“A quaint Scottish town hides sinister secrets,” reads an ominous-sounding description. Welcome to Coldwater! The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln stars as a depressed and repressed family man in the twisty new ITV thriller series created, written, and executive produced by playwright and actor David Ireland (The Lovers, Ulster American, Cyprus Avenue) that is launching on ITV1 and streamer ITVX on Sunday. Ewen Bremner, Indira Varma, and Eve Myles also star in the six-part series.
Coldwater marks Lincoln’s long-awaited return to British TV. He plays John, who moves his family from London to the rural idyll of the fictional town of Coldwater. Upon arrival, John is quickly befriended by his charming, confident next-door neighbor Tommy (Bremner), a devoted husband to the local vicar Rebecca (Myles).
“John is both impressed and slightly fascinated by Tommy. His wife Fiona (Varma) despises him,” reads a synopsis of the series. “When her husband’s relationship with their enigmatic new neighbor becomes increasingly intense, Fiona’s suspicions are aroused. She is unconvinced Tommy is all he seems to be. When John’s long-repressed rage comes to a head with disastrous results, he soon finds himself unexpectedly indebted to his new friend, unaware that Tommy himself is harboring horrifying secrets.”
Concludes the synopsis: “This is the story of a normal man, in a normal marriage, who finds himself in a far from normal situation.”
The thriller series, produced by Sister Pictures (Black Doves, Eric, Chernobyl), is directed by Lee Haven Jones (A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, Passenger, Doctor Who) and Andrew Cumming (Shetland, Payback, Cold Feet). Produced by Brian Coffey (Dinosaur, Our Ladies), the show is executive produced by Chris Fry (Black Doves, Kaos, Landscapers), Alice Tyler (The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies), Lydia Hampson (The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies, Cheat, Fleabag), and Jane Featherstone (Black Doves, Eric, Chernobyl) for Sister, Ireland and Lincoln.
ITV Studios is handling international distribution of the series that will also be airing and streaming on STV and STV Player in Scotland.
Lincoln and Ireland talked to THR about their creative partnership on Coldwater, balancing thrills and drama, what else audiences can expect from the series, and why Lincoln had to fight fits of laughter on set.
Andrew, everybody has been looking forward to your return to British TV with Coldwater. Can you talk a little bit about what drew you to this project and how you found out about it?
Lincoln Sister Pictures sent it to me. I read it, and I immediately said: “Absolutely not. It terrifies me! It’s too frightening. It’s too hard.” I said it twice, and then I couldn’t get away from it. I kept returning to it. And then I met David, and we had an hour-long Zoom, and we talked it all out.
I knew about David’s work. I’d seen his plays, and I’d read The Lovers, which he wrote. A friend of mine sent the script to me five years ago when I came back from America, and I asked, “Who are the voices that we need to look out for?” I loved his writing then.
I just thought Coldwater was frightening. It’s a man in crisis. It’s a really tough opening scene. It’s a tightrope walk this one, but I felt I had to do it. It scares me significantly enough. But I also felt in good hands with Sister. So yeah, it was irresistible, really. I just felt that it made me laugh in all the wrong places, and it made me cringe with recognition, and also, his characters constantly surprised me with their unpredictability. So I just thought I had to do it.
David, do you know how you made Coldwater so difficult for Andrew to let go? You always seem to write things that crawl under your skin…
Ireland It’s a complete mystery to me. I don’t know how it happens. It just kind of happens naturally. I get an inspiration from somewhere, and I just go with it. Usually, it starts with me wanting to write something. With this one, I wanted to write something that’s a bit like Straw Dogs, Deliverance, or Eden Lake or The Wicker Man, something about an urban modern man placed in a dangerous rural environment. I love those kinds of stories. So, that’s where it all started.
‘Coldwater’
Courtesy of ITV
In The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes was also a character who was placed in a dangerous environment. Is there anything that your Coldwater character John has in common with Rick? Or how different are they?
Lincoln He’s a lot like me, I suppose. That’s the only concession I would make. One of the reasons I wanted to do this was that it made me laugh. David has a real knack for writing dark, dread-filled, fearful comedy. And I like it. He tickles you as he’s pushing you off a cliff. And that is my sweet spot.
I also liked the crisis that the man is in. To try and sustain a man in free fall for that amount of time was quite exciting for my masochistic kind of sensibility. I like to push myself. What’s very similar to Mr. Grimes is that he’s a man who can endure a great deal of psychological pain. I think Dave isn’t like that, but he gets given something in this first episode that really is sustaining to him. It’s a source of a sense of hope or connection with a man. For the first time in a long, long time, he feels that there might be a solution to his angst, existential pain, midlife crisis, whatever you want to call it. That’s the bit that I keyed into and that I thought was really interesting.
David, your writing often deals with themes of masculinity, violence, repression, and religious things. When I look at the world, there seems to be a lot of those things going on as well. Do you ever think about how timely things you write should be or do you develop ideas and ignore what’s going on in the real world?
Ireland It’s funny you should say that, because I remember when I first started out writing, my first couple of plays would be sent out to theaters, and they’d get rejected because people would say: “Well, it’s a bit too extreme and it’s a bit too overwhelming, and there’s too much going on, and everyone behaves in such an extreme way.” Now, people don’t say that anymore. I feel like the world has caught up with me.
When people say my plays are shocking, or whatever I write is shocking, it’s like: “Well, look on social media! Look how overwhelming and extreme social media can be.” I generally ignore the outside world and just write something. Neil Simon, one of my favorite playwrights – a very different writer from me, said: “Just ignore fashion and let fashion come to you.” I just kind of do my own thing. Whether or not people like it is up to them.
Andrew, you mentioned your character in Coldwater is depressed but also repressed. How do you tap into something like depression and repression? Do you read about that, do you listen to music, or how do you find those dark places?
Lincoln Music is important to me. If I have to do a big emotional scene, I’ll do some preparation. I like reading and reading around subjects. There’s a brilliant book. Benjamin Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World. And he’s got a new book out called The Maniac, which is brilliant as well. He sort of writes 95 percent non-fiction and 5 percent fiction. It’s really interesting. There’s a chaoticness to his writing. He pulls lots of seemingly unconnected strands together. So, I like reading around things that interest me.
‘Coldwater’
Courtesy of ITV
We are also fortunate with the show that we got this extraordinary ensemble of actors. If you’re in a scene with somebody who’s trying to do the same thing that you are, which is make the scene as real and as powerful and as true as possible, then you’re in business. And we had a great director, we had a great crew that were all really invested and actually looked forward to seeing what was happening, because David’s writing is so unpredictable.
We also used to have a line run. This is really unusual. We used to do it with The Walking Dead a lot, too. A lot of actors don’t want to do it. But because a lot of the actors at the core of this show are from theater, they loved it. It also involves everybody, all the crew, so everybody would crowd around, and you do the scene for them. I used to get more nervous for that than the actual scene.
David is also an actor. For example, he played the role of Sean Devlin, the father of Nicola Coughlan’s Clare, in Derry Girls. So, I was wondering, will audiences see David Ireland in Coldwater?
Lincoln I wanted him to play my shrink.
Ireland I sort of wrote it and had myself in mind for that part. And then when it got closer to the time, I thought, “Why would I ruin my own show by appearing?” And then Jonathan Watson’s name came up. And I was like, “Johnny Watson would be perfect.” He’s so brilliant. He’s one of the highlights of the show.
But I do have a cameo. I wrote a scene for myself. I wrote quite a funny monologue, which had nothing to do with the story. I just wanted to write myself a fun monologue where it was me and Andrew, and I had all the lines. And then it got to three days before filming, and I cut all of it. I thought: I cannot put myself through this. It’s giving me anxiety. So, it’s now reduced. I say two lines, but it’s quite a fun little scene. I think it’s a good scene. I thought I was going to be horrified watching myself, but it’s a fun scene.
Lincoln I wish you’d done the speech. I was so cross with you!
Ireland I know, but it was giving me nightmares thinking about it.
What role do you play then, David?
Ireland A another dad who’s on a play date with John.
Lincoln Wasn’t he called Dave, too?
Ireland He was called Dave! I should have given myself a different character name than my own name. But again, I thought it was a really funny joke when I was writing it.
‘Coldwater’
Courtesy of ITV
What was the hardest part about the show? Was there any scene particularly difficult and challenging to pull off?
Lincoln I found it very difficult not to laugh. There were so many funny actors. I had to do the first scene with Johnny Wayson, and in my close-up, I just kept laughing. I wasn’t able to look him in the eye, because he’s just lethal. He’s one of the best actors I’ve ever seen. And the same thing happened with Abigail Lawrie. She’s this marvelous young actress. And Andrew Cumming, the wonderful, brilliant director, along with Lee Haven Jones, really got serious with us because we were terrible. She is a terrible giggler. There was a lot of mischievous kind of energy on set, and I hope that that humor found its way into the final edit.
Ireland For me, it’s the first time I’ve ever written a full-length, six-hour drama-thriller. So, it was about keeping it focused on character, but also having cliffhangers and hooks to keep the audience watching, while keeping it authentic, not being cheap. That was the challenge of it for me, and getting to the end, it’s quite an exhausting process. It’s much more challenging than theater, I find.
Also, I like things with two characters that go on for 20 pages. So, I could have written a whole series of just two or three characters in a room, but people generally tend not to like that. Still, for me, some of the best scenes are scenes that are long, extended scenes with a small number of characters, like two dinner party scenes where I could really take my time.
Lincoln I love all of them. I mean, David writes so beautifully. And we were so lucky to have this ensemble that knew the inherent rhythm of it and were very generous. There are lots of laughs in there as well, and it’s just about keeping the line and making it as true as possible, doing it straight.
It was the scenes, including the domestic scenes, that made me want to do it, because I just thought that they were so perfectly pitched. They were so well written and fun and mercurial. They just move so quickly between venom, humor, intimacy, warmth, and then bitterness. It was brilliant. I’m a big admirer of his writing. But also, funny is important to me. You can’t ask someone to sit through six hours of a story and not make them laugh. I think it’s essential.
‘Coldwater’
Courtesy of ITV
Did you ever get the question whether Coldwater is a drama or a comedy or how do we position it?
Lincoln I was working on it for six months, and I’m still none the wiser. I don’t know what it is. I kept saying: Is this a farce? Is it a comedy? Is it a thriller? Is it a relationship drama? I sort of thought it might be an unromantic comedy thriller.
Ireland It’s funny and interesting, because that’s always a question that comes up for TV and probably film as well. Producers, commissioners, and audiences all want to know: “What am I going to produce here? What am I going to see?” Whereas in theater, you just write the thing and it is what it is, and people just come and see it. I don’t know if tone is important as such, maybe because they come to see that author. Whereas with television, it’s like: “Well, what am I watching here?”