Andrew Scott has revealed how he thinks his character in the new Netflix series Ripley compares to his villainous role in Sherlock.
The Irish actor takes the lead in the new limited series about a grifter who is hired by a wealthy man to convince his son to return home from Italy, before a tale of deceit, fraud and murder ensues.
The show is based Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 crime novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was also adapted for the big screen for the 1999 film of the same name, which starred Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaking to HuffPost UK ahead of Ripley’s release on Thursday 4 April, the Fleabag star reflected on whether his new role bears any resemblance to the notorious Jim Moriarty in the BBC show Sherlock.
The Bafta winner confessed that while it was “fun” to return to a darker character again, he finds the two characters exist in “very different territory”.
“I feel Moriarty is a villain, and even though I know Tom Ripley does very villainous things, I think of him as a hero, as a protagonist, rather as an antagonist,” he shared.
The Spectre actor elaborated that he doesn’t feel like his latest character is a “natural born killer”, but rather sees him as “somebody who’s just trying to survive – he’s not bloodthirsty”.
He continued: “So even though it’s dark, it was dark in a very different way in the sense that he’s quite solitary, and ideologically he’s quite elusive, and that’s part of the stuff that you have to sort of carry around with you for a lot of the time”.
Andrew concluded that he found it “challenging” but “not necessarily because of the darkness, because there’s a lot of lightness and vulnerability and charm in there as well”.
The All Of Us Strangers actor stars in the new eight-episode series from Steven Zaillian alongside Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn.
Back in November, Andrew confessed that he wasn’t so sure about playing antagonistic roles in the future, admitting that he thought he “wasn’t that good” playing the villainous C in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre.
Speaking to GQ, he added that he’s more interested in the “grey areas” of his characters.