Matthew Goode On Department Q: ‘I’m Really Proud Of It’

The protagonist of Netflix’s latest crime drama Department Q is… Hostile, to say the least. ‘He is a brilliant detective, but a horrible colleague,’ Matthew Goode, who leads the series, summarises for C&TH. ‘He’s extremely abrasive and irascible, vitriolically rude to anyone he can get his hands on, really.’ So how did Matthew feel about director Scott Frank writing the character with him in mind? ‘When he says that, I’m always like, “you have to explain that answer to people, otherwise they’re just going to think I’m an arsehole!”,’ Matthew jokes.

From ticking Scottish stars off his bingo card to the possibility of Department Q season 2, we sat down with Matthew for the inside scoop on the series.

Interview: Matthew Goode On Department Q

Hi Matthew, how’s life going at the moment?

Good! My life is OK, although the world seems to be touch and go, which is quite depressing. We’re navigating the fact that my daughter’s got her GCSEs, which is fascinating – so she’s off studying, poor thing. It feels a lot more stressful than when we did our GCSEs. Have they just gotten so much more difficult? I think they probably have.

You can currently be seen in Department Q – how are you feeling about the show being out in the world?

Well, there’s nothing you can do about it! I watched the whole thing prior to it being released, and I’m really proud of it. It was a joy to do but it was difficult: it’s always exhausting when you do long form television, because it’s effectively like making four or five films back to back. 

I don’t love watching myself. I also got ill at one point during filming, which has never really happened to me before. There were a couple of really big scenes where I had no voice, and then I had to redo my voice over it. So for me, when I watch those things, I sense my breath and my voice not being in my body, and I’m like, “Oh, God!”. But nobody else seems to mind.

I just hope that everyone likes it, because then we’ll get to come back and do a second season. I loved making this; it might be my favorite company of actors that I’ve ever worked with. They all have such great personality and style and, being central to the story, I got to work with everyone. I just loved it.

Scott Frank is an amazing director, too. I worked with Scott 20 years ago, and he’s a friend. We tested our relationship on this, I think! But we’re still friends.

Matthew Goode as Carl Morck in Dept Q. (Netflix)

Can you give an elevator pitch for Department Q for anyone who hasn’t watched?

Department Q is very dark, but it’s also got a lot of levity. I’d start by saying the star of our show is the books it’s based on written by Jussie Adler Olson. We’ve transposed it from Copenhagen, but essentially it’s set in the Edinburgh police force. Things aren’t going great. There’s not enough money. Crime rates are spiraling. Recently in Aberdeen, an old case 16 year old case was solved, and the higher ups loved the optics of that, so they decided that they’re going to put a lot of money and fund a new department, a cold case department, and to head it up, they use DCI Carl Morck, and that’s my character. He is a brilliant detective, but a horrible colleague. He’s extremely abrasive and irascible, vitriolically rude to anyone he can get his hands on, really. But he’s very damaged. He’s been on the murder squad for 15 years, and a recent event has left him suffering some trauma, both physical and mental. He also has an extremely interesting home life: he’s divorced, he’s a wreck of a man, which is a trope we’ve seen more than once in the detective genre, but you’ve never had it done by Scott Frank!

Scott Frank has been the best screenwriter in Hollywood for the last 30 years. He did Godless, which was amazing, and then obviously The Queen’s Gambit, which was sickeningly good – just one of the best pieces of television ever. So it bodes well for Department Q: if you liked those two, then you’ll like what Scott’s done with this. Department Q is extremely intelligent, nuanced, and Scott writes brilliant characters. He always treats the audience as being extremely intelligent. He doesn’t write down for them.

And Scott wrote Department Q with you in mind to play Carl…

I know! When he says that, I’m always like, ‘you have to explain that answer to people, otherwise they’re just going to think I’m an arsehole!’. But no, this is the second time that Scott’s given me a role. The first time was to play a hardened Kansas City bank robbing criminal, which I don’t really scream, if I’m honest. But I think you’re very lucky if someone can see that in you, because people do like to pigeonhole actors. I’m forever being put in a period drama. I’m very grateful for that, because the stories are always different. But with this, I get to push the boat out a bit.

Did you develop the character together?

Well, Scott actually told me there’s no point really reading the books because they don’t make any sense anymore now we’re in Scotland and he made me English. He did that to make me this outsider, which is very clever. Morck hates Scotland. He hates Scottish people. But he’s trapped there. The only reason he’s there is he got married, and the reason he hates it is because he had a terrible marriage to a Scottish lady, and it’s just another scar that he carries around with him.

Anything you can say on the likelihood of a second season?

That’s above my pay grade! I think it takes about a month for Netflix to collate the figures, but it has got a lot going for it. There are 10 books to mine more stories from for Department Q, so we’ve all got our fingers crossed. Scott wants to do it. I’m desperate to do it, and all the rest of the cast are as well, because we had such a good time. But one can’t count one’s chickens.

What was the cast like to work with?

The cast was like having a Scottish actor bingo card, and you’re just ticking them off! I’ve known Jamie Sives for a really long time; he’s so talented and so nice, and I’ve always wanted to work with him, so it was great that he was playing DCI Hardy, my partner, because we needed that really close relationship. 

I was terrified of Mark Bonnar before filming. He always plays someone that gives me the willies on screen. I looked up one of his last jobs, and I saw, he’d worked with my friend Ed Stoppard. So I phoned Ed and I said, ‘Is Mark Bonner terrifying in real life?’ And we was like, ‘No, you idiot! He is a sweetheart.’

It was great to work with a really strong female cast: Leah Byrne, Katie Dickie, Shirley Henderson… They’re probably the better characters on the screen. 

‘I’m always at home. I don’t want to be anywhere else, really.’ (© Lee Malone)

Any standout moments from filming?

Too many! It was fun filming on the ferry, because that was right up at the top of Scotland. It’s God’s country up there. I just love it up there – I’m the opposite of Morcke, I adore Scotland. It’s like my spiritual home, plus it has links golf which is very much one of my things. But filming on the ferry was a jaunt, and a lot of people got seasick! Otherwise, too many good scenes to name.

Anything in Department Q you’re particularly excited for viewers to see?

Just the whole thing, really! I really want them to get caught up in the puzzle. There’s lots of swings and roundabouts and twists and turns and that sort of thing. But I just want them to really appreciate the company dynamic of all our wonderful actors. I’m really proud of what we managed to achieve, how they made their characters flesh.

Did you get to film in Edinburgh much?

Yes, and a lot of people don’t normally get to do that. We were all over Edinburgh. It was amazing. Embarrassingly for me, at the age of 46 when we shot this, it was the first time I’d ever been to Edinburgh! I always go to the airport and then go to St Andrews or up somewhere else. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It’s the most staggeringly pretty city. And it actually suits us, because obviously it should have been Copenhagen. It transposes really nicely, because it’s the judicial centre and it’s got this medieval-modern vibe. It’s a real character in our show. Lots of filming in Glasgow, too.

Any favourite spots in Edinburgh post-filming?

A couple of little curry houses, a few pubs… If I didn’t have to work, which was very infrequent, I could be found in a quiet pub called the Star Bar; the lady that owned it was very good to me, and the bar staff were a lot of fun. I used to love reading Rebus, so I took a little excursion to The Oxford Bar to pay homage to Ken Stott. 

I was living in New Town, on Howell Street above a fishing tackle shop, and the view down to St Stephen’s and then Stockbridge, that stays with me. You know, I could live in Edinburgh. It’s not a particularly huge city, but the architecture does something good for me. And it was nice to be able to pop home on the Caledonian sleeper on a Friday night!

Any other projects you’re working on at the moment?

One, but my projects keep going down financially, which is quite annoying! So I’ve basically had a year off – which has been great, but the kids and my wife want me out of our house. I’ve got one thing coming up, but it hasn’t been announced yet, so I’m not allowed to be the one to do it. But it’s very exciting.

What has been your favourite project to date?

Department Q is up there. They all take a bit of your heart, really, because you work really hard, and you live and die by the sword each time. They’re all your babies, in certain ways. I’ll tell you what I did like: Birdsong. Purely because I wasn’t in it very much, and I got to hang out with 20 blokes! It was shot in Budapest, and the weather was lovely. It’s a fantastic city. And we were positively encouraged to go out and get drunk, because the men in the trenches were meant to look terrible, because half of them are dying each day, not eating very well, etc. So they were literally just like, as long as you know your lines, off you go, that’s fine. So I was out with Thomas Turgoose, Richard Madden and all these reprobates. It was wonderful. We don’t get to hang out as actors that much, really, so if you’ve got a load of them and you’re being encouraged to drink, that’s wonderful.

What’s a genre you’d like to do more of?

Something in the spy genre world will be quite fun. Governmental secrets, Cold War era, like a le Carre – that would be quite something to get one’s teeth into. You know, you never have any control over it, so if you set your heart on something it more than likely it’ll never come up. So it’s best to just just roll by the seat of your pants, really.

Who is an actor, writer or director you’d love to work with?

Loads, but one of my heroes is Kieran Hines. He’s with my agent, and he’s the nicest man. He’s super talented. There’s just something about him… He’s kind of one of my north stars. But there’s a plethora of brilliant actors I’d love to work with: Anthony Boyle, Jude Law… He’s fun. 

Just a load of good actors, please, who are a lot of fun and not too competitive. I don’t like those ones. I like people who can turn up and share the screen. That’s much more my thing.

Do you get to spend much time at home?

I’m always at home. I don’t want to be anywhere else, really. You certainly wouldn’t find me living in LA. The kids have sort of made me accidentally agoraphobic. The only people I see on a day to day basis are my mate Charlie who works in Coral where I put my bets on, and there’s a really great guy at the supermarket called Thomas behind the checkout. Thomas likes to talk about film, television and cricket, which I’m obviously very happy to do.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I’ve got a dog, so that requires a lot of walking. She’s a Romanian rescue called Suki. She’s about five now, and she’s the love of our life. She’s completely skitty and weird, but a brilliant guard dog – just in case anyone’s got any ideas! Recently, I’ve been walking her more than she was getting walked in the pandemic. If she could talk, she’d be saying ‘less, please!’. 

I often miss our summer holiday. My poor amazing wife will often be like, “Right, so it’s me and the kids again?!” So this summer, we booked one with friends and their children as well, just in case that happened again. But luckily, I’m going, too! So we’re off to Greece, to Corfu, and I’m so excited. I’m the dad who is probably a little bit too liquored up, but in the pool all day, willing to chuck one of those bouncing balls around that skid on the surface of the water. I can do that all day. My kids, anyone else’s kids, the other gents, whoever. I come out like a prune.

WATCH

Matthew Goode is Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck in Department Q. All nine episodes are available to stream now on Netflix.