EXCLUSIVE: CHARLIE HAMBLETT TALKS ABOUT NETFLIX’S MISSING YOU, SHAKESPEARE AND HIS LOVE OF ACTING

Over the Shoulder was delighted and lucky to sit down with film actor, theatre performer and business entrepreneur Charlie Hamblett to discuss his experience in Harlan Coben’s, MISSING YOU Netflix series.

We also discussed Charlie’s formative years growing up in the home of Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon and how this led to his career debut, performing on stage with the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company).

More theatre work followed until Charlie diversified, entering the world of film and tv. He even found time to set up his own family business, Crafty Boys.  

Charlie Hamblett was exceptional in Netflix’s, MISSING YOU so we began our chat there. 

MISSING YOU is based on a Harlan Coben novel, were you a fan of the books beforehand? 

 I hadn’t beforehand, although I was very aware of Harlan Coben. I was conscious that these books were enormously popular!

What the writer Victoria Asare Archer and the producers at Quay Street have done was to completely translate all the most thrilling parts of these books – I think that’s a skilful thing. No great adaptation works without great source material and I’m very lucky to be stepping into Harlen’s established world.

How did you prepare for the role of Charlie Pitts and was there anything unique about his character that attracted you to the part? 

Charlie wants to help people. He has this core motivation to do good in a corrupt world of compromises and duplicity. He makes a go of holding the moral high ground. I instantly liked that because it sets him up to fail constantly! Within a week, he’s having an affair with his co-worker. It’s a mad move! People do crazy things, they set themselves up with high moral standards and then they find life has other ideas. I kept his moral core as a guide throughout the show.

How was your experience working with the cast and directors? Was there a particular word or sentence that helped you get into the role of Charlie? 

 The directors on Missing You were wonderful and very helpful. 

There wasn’t so much a word, there was just a sense that Charlie had a clear motivation to do the right thing. He can’t be bribed which is useful in Harlan Coben’s world. 

He’s a good guy, but we can challenge that a bit by asking, “he loves the rules, but does he really follow them?”  I think that gave me more room to be creative and allowed me to step outside the limitations of playing just the newbie detective.  It allowed him to be surprising; I don’t think anyone saw the affair with Nia coming! 

Were there any memorable moments on the set? 

 We had a fantastic time. I loved the being in the police station. We got to film that for two weeks in Stockport – production designer Vanessa Hawkins did an amazing job creating the set. It was stunning. 

The directors steered this tumultuous story with a focus and even keel but we had a lot of fun hanging out together. We quickly became a tight team.

It was usually freezing so Stu, our production sound mixer, would sometimes DJ  between set ups to motivate us. There was good sense of camaraderie on this job and a lot of people had worked together before.

I had such a laugh with Kath Ayers, who plays Nia.

She’s outrageously cheeky and keeping a straight face with her during the crisp scene was impossible.

Was it strange playing a role with the same name as you? 

I think the challenge there is to be careful that too much of the familiar you slips in!

It was useful to bring parts of myself to a of role where there’s a lot of information to be transferred, with high stakes. I think the challenge was to work out a way of doing that creatively, in a human way. It’s useful in staying true to this character’s “little life.”

Like Charlie, I have a tendency to want things done the ‘right way’. My parents called me the “health and safety officer” when I was a kid, and I leant Charlie some of those qualities…

When did your love for acting start and did you always want to be an actor or was it a slow burner? 

I’ve always loved doing it. For a moment I was interested in becoming a lawyer  – I did ‘Mini Pupillage’ in Temple Gardens Chambers- but I wonder if I wanted to perform as a barrister maybe more than I wanted to do the work! 

I have loved acting since I was in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat in primary school. It’s quite the rush putting on that coat of many colours.  

You grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Did you go to a lot of Shakespeare productions when you were younger? 

 I grew up living five minutes away from the RSC, so yes! 

My mum and dad work in the theatre, too. You’re sat around watching all these actors who you think are just the coolest. I was always intrigued by being an actor. I loved language and reading –  and when I was still at school, I was lucky enough to join the RSC, playing lots of the younger prince roles, right up until the age of 17.

I was directed by extraordinary performers –  witnessed immense actors close up, like Katie Stevens and Clive Wood. I was taught voice by Dame Cicely Berry! So I had this unique experience of being able to dip my toe in what it might be like to be a professional actor. 

What was the first professional job you did and were you very nervous? 

 My first professional job was aged 18, in Trevor Nunn’s company for about a year in the West End.

I was young, but I was in London, and working in the West End – it was extraordinary. Really, I was just excited. 

I think nerves are something I’ve started to deal with as I’ve got a little bit older and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. They’re useful alarm bells – if you can move through it…

Who are some of the stand-out actors that you have worked with and what did you learn from them?

When I was a kid at the RSC, I worked with Jonathan Slinger. What he did with ‘Richard III’ I’ll never forget; it’s almost imprinted in my DNA or in the grooves of my sort of ‘acting- subconscious’. He was so creative with the text – so heinous, yet utterly relatable.

In Stratford, I got to watch a lot of David Tennant, too. Then I worked with him in, ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ for the BBC. That was a real pinch me moment as I’d admired his work for a long time.

I admire so many of the people I’ve worked with. Christoph Waltz was so exceptionally playful. Toby Jones, Vicky McClure…Rosalind Eleazar is right up there with them.

Do you prefer theatre or working in front of the camera and do you have to use different techniques? 

I’ve mainly been filming for the last few years, but recently I’ve been performing in a show called Laurie Lee in Words and Music. I’d missed theatre. 

I don’t think about their differences too much in preparation, inevitably there’s a fourth wall in both. A lot of the actors that I really admire know how to connect deeply with an audience, even if it’s indirectly in both disciplines. 

When you’re filming there’s so many people and departments working to tell the story; designers who put you in costumes that entirely contribute to the building of the character, physical sets you can play in. We had two fantastic cinematographers in MISSING YOU, too, and my contribution was to stay in their frame and play the truth of the scene. 

On stage there’s less between you and an audience, and you are doing more of that imaginative work, I suppose. It’s immediate in a different way and it can be freeing. 

How do you relax between takes and intervals in the theatre? 

 I love climbing; I got into it last year and I found that I really enjoy the focus it demands! 

I’ve another, more entrepreneurial side of my brain, too. I own a business with my brother, Louis, called ‘Crafty Boys’. It started just before lockdown, so I’ve been very lucky to grow that alongside my career.

I love acting and being on set, but its useful to engage in life as well – to try new things.

What projects have you got lined up for the future? 

We’ve been performing the Laurie Lee show for a couple of years now. I’m very lucky to be doing that again this year with Anton Lesser, who is just the most beautiful actor.  

MISSING YOU has been such a fantastic success, it’s exciting to start the year with a show like that. We’ll see what the year holds!

Over the Shoulder is sure that many future successes await Charlie in whatever he decides his next projects will be. It’s exciting to see what he does, and we hope Charlie will return so that we can catch up with him and gain further insight into the world of acting.

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