From Des to The Crown, Jason Watkins looks back on his impressive career

Jason Watkins is one of those actors whose filmography is so vast, with over 120 roles to his name, that viewers will have seen him onscreen on multiple ocassions over the decades.

From his early work in theatre to his TV debut in EastEnders, Watkins has captivated the public and cemented his status as a British icon with his performances in Des, The Crown, and The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries respectively. The latter earned him a BAFTA for best actor and he has long proven a mainstay of the TV realm, soon he will return to our screens for the fourth season of ITV's McDonald & Dodds.

The actor is ready to talk about his expansive career with Yahoo UK for Role Recall, sharing insight into his onscreen performances from his early days to his most current project.

EastEnders was his big break

Watkins first began in the theatre after graduating from RADA in 1985, working as part of the National Theatre company and earning great acclaim whilst treading the boards. It was in 1987 that he made his screen debut in EastEnders as Gerry Fairweather, a role he played for a total of 11 episodes.

The actor looks back fondly on his time on the soap: "Tala [Gouveia, his McDonald & Dodds co-star] and I both started in EastEnders, weirdly, obviously not at the same time but our first jobs on screen were on EastEnders.

"I had a really good time actually, I really enjoyed it and I played in their football team as well, so I was quite useful at that time. I think I was at the time with Dirty Dan and all that, and that was a very, very popular show at the time.

"I think about 17m viewers watched one of the episodes I was in. They work very hard and it's a very tough schedule, which continues [to this day]. I have a lot of respect to the amount of hard work they put in."

Hugh Bonneville and Jason Watkins drove together to Tomorrow Never Dies set

Watkins, like Hugh Bonneville who recently spoke with Yahoo UK for Role Recall, had the chance to star in a James Bond film early in his career. The actors both appeared in Tomorrow Never Dies, part of Pierce Brosnan's 007 era.

When the 1997 film is brought up Watkins says of Bonneville: "I think we drove down there together, actually. I think he drove me down in his little mini, I think we drove down the A3 to do that job."

"I told my son, who was about four at the time, that I'm in a James Bond film and he said, 'who are you playing James Bald?' Which I thought was pretty tough, that's not changed he's unrelenting.

"But it was fun. It was quite a story, there was Hugh Bonneville and myself, and Brendan Coyle, Pip Torrens who went on to be in The Crown. We enjoyed it and it was exciting going to the cinema and seeing the James Bond film stars in front of you."

Jason Watkins jokes he once 'scarred' care home patients filming Being Human nude scene

The series that Watkins feels was his big TV break was Being Human, which ran from 2009 to 2013 on BBC Three. The supernatural series is a who's who of British talent now, with Russel Tovey and Aidan Turner leading the series' young cast.

Watkins played vampire leader Herrick, and appeared in all three seasons, but there's one moment that stands out to him because of how embarrassing it was: "I remember doing the launch scene, in the third series I emerge out of the ground naked — nobody wants to see that, I know, but I had what they call a dignity pouch.

"It's supposed to be in the countryside, in the middle of the snow filled countryside and we shot it in the park in Bristol. As I emerged from the ground a group from the local care home were walking across with their aged care workers, in their wheelchairs, just watching me emerge out. It scarred them."

While he was the more experienced member of the cast compared to Tovey and Turner, for example, Watkins admits he didn't share any advice because they "didn't need" it: "They were both exceptional, and Lenora Crichlow. I mean that team, Sinead Keenan she came in as well and she was superb."

He adds: "Russell and Aidan both had different qualities actually, Russell seemed to find it all really easy, just so natural. And Aidan did, of course, as well but you could see he really worked hard at it. He worked really hard and was full on commitment, I loved it."

The Nativity films defied the critics

One of Watkins works that he is most beloved for is the Nativity film franchise, which consists of four films — the first three he starred in— and follows school kids at a primary school and their teachers as they try to beat their rivals with their nativity play. Watkins plays Gordon Shakespeare, the drama teacher at the rival school.

While the films were met with middling reviews from critics the films became a huge success with viewers, something which Watkins is very proud of.

"Nativity has been this behemoth that has just snowballed," he explains. "We made them many years ago now but at the time I remember that I did read one or two reviews that were really disparaging about it... I wanted it to do well because I'd really enjoyed making it.

"I think I understood why, because it's all improvised on camera, so there's no script... because it was made in that way, the spontaneity and the joy of the kids and the innocence of the kids all really paid off, that's why it's had this incredible longevity and it's a beautiful mix of something that is sentimental. It's full of love those films, and joy and silliness, and it's completely connected with each generation."

He adds: "It's very satisfying to see it confound any kind of critical view of it early on that it's now been borne out and just connects with people. It's not about reviews, those sorts of films, it's about connecting with people and it's done that."

W1A was a 'real treat'

It wasn't long before Watkins reunited with Bonneville again, starring opposite him in BBC series W1A which was a follow up to Twenty Twelve. The series saw the BBC poke fun at itself as it follows Bonneville's Ian Fletcher as he took charge of the broadcasting house.

"W1A was a real treat to do," Watkins reminisces. "I think I did three series and I remember the first series we were filming and we were seen as a kind of inconvenience in Broadcasting House.

"People would be coming in with their real Bromptons and we were getting in their way. There were signs saying 'carry on as normal' and people were completely resentful, thinking 'what is this filming?'

"And then in the second series, when we had a bit of success with it, we were in middle of a take me and Hugh Bonneville —who can't work without me— and they had to cut because in the background there were all these BBC employees with their phones recording because everyone was sort of addicted to it... That was fun, difficult to make, very, very hard to make."

The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries is 'special'

Watkins earned his first BAFTA for his role as Christopher Jeffries in ITV's two part drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries. It explored what happened to the actor's real-life counterpart when he was questioned over his tenant Joanna Yeates' disappearance and was vilified in the press despite soon being released by police without charge.

"It's nice to be able to think that you've corrected the impression of somebody in the press, that you've been part of helping to tell his story and the reality of what he went through," Watkins says of the show.

Yeates went missing from her flat on 17 December, 2010 and was found dead on 25 December, she had been strangled to death. During the initial investigation Jeffries was questioned and was later released without charge, however several publications printed critical pieces about him causing untold damage.

Police later arrested another tenant from the building, Vincent Tabak, who was found guilty of Yeates' murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in October 2011.

"The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries was a real incredibly satisfying thing to make, irrespective of the reaction and its success. It was the making of it that was extraordinary," he adds.

"Occasionally things come along where planets align and you're almost led by other forces. There was the force that, obviously, a young woman had died, Joanna Yeates had been murdered [so] you felt a sense of responsibility for a story that you're making about the death of a daughter. I myself had lost a young daughter some years previously so I was weirdly connected in that way.

"It was about something, it's about terrible loss to a family of their daughter, about press regulation and how that needs to be monitored, and about the celebration of an eccentric, and to a certain extent the thriller role of who did it and why. All those things came together."

There's hope for Taboo series 2

Watkins stars opposite Tom Hardy in Taboo, the BBC series the Hollywood star co-created with his father and Peaky Blinders' creator Steven Knight. The actor jokes that he makes people "faint" with a picture he took alongside Hardy during production, and even though he took on a small role as Solomon Coop he looks back at his time on the show fondly.

Fans of the series have been regularly calling for the show to be renewed for a second season, and Watkins is all for it: "I don't know what's going on with Taboo, I know that at one point there was talk of doing another one, and I think they asked me if I would be interested in doing another one and that, if there was, that my character would be in it.

"So I don't know what's happening with that, but it was a remarkable series. I think it's how you set things up, isn't it? Taboo employed three Scandinavian directors to direct it, and so there was this very different feel to it, [it was] beautifully designed, extraordinary costumes. It's Stephen Knight, isn't it? I mean what a script, just the best script."

Being part of the The Man Who Killed Don Quixote saga was interesting

Though his part was relatively small, there is an argument to be had that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is one of Watkins biggest films — at least, in terms of production time. It took Terry Gilliam almost 30 years to make the movie, and it went through countless iterations and cast before it finally landed in cinemas in 2019.

"I reckon that there are probably three or four previous versions of the character that I played," Watkins admits.

"I was just happy recipient of that job, Johnny Depp was gonna start playing the character and then, obviously years later, it was Adam Driver. Jonathan Pryce is perfect in it, and I just played a small part really... I had a bit of a bromance with Stellan Skarsgard and then a bromance with Jonathan Pryce."

"There is something other about Terry," he says of the director. "There's something weird and strange and odd and wonderful about it, and so I was very lucky to be part of it."

The British public should be 'proud' of The Crown

Watkins also starred in The Crown —which is created by The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries writer Peter Morgan— as Prime Minister Harold Wilson opposite Olivia Colman's Queen Elizabeth II. While the show has been hit with criticism in its time, the actor says it should be celebrated by the British public.

"I think we should just make sure that we take a lot of pride in this British project that was made, that has become this enormous international hit," he says. "And the Royal family, I would argue, is more popular than it's ever been, partly as a result of The Crown.

"I was sort of torn apart by a historical biographer, a Royal biographer, [once] and I wish I'd said some of those things, but I felt slightly cowed by it. I perhaps should have been proud about what we had created, and also the way in which those shows are made."

Reflecting on the criticism of the show's historical accuracy, Watkins went on: "I would say from the start what is the truth? Even a perfect historical book about an incident is only a view of what has happened. I think it's condescending to think that audiences would believe that as verbatim, I think audiences are intelligent enough to know what is a fictional account of real events.

"You could say that Peter Morgan is a historian, it is his view on history... and [there are] some beautiful episodes that he's made throughout this. If I talk about my own experience, the Aberfan episode is such a heartfelt, extraordinary piece of television.

"Having lost a child myself, being part of something about the loss of those children that is done in such an amazing way, with this incredible team and the emotional effect of that program, that would potentially affect change or [audience's] understanding of grief — I'm incredibly proud of that.

"You can invent, with a fiction[al show] based on real events, what may be going on inside a character's head, and all these views that Peter has about the mixture of public and private life within the Royal family — it's his view on it."

David Tennant is 'astonishing' in Des

A darker role that Watkins took on was ITV's true crime drama Des, which explores the investigation into serial killer Dennis Nielsen, who was arrested in 1983 after human remains were discovered in his London flat. While in custody the killer shared his life story with biographer Brian Masters, whose work Killing for Company tries to explain why Nielsen committed these atrocious acts.

Watkins plays Masters opposite David Tennant's Nielsen, and he is full of admiration when it comes to his co-stars work: "David was absolutely astonishing in it, and he was utterly consistent all the way through, he did this great thing which you're very economical about showing an audience what you're feeling, just stay very straight in character.

"There was no 'look at me [and] how weird I am'. It was a very straight which Hugh does in W1A really, it's a very straight performance and he's been known again of just and the comedy button a little bit and it takes a lot of discipline to do that. I think it's probably David's best performance."

He joked: "David Tennant, like Hugh Bonneville, can't work without me. We had gone on from several shows together, we did Around The World in Eighty Days, did W1A too. So David only came up with that performance because I was part of the setup."

Reflecting on playing Masters, and his book about Nielsen, Watkins went on: "It's an amazing piece, isn't it? And I was lucky enough that I played the guy who wrote this brilliant book, Brian Masters, called Killing for Company, which I have narrated for Audible... I mention it only because I read that book, which is absolutely harrowing.

"It also does gesture as to why these people do things like this and that's what Brian's intention was in his meeting with Dennis Nielsen, while he was in custody awaiting trial.

"He managed to get in to talk to him... he was able to get all this information and try and understand why someone would do these things, not to lessen what they had done, and not to see that as an excuse or find reasons not to find the whole thing abhorrent, but just to look into Nielsen's childhood, which was horrific, and that does give some of the reasons why he went on to do that."

McDonald & Dodds season 4 has a lot in store for viewers

Watkins' current project is McDonald & Dodds season 4, the ITV police procedural that is a delight to any viewer who loves cozy crime shows like Midsomer Murders or Death in Paradise. The actor is Dodds to Gouveia's McDonald, and together they help solve crimes in Bath, Somerset.

"I love playing Dodds," Watkins says. "What I like about him is that you never quite know where he's coming from, you think you know him, and I think I know him, and then he surprises me.

"So that's partly what I need to do with audiences. Does he understand what's going on here? And of course he does understand and he's a outwardly vulnerable person, probably, who finds strength through his work.

"He finds he's been given this gift of using his skills for the first time in his life, late on in his life, late on in his career and he grabs it in a very quiet way. I've always loved the way that he doesn't bang his own drum, he isn't after awards like I am, he just wants to solve the crime with compassion."

"Tala and I have fantastic working relationship, we're very good friends," he goes on to say about his co-star. "We get on so well and we both love creating these stories, and so that that's a complete joy. The scripts are surprising and different, and we are surrounded always by excellent casts."

Teasing what fans can expect of his new show, Watkins adds: "I think in the new season we're stretched further than we've been before and there are occasions where each of us goes behind the others back because we think that's the best thing to do."

"I think they also connect with each other more, they have a similar sense of humour despite their differences... the obvious thing to say, which continues, is that they're very different but it's a celebration of people being different and solving things, which I think is really important at the moment."

McDonald & Dodds season 4 premieres on ITV1 at 9pm on Sunday, 21 July.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jason-watkins-career-des-crown-mcdonald-dodds-164224716.html