Toby Jones, Monica Dolan and more on playing real people in Mr Bates vs The Post Office | BAFTA

all my dealings with him have been great, they haven't helped me much with interpreting him but they have been great, the

post

office

computer system spent an arm and a leg and is faulty, no one else has reported any problems with Horizon. one, you are responsible for the loss. I don't have that money and I don't know where he went. It's an incredible untold story of injustice and a bad keeper of justice and it was a story that I was aware of, but I wasn't... I didn't know all the details, so when I read the script, I was immediately struck by how important it was. what it was to tell this story and how compelling, tragic, horrifying, horrifying and important it was that I told this story and presented this incredible experience to the general public.

I mean, I'm a searching director, I love making true stories and dramas based on true events, but you look for something unusual in every choice and this was something

real

ly remarkable. I got a phone call from James Strong, the director, saying that he was doing this and that he wanted me to play one of the roles, that he was a

real

person, which is different for me. I don't think I've ever played a real person before um and the story of the

post

office

scandal. I had only heard bits and pieces about it um, so I went and looked into it.

I couldn't believe what I had found, but I also didn't scratch the surface even once. I started

playing

the character understanding what he had been through and what these

people

have been through and what the post office has put them through. This script revealed to me, you know the terrible daily toll of what happened to these

people

. That he had misunderstood what had happened was as much a driving force as the simple honor of

playing

the character of Alan Pates. When I was given the opportunity to be a part of this incredible project, I jumped at the chance because it is so important. story in the history of British justice and uh and it's a David and Goliath story of ordinary people taking on the power of a big institution, so it all ticks all the boxes for everything that I love about a good drama and something that has something to say about the world when I first came across this story I didn't believe it um actually like all the best true stories it's actually incredible to think that something as terrible and as widespread and as destructive as this could happen. in Britain, you know?

In our country, we are simply not used to thinking that our country is as presumptuous as this and that people are accused of crimes they did not commit, sent to prison, and have their life savings taken away in exchange for nothing. Being constantly told that you're the only one it's happening to and I thought it was completely outrageous and unbelievable, so when they asked me to talk to all the subpostmasters and turn their accounts into a drama, well, I mean, I bit them. . Casting this series was a big challenge because, first of all, there are a lot of roles and we wanted to have amazing people in as many roles, so you know the budget was a challenge, but we had to do it.

We aimed as high as we can and I really wanted to create an ensemble that had brilliant actors but also those actors that really inhabit the roles that they take on and you know it started with Toby Jones to play Alan Bates, he was just perfect. like this, every man standing up for himself in this David and Goliath story, but we wanted to surround him with a set that was real realism, it was a big consideration for me, I really wanted these people to feel like they were you. looking at real people these deficits were probably caused by you that is the publication of this case all our hopes all our savings overboard that was a lie actually Alan is a quite extraordinary man who presents himself as one of the people most common as I can meet and in fact that's true for a lot of the sub postmasters so when you came to play someone like that I needed to find out who it was that made him do this extraordinary thing of bringing together hundreds and thousands of people in one place. and stand up to the power of the corporate post office and that was a huge shock because it was pretty clear to him that, although he was fully prepared for the drama because it was drawing attention to the fight, he felt that he himself was not worthy. of being heroic because there was nothing unusual about him, he wasn't a great source of material, I mean, he was very friendly and warm and said, you know, the thing is, I'm not a very emotional guy, so then I went to chat with others who knew him and said that Alan Bates is one of the smartest and most inspiring people they have ever met.

There is a paradox about him. All my dealings with him have been great. They haven't helped me much to interpret it, but. They've been great, luckily I met Joe. You don't always get to meet the real people you're playing, but I met Joe at the reading and, in fact, as soon as I walked in the door to see the reader. I saw her, we saw each other and, um, we got pretty nervous, in fact, I asked Joe after a few email exchanges and some chat if he wouldn't mind recording his life story for me up to the point where the scripts begin, like this She very kindly made me an audio recording of her life story and that was extremely helpful because it meant that I had records of her experiences but I also had her voice so I could hear that going to set in the car in the mornings I could hear her voice and then that would put me in the right place certain performances that you do with different characters and the way you play them, this one had to be very real and make sure the emotion comes across and make sure it was believable and honest and that's All I wanted to do was show his journey through what he went through and tell his truth and I hope that comes through in what I did for Lee.

I met him today and it was very emotional to meet him because I played him and I know what he's been through and I read his story, so I just gave him a hug and said, man, I understand what you've been through. I can't feel what you've been through. via I play Suzanne in the series, who is Alan Bates' partner. I was very lucky to be able to go visit Alan and Susan at their home in North Wales just before we started filming. It has been a really wonderful experience for me. Suzan is very much behind the scenes in The Wider campaign there isn't much about her in the news or in any archives um I think it's a lot of the wind beneath Alen's wings but she is incredibly active and supportive in the campaign I would take the minutes for the meetings for justice for the sub post Masters campaign and she would draw them, she is a very talented artist, so she would draw these elaborate diagrams that show where people sit and where they are and she would also make sketches during court cases to have a unique perspective on the entire campaign story.

I played Sumon Kfal, which is a British Punjabi. I'm looking for a woman from Birmingham who runs a post office in Birmingham with her husband and I was lucky enough to meet the couple in real life and, um, and talk. I told them a little about what happened. I guess I generally got the character from the script and just from my initial reactions to it and connecting with the story, but also from meeting her and getting a sense of who she is. It's and a little bit of the Britishness of it and what's in the story, but like the identity of Birmingham and how it all just blends together.

I think through some kind of osmosis process it made sense. I play Paul Lenel, who was the um CEO of the post office, her job was to turn the post office into a multi-million dollar business, the contradiction in her character is that she is also an Anglican priest, which I found fascinating, I guess there are many ways people could represent it. she as the villain of the fish but to play a character you have to find the humanity in the character um and the villains in my head um they don't know that they are villains, they don't believe that they are villains and they find justification for all their actions and um and have faith also protected her in some way.

I play Angela vanen bogar, who works for the post office, she is Paula's second in command and she is right. At the heart of the story, it was a true privilege to be a part of the show. The highlight for me was sitting in the green room, offset by other actors who I've admired for years, listening to Toby, Alex and Monica talking. about their life, their stories and their careers, it was a real highlight of my career in general, actually, it's about the reputation of the post office, it's not about people's lives, finally 555 of us now We are ready to tell our stories, the challenge of a role like this is for you, you are playing someone.

I'm playing someone who not only exists, who is an exceptional human being, but one of the things that makes him exceptional and makes him very interesting to play is that he is extremely modest when it comes to confrontation and will not live up to the provocation, who is thorough, meticulous, tenacious, determined and honorable, uh, so when I talked to him, I'm constantly looking like an actor you're constantly looking for, but where's the scam? where is the other side of you? What is the cost of all this? My character goes through some pretty deep suffering and a lot of angst, so I guess the most challenging thing was getting to the psychological and emotional point to portray that in a really authentic way, so that was a challenge, but it was great because it was really satisfying to understand the part. which was written in transcription.

That is, I could only say what Paul de Venel had said in transcripts, emails, phone calls, and text exchanges, and I had to make that language fit. in my mouth and um, I've never had to do that before uh and that was it was it was hard to sound like um, to be convincing in the first part of filming for me, um, it was largely being alone, uh, being alone. at the post office, being alone on the help line and experiencing everything in a fairly isolated way and, in a way, recreating the problems that Joe had had in a fairly isolated way, so what I was really expecting and what It was wonderful.

It was the time when I met the other subpostmasters. It was a great moment when we first got together to form the group and I remember this trickle that became a stream of post office work. uh, postmasters coming from all over the country. to this Village Hall that Allen had organized and which was also very moving that day, suddenly you see all these actors who have gone through similar scenes in other places but in isolation and then, laterally, also the scenes in which we face To the post office. In court there are many moments in the drama that I am proud of PL and there is a kind of knowing that you are like a kind of father with your favorite children and some weeks it is that and other weeks it is This I think I remember the day that the most What I remember was when we re-created the characters coming out after receiving their compensations, their criminal convictions were overturned outside of the actual royal courts of justice and we had a huge crowd. many extras and the emotion that was present that day, with the real actors, with everyone, the crew, people were crying, people felt the enormity of what we were doing and the power of what we were doing. we were doing and hopefully that will be captured and conveyed in some way to the audience.

What we really want to achieve with this program is simply to make sure that

more

people know what happened. It's truly extraordinary how, even after 20 years, many people I know have never heard of this story. I think the story needs to be seen in its entirety. You can't really make out a highlight, certainly not a real highlight. The enormity of the story, how long it lasted and what they were. People have been through is something that, uh, I want the nation to witness. I think it's a universal story. Know. I think the idea that corporations and big companies can cheat the people who work for them is everywhere.

But the message is stimulating. What we should take away from that is, from this particular story, is that there is a counterattack.