because we film in Manchester it's quite tough because we're away from our families. John's wife and my wife have to put their careers on hold for six months while we go off and earn the lolly by camping it up as '70s cops." Making a welcome return on the show is DCI Hunt's Cortina MkIII. "It should have its own series on BBC3 - The Cortina Years," says Phil. "There's still no power steering on it, and the back seats have come loose. I had (co-stars) Marshall Lancaster and Dean Andrews in the back - we'd come to a screeching halt and they wouldn’t be able to get out because their legs were pinned against the backs of the seats!" Nor is the venerable Cortina well-equipped for stunt-driving: "We were filming in Bolton on an old cobbled street - like Coronation Street. As you can imagine the suspension on the Cortina is not great. We had to race down the street so quickly the underside of the car kept hitting the road BAM! followed quickly by us going AAH! You could see the sparks flying out. "There's a team of guys who look after the cars, and after every take you’d see them with their heads in their hands!" Like the first, the new series boasts a cavalcade of tasty retro motors. "In the first episode Marc Warren drives a green Triumph GT6. There's a Hillman Imp, and some great old Allegro police cars. Actually, they're horrible looking cars. Probably designed by the same person who designed the Millennium Dome." As well as the best wheels, Phil gets the best one-liners. The Sahara-dry delivery of lines like "Don’t move - you're surrounded by armed bastards" has made DCI Gene Hunt one of the nation's best-loved screen characters. But he's keen not to over-shadow his co-star. "I get the odd one-liner here and there for comedy moments, but I don’t like it when the attention gets drawn away from John's performance, because he has a tough old role to do, and does it magnificently. I get all the showy stuff, but I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. Appropriately enough, Phil himself is a classic car fan. "I love the Ferrari Dino. That's got to be one of my all time favourites, mainly because Tony Curtis drove one. And I'm a big fan of the Astons - DB5s, DB7s, DB9s. I loved the V8 Vantage which Timothy Dalton drove. There's something about the style of them, they're just fantastic. "I also love the Lotus Espirit, and the Ferrari 308 GTS which Magnum used to drive. Phil has a particularly fond memory of one '70s icon. "My best mate's dad had a Jensen Interceptor. I used to love going out in that. He used to wear a flying jacket and big '70s shades. We felt like the coolest kids in the world." And of course he knows the best place to go shopping for used cars. "I bought my second car, a grey BMW 320, through Auto Trader," says Phil. "I'd just moved to West Hampstead, and I bought it in Kilburn. I was in love with it. It felt like the first proper car I'd owned. The first actual car was a black Peugeot 206 GTi." Rumours have been circulating about a Life on Mars spin-off series. In keeping with the current show, it would be named after a David Bowie song. "There's talk of doing a series called Ashes to Ashes with DCI Hunt, set in the '80s. I'm going through David Bowie's back catalogue and making series from every song title. I'll be in work for years. And if that runs out I'll go on to Tin Machine. But it's very much in the early stages. Nothing is finalised. "I'm not sure about the title, though. Perhaps I should come up with a new character name. Dino Testosterone!" See Life on Mars on Tuesday nights at 9pm on BBC ONE and 10pm on BBC FOUR. Auto Trader links Auto Talk: Jodie Kidd |
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