Richard Armitage reveals what attracts him to keep starring in Harlan Coben thrillers

Virgin Radio

16 Aug 2024, 11:31

Actor and author Richard Armitage joined The Chris Evans Breakfast Show ahead of the release of his brand new Audible Original fiction title; The Cut, and spoke about the appeal of thrillers in general.

The Fool Me Once star’s new release lands exclusively on Audible on Thursday 22nd August. Speaking to Angela Scanlon, who is hosting until Chris returns on Monday, he said: “It's a story that came from the seed of a real conversation I had with somebody in a cemetery who came up to me and said, ‘I'm really sorry for what we did to you as kids, and you've done really well for yourself.’ 

“And I walked away thinking, ‘I don't know who that was,’ but it spurned the idea for a story. So I wrote a tale about a group of teenagers in 1993. At their graduation, one of them tragically gets killed. One of her school friends goes to prison, and in the present day, a film crew descends on that same village to make a found-footage horror film. But it's not what it seems.”

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The story is narrated by Richard and by actor Jacob Dudman. When Angela asked Richard if it was based on his own childhood, he replied: “A little bit, yeah. Anecdotes and ideas and sort of memories. So, yeah, the village is a fictional version of where I grew up.”

His first novel, Geneva, was released in 2022 and rose straight to the number one spot in the Audible bestsellers, and it remained in the top 10 for the rest of 2022. It was also shortlisted for the British Book of the Year in the Audiobooks: Fiction category. Regarding his new story, he said: “The Cut means a shortcut, the cut of a movie and a cut of a wound. So it's three little different things.”

Richard first rose to fame in North & South, and portrayed Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit. He is also known for starring in thriller series such as Red Eye and Hannibal, and a number of Netflix adaptations of Harlan Coben’s novels: These include Fool Me Once and the upcoming Missing You.

When Angela asked about how there is an “insatiable appetite for thrillers", the actor said: “I think it's why I've returned to do four Harlan Coben thrillers for Netflix, because what he's doing in his drama, in his books and the adaptations, is he's got his finger on the pulse of something very current. 

“I always say Harlan’s signature is this fingerprint that we leave behind in terms of our technology that we're using, and actually I've started working on the treatment for a third story, which is definitely going to tap into those deep-rooted fears we have about AI and our social media presence of who we are, who we say we are online, and who we are in reality. So I think those are the things that we're now kind of interested in, in terms of thrillers. So, things like Black Mirror really tapped into that.”

He continued: “In my first book Geneva, I wrote about a neural implant, which was sort of loosely based on something Elon Musk was chewing over. It's now a reality. Someone's actually had that tested on them. There's a human trial of a neural implant. And I just think, ‘Is that where we’re going. 

“I think we're a hair's breadth away from having that kind of body modification, so that scares me.”

Richard, who was born in 1971, told Angela: “Half of my life was spent without technology, and I'm so happy for that, because I know how to occupy myself without any electronics.”

The Cut is released exclusively on Audible on Thursday 22nd August.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.