ITV’s Safe House returns to our screens for a gripping second season. The four, one-hour episodes start on February 6 at 8pm and joining the all-new cast is Stephen Moyer, also known for his vampire role as Bill Compton in the HBO series, True Blood.
Moyer will play the charismatic yet impulsive ex-police officer Tom Brook who runs a police safe house, which stands at the edge of the sea on the rugged coastline of the island of Anglesey, Wales.
“Tom Brook on the surface is a solid, confident, happy man. But there is something lurking under the surface from his past that he has managed to hide.
Having been a police officer, he’s now helping to run a safe house and has reinvented a new life for himself. That’s as close as he’s getting to police work,” said Moyer.
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The suspense-filled drama with compelling twists and turns also stars Zoë Tapper as his partner Sam as well as Dervla Kirwan, Jason Watkins, Sunetra Sarker, Ashley Walters, Sacha Parkinson and Joel MacCormack.
Sequence
The series kicks off when Tom and Sam’s world is turned upside down by news of a shocking crime. Years previously, Tom investigated a series of abductions perpetrated by an assailant known as “The Crow”, who took wives away from their husbands as they helplessly watched.
On hearing breaking news of a crime bearing the same hallmarks, Tom heads to the crime scene, revealing to the police that, terrifyingly, he believes The Crow is active again.
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The opening shot shows a beautiful sequence. Director Marc Evans has a habit of directing scenes so the opening sequence is not what you’d usually expect to see on a TV show.
“I couldn’t believe what we did. I had a couple of sailing lessons. They put me in the boat with Zoë Tapper, who plays my partner Sam, and they set us loose.
A drone followed us and filmed us as we sailed out to sea. We were in this beautiful 1920’s wooden sailing boat. That opening sequence is incredible,” said Moyer.
Stephen Moyer. Picture: Justin Slee
Along with the amazing opening scene, the actual house that the series was shot in is more than a century old.
“It’s so amazing. It’s been in the real owners’ family for about 110 years. It’s a foreboding place. But it doesn’t feel like that when you’re inside. It has an almost 270º view because it’s out on this promontory and has its own cove. Anna (Paquin), his wife, asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said, ‘I want my own cove. Why haven’t I got one?!’”
Sailing
In the show, Tom and Sam also run a little sailing school. Moyer said he had once lived on a boat for seven years in Little Venice in London, however, it was not a sailing boat and needed lessons before shooting began. He also recalled a moment that he calls “genius parenting”.
“My one bit of sailing experience prior to this was in Italy in 2008 where I went out to sea in a catamaran with my two older kids, got caught in a gale and had to be rescued,” said Moyer.
“I was trying to get back to the shore and got caught in this thing. The kids were smiling and laughing and thinking I was totally in control. But actually we were careering out to sea. A speedboat rescued us. I’m quite glad they (the kids) don’t recall this genius bit of parenting.”
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Moyer, who is based in LA most of the time for work - also has a house in London.
“It’s a really strange thing. When I get to London I put my feet up on the coffee table, I make a cup of tea and I feel like I’ve finally arrived home. And then when I get back to America I put my feet up and make a cup of coffee and I feel at home. But what I’ve learned is, I drink tea in London and I drink coffee in America,” joked Moyer.
* Catch Stephen Moyer in Safe House from February 6 at 8pm on ITV Choice (DStv channel 123).