press pack - Sky Corporate

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Contents
Introduction
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Character guide
5
Episode guide
6
Interview: Michael Landes
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Interview: Ophelia Lovibond
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Contacts
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Introduction
Sky 1’s new and exclusive action drama follows the
nail-biting escapades of maverick adventurer
Hooten (Michael Landes, CSI, Love Soup) and fearless
historical expert Lady Alexandra Lindo-Parker
(Ophelia Lovibond, W1A, Elementary), who team up
to travel the globe in search of hidden treasures,
from Buddha’s missing scroll to the tomb of
Alexander the Great.
A host of acclaimed British talent co-star throughout
the eight-part series, including BAFTA® award winner
Jessica Hynes (W1A), Shaun Parkes (The Nightmare
Worlds of HG Wells), Emmy® and Golden Globe® winner
Jane Seymour (Wedding Crashers), Jonathan Bailey
(Broadchurch) and BAFTA® nominee Joanna Scanlan
(The Thick of It).
Friday 16 September 21.00 Sky 1 and NOW TV
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Making the show
tony jordan, co-creator
Hooten & The Lady is the kind of television I like to
watch. A show you can turn on after a tough day at
work and just sit back, kick off your shoes and be
entertained with a bit of escapism for 60 minutes.
A lot of television drama has become pretty dark over
the past few years, with serial killers and murder
investigations filling our television schedules. Our aim
was to make a show that was still smart, and funny,
but was also something that lifted the spirits of the
viewer. We wanted to give the Sky 1 audience a movie
of the week on the small screen, real appointment-toview television with great characters and a rip-roaring,
grown-up adventure.
The show takes us all over the world, including South
Africa, Cambodia, the Caribbean, Moscow, Rome, Egypt
and Bhutan, coupling adrenaline-packed adventures
with a wisecracking central partnership between
rough-and-ready American fortune hunter Hooten
and British aristocrat Lady Alexandra.
There’s currently nothing like Hooten & The Lady on
television and in our first few weeks of filming we
moved from action scenes in the centre of Rome to
high wires in Naples, horse stunts in the jungle and
jumping out of a helicopter. We shot all over the world,
from the streets of Bloomsbury in London to Angkor
Wat in Cambodia and even Red Square in Moscow.
We hope the Sky 1 audience will love Hooten and Lady
Alex and be glued to their adventures every week.
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Character guide
Hooten (
Michael Landes
Lady Alex
Ophelia Lovibond
Hooten is a fearless adventurer who travels the
world looking to make a few dollars, by fair means or
foul. A foolhardy treasure hunter, he often finds
himself in sticky situations. But none so far that he
hasn’t been able to talk his way out of. A lone wolf, he
trusts no one, but behind his rugged exterior lies a
man of surprising depth and honour.
Lady Alexandra is a curator at the British Museum in
London. Although prim, proper and straight-laced,
she is ever-eager to ditch the paperwork and follow
in the footsteps of her intrepid idols Percy Fawcett,
Howard Carter, David Livingstone and Mary Kingsley
and venture to uncharted lands in search of longlost historical treasures.
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Ella (
Jessica Hynes)
Clive
Shaun Parkes)
A brilliant mind and expert
in many fields, Ella can
always be relied on to
support her best friend
Lady Alex, wherever she
happens to be in the world.
Alex and Ella’s boss at the
British Museum, Clive
keeps a watchful eye on
Lady Alex when she sets
off around the globe.
Lady LindoParker (
Jane Seymour
Edward (
Jonathan
Bailey
Lady Alex’s sophisticated
mother, Lady Lindo-Parker
first meets Hooten in a
chic wine bar in Rome.
Clearly not a fan of our
handsome swashbuckler
she’s not afraid of voicing
her opinion.
Lady Alex’s handsome
fiancé, Edward can’t wait
for the day they are
married. But with her
constant adventures just
finding time to see her is
a big enough challenge.
Episode guide
Episode 1 The Amazon
While following in the
footsteps of Victorian
explorer Percy Fawcett,
Lady Alex is thrown
together with Hooten in
the thick of the Amazon.
But despite hair-raising
encounters with the
jungle’s wildlife and a lost
tribe, the pair stumble
upon El Dorado – the lost
city of gold.
Episode 8 The Caribbean
Lady Alex puts her
wedding in jeopardy as
she chases Hooten to an
idyllic Caribbean island,
searching for Captain
Henry Morgan’s buried
pirate booty. With only
half a map each and other
treasure hunters on their
tail, this larger-than-life
treasure hunt threatens
to derail the biggest day
in Lady Alex’s life.
Episode 3 Egypt
Lady Alex heads to Egypt,
where she teams up with
Hooten to find the
long-lost tomb of
Alexander the Great. But
when Hooten goes rogue
with a priceless stolen
medallion, he finds an
angry archaeologist,
some unscrupulous locals
and a vicious cult on his
tail. As well as Lady Alex…
Episode 2 Italy
In Italy, Hooten enlists
Lady Alex to help him
search for the Sibylline
Books – a collection of
lost mystical prophecies
from ancient Rome.
Lady Alex accepts but
quickly finds herself
scaling the Sistine
Chapel, battling a sewer
alligator and clashing
with a deranged mafioso.
Episode 7 Cambodia
In Cambodia, Hooten is
hot on the trail of a
priceless Hindu gem, the
Cintamani jewel. Lady
Alex wastes no time in
heading to Asia to meet
him and the pair quickly
become entangled with a
ruthless Vietnamese
drug gang. Finally,
Hooten’s personal life
comes to the fore when
he comes face to face
with his nemesis.
Episode 6 Russia
Lady Alex jets off to
Moscow to help Hooten
in his search for a lost
Fabergé egg. Alex
confronts her arch
nemesis from university,
who now works for a
shadowy black market
collector, while Hooten
meets up with his
master thief mentor
who sends them on a
perilous journey into
Russia’s underworld.
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Episode 4 Bhutan
Lady Alex gets a lead
on an ancient scroll
rumoured to have been
written by the Buddha
himself and enlists
Hooten’s help in finding it
in the remote Himalayan
kingdom of Bhutan. But
when the source – a
sweet elderly Bhutanese
woman – poisons Hooten,
it becomes a race against
time for Lady Alex to save
his life.
Episode 5 Ethiopia
When Ella is kidnapped
in Ethiopia, Lady Alex has
to borrow a priceless
artefact from the
British Museum for the
ransom and beg for
Hooten’s help. When the
duo arrive in east Africa,
they must overcome
crazed bandits and
uncooperative camels in
order to save the day and
decode a mystery of
biblical proportions.
Michael Landes
Hooten
Michael Landes started his career on the
Emmy® Award-winning series The Wonder
Years before going on to star as Daily
Planet photojournalist Jimmy Olsen in
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman. He has since appeared in
numerous hit dramas, including Boston
Legal, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and
CSI: Miami, while his movie roles include
Hart’s War, Final Destination 2, College
Road Trip and Lakeview Terrace.
What drew you to the part of Hooten?
I think the writing was the first thing, and
Tony [Jordan] had a great track record, but I
just loved this character. I loved that he was
a bit rough, a bit un-PC and spontaneous
and a little naughty and cheeky. The show
seemed very ambitious. I thought: how are
they going to pull this off? They were
pitching to me that they were gonna make
the show all over the world and I was a little
sceptical because a lot of the time people
pretend to do that, but we did go all over
the world, which matched the ambition, and
that was really exciting.
What was your favourite location?
To watch the sun rise at Angkor Wat in
Cambodia was very cool. I love Italy, so the
fact that we got towed around on a Vespa
with a police escort to every site in Rome
that you would want to visit as a tourist was
insane. It’s tricky to choose – when we were
in Moscow we filmed in Red Square, when
we were in Italy we filmed at the Vatican and
the Pantheon, so I got to go to all these
great places doing what I love to do.
There are a lot of stunts in the show –
did you have much involvement in
them yourself?
People don’t want to see stunt people, they
want to see you – the actor – as much as
possible. But when you make a production
you’re only allowed to do what they’ll insure
you to do. But with the scale of this show, I
think all the stunts we did were really
ambitious and we did quite a lot of it. We
had the stunt coordinators who do all the
Tom Cruise movies, so not only were they
great guys but you felt like you were in safe
hands from day one, so they were able to
push us to do more than we’ve ever done
before or maybe more than I was willing to
do. You’re on wires, or you’re doing fight
sequences but on a helicopter that’s
hanging in the air and it felt even more
ambitious than I ever thought.
floor like 40, 50 feet up on wire – it was
probably very safe because they said, “We
can hold a car on these wires”, but when
you’re up there for seven or eight hours,
you start to hallucinate and think, what if I
fall? If I fall on that marble it’s not going to
be pretty. Another time I was dropped
about six feet from an accelerated line
and that’s more like a ride in an amusement
park, where it’s thrilling, but I think I’m
less of a thrill seeker than I maybe was a
while ago.
What was filming those scenes like?
It was tiring to film action sequences for
12-14 hours, but that was part of the job
description. You have to be fit and healthy,
as well as smile a lot.
Hooten and Lady Alex get off to a bit of
a rocky start. What was your first
impression of Ophelia?
She has a lot of the qualities of the Lady
Alex character and I instantly thought she
was really right. She works very hard and
she’s very professional. The first time I met
her I liked her and then as an actor I think
she’s terrific. Sometimes that character
could be the straight person, but she’s
genuinely really, really, really, funny and
there are some great funny moments.
And what was the most dangerous thing
you had to do?
In Italy there’s a castle in Caserta that’s
something like the second largest in Europe,
to Versailles – it substituted as the inside of
the Vatican. We were above a marble
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And your characters’ love-hate
relationship is really central to the
show. How did you work on generating
that chemistry?
Because we work so many hours we didn’t
hang out outside of work, but at work I think
we made a good partnership and a good
friendship and my whole goal was, no
matter what, you’ve got to get on with
Ophelia, because the two of you as a team
work a lot better than if you don’t like each
other. I mean sometimes chemistry is made
wonderfully by two actors who hate each
other, but life’s too short, I don’t want to be
on a show like that.
I think we had a really good relationship
from the start and as it developed over the
eight episodes we started to find things
about each other that also were in our
characters and we were able to mine that
for more comedy and more idiosyncrasies.
What were the similarities you found
between yourselves and your characters?
➥
Ophelia and I tried to make jokes. If people
are in a bad mood and taking themselves
too seriously, it becomes a much longer day.
As a result the whole crew were really
comfortable, they would just tell it like it is,
they’d take the piss. In America they don’t
talk to the main actors.
In general it was fun, but we had a snake
wrangler who caught 37 snakes in two
weeks, like, five black mambas – some of the
most poisonous snakes in the world. And
they would bring me a safe garden snake
and say: “Nothing today”. Then two weeks
later, they said we caught all these things
and everyone had photos on their phone.
I’m not super-serious in life; I always try
to look for a laugh, or a bit, or a joke, or a
smart-ass remark. Hooten goes beyond
what I do, but I just played into that and I
think Ophelia’s very proper and I think she
leant into that. Because she’s intelligent,
she holds people accountable and she
wants things to be done right and that’s a
lot like her character. Hooten has a dark
past, but he stuffs that way down and he’d
rather make a joke and dissolve a situation
with humour, and I think I do that a little bit.
I would rather not fight and have a laugh.
There’s an expression: If there are gnats or
flees, don’t make a big deal, if there are lions
and bears, then you have to fight.
The show’s got quite a classic Romancing
the Stone feel about it. What do you
think will appeal to today’s audiences?
A lot, I think. When I see what’s going on in
the world, I think the fact you can escape
into an adventure is very refreshing and I
would welcome that in a heartbeat on my
And how about that scene in episode one
where you’re tied upside down?
That was day one in the jungle and I don’t
know if it was the heat, the hanging upside
down or the smoke they had… but there was
something wrong with the camera and I was
hanging upside down for a little bit and I
ended up getting sick. I threw up six times,
then I went back and they did the shot and I
said, “If I look messed up in that first scene
where the camera reveals we’re upside
down, that’s not acting”. That’s the truest
experience you’ll get in Hooten & The Lady.
television. But also the fact that these
characters have great banter and they’re
written very well, the fact that you go all
over the world, and there’s also the element
of history and treasure hunting… I think [it
has] all those elements that work so well in
Romancing the Stone and Indiana Jones…
and Moonlighting – everyone always wants
to recreate that.
Did you take inspiration from any classic
adventurer characters?
All those movies influenced me, as a young
guy I loved watching them. You have these
guys in the late 80s and 90s who were just
a little rougher around the edges. Even like
John McClane in Die Hard, who was a smart
ass – I think Hooten has a lot of that. I didn’t
draw on it specifically for my performance,
but I think it’s been in my ether for 20 years,
so it’s influenced it in a way.
Tell us about the rest of your co-stars.
I knew Blake Ritson from Upstairs,
Downstairs and he’s such a fun guy, he
came to the party and had a laugh. Jessica
Hynes I only got to work with once very
briefly but I think she’s a genius, I loved her
in W1A. Angel Coulby was really lovely. Jane
Seymour’s cool, we had a two-hour drive
from Rome to Naples – she’s awesome, she
shows you everything on her iPhone. She
has, like, an iPhone 10,000 that has more
What was it like on set?
The set itself was a very fun environment,
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gigs than anything I’ve ever seen. It’s like
they made it especially for her.
I will say one thing, I don’t know a show that
actually pulls talent from all over the world
like this. Instead of asking, “Who can do a
Russian accent?”, we had actors come from
Tenerife, Malta, Russia, Italy, London,
Denmark, America, Cambodia, so I think it’s
great for the international acting
community, I think that’s really cool. When
that guy goes back to Malta and says, “I did
a show”, his community will be aware of
Hooten & The Lady. It makes it more
authentic – even though it’s a big action
adventure show, we always try to ground it
in as much truth as possible, otherwise it’s
just light and fluffy.
And if you could write your own Hooten
& The Lady adventure, where would it
be set?
On an overnight train through Europe, in the
old-fashioned train cars, where we’re
dressed for a really nice dinner and then
there’s a fight sequence. It doesn’t sound
original, but I think there’s something cool
about that.
Or you could say there’s a Japanese
kamikaze pilot that killed himself at Pearl
Harbour in possession of this great
Japanese artefact, so we have to do an
episode in Hawaii. I’m selfishly trying to
bring it back to America, but we’re not
really old enough [to have artefacts]. We
kind of did a lot of sunshine and beach, so
maybe something in the snow – you could
go to Santa Claus’s house in Lapland.
I’ll look out for that one in the next batch.
Haha – that’s the Christmas special. ❚
Ophelia Lovibond
Lady Alexandra
Ophelia Lovibond made her film debut
in Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist in 2005,
the very same year she appeared in
Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s
prescient cult comedy Nathan Barley.
Since then, she has made her mark in
Hollywood with roles in Mr Popper’s
Penguins, No Strings Attached and
Guardians of the Galaxy. On the small
screen she has starred in a host of hits,
including Sky Atlantic comedy Mr Sloane
alongside Nick Frost, Sky Living’s hugely
popular US import Elementary and
acclaimed BBC mockumentary W1A.
How would you describe the series?
The show is an adventure drama. It’s quite
nostalgic in its tone but it’s contemporary
and has a big feel to it. It doesn’t feel like a
TV show. It’s extremely ambitious and takes
you all around the world to places you might
not have been to before. It has a Romancing
the Stone feel to it but it has lots of action.
There’s a lot of energy but there’s real
jeopardy in there as well because you really
care about these characters.
What can you tell us about
your character?
My character, Lady Alexandra, works for the
British Museum. She ends up meeting
Hooten, which puts her in situations she’s
never been in before. And she finds out
she’s hardier than she thought. You see her
evolving and her confidence in her opinions
spreads to confidence in her own choices.
What’s the dynamic like between
Lady Alex and Hooten?
They’re completely different creatures.
She believes he’s reckless and irresponsible.
She’s meticulous and quite pedantic and
that’s where the humour comes from.
They often have the same objective –
getting hold of a lost item – but they go
about it in completely different ways.
There is merit to both of their approaches
but both need touches of each other’s
methods. She doesn’t trust him as far as
she can throw him but she needs him just
as he needs her. They begrudgingly learn
to trust each other because they’ve been
on these epic adventures.
while filming the series?
It was one of the most enjoyable aspects
of the filming experience. You read the
script and see that part of it is set in
Cambodia and you just assume you’re
obviously not going to go there. And then
they say you need to get your jabs because
you’re actually going! I went to Cambodia
early to explore and visited Siem Reap. It’s
just incredible, it really is just magical. We
also went to Moscow and filmed all over
South Africa, including a sub-tropical jungle
in KwaZulu-Natal.
It sounds like the dream job
The schedule was incredibly ambitious
and there was a lot to pack in but we did get
to see things you wouldn’t normally see if ➥
Did you get to visit any exotic locations
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“It’s extremely
ambitious and takes
you all around the
world to places you
might not have been
to before”
you were there on holiday. Whenever we did
have a free weekend we’d get to explore.
When we were in Moscow filming the
episode in which we were searching for a
Fabergé egg, I went to the Kremlin and got
to see an actual Fabergé egg and learn the
incredible story behind it.
How did you enjoy working with
Michael Landes?
He was brilliant. He was so easy to work
with. From the moment we met there was
an immediate rapport between us. Of
course we had to play against that when in
character, as Hooten and Lady Alex wind
each other up. For all Lady Alex’s meticulous
pedantry that drives him mad, she’s
fearless. Hooten is kind of brutish and
inelegant and she finds it irritating, but she
also appreciates that he’s loyal and brave.
But Michael made things fun and kept
people’s energy up.
I had an amazing stunt double called
Sinead but I did a lot of the action myself.
That was another one of the appealing
aspects of the job. I was allowed to do lots
of stunts and the stunt team were
incredible at teaching me. I played with
snakes and climbed up a 50-foot chapel
and descended down it again at speed. I did
that myself and so I wanted a close-up to
show everyone it was me!
Did you have a lot of fun on set?
We would be in the most bonkers places –
on cliff edges, by waterfalls – and the crew
were brilliant. They were on cranes, building
platforms over ravines. They just made it
happen. You can imagine what things will be
like when you read the script but when you
actually arrive on set you realise they’ve built
this entire world. It was an intense shoot but
it was fun because of where we were.
Why should viewers tune in to
the show?
Because it is so different from anything
you’ve seen before. It takes you away on
these adventures. The unlikely duo is
entertaining – the back and forth – the
rat-a-tat rapport.
Did you relish the action element of
the story?
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Then you’ve got helicopters, explosions,
hot air balloons, rhinos and snakes. But it’s
the relationship between them in those
ridiculous situations that makes it different.
It’s not just an adventure show and it’s not
just an unlikely relationship, it’s a
combination of things.
And it’s filmed on such an epic
scale too
A massive part of the appeal is that we
actually went to those locations rather than
being in a studio. The locations are as much
a character as Hooten and Lady Alex. There
are many shows that are full on, but this
one doesn’t have murder and monsters, it’s
uplifting. My brother can watch and so will
my mum. The whole family can enjoy it.
❚
Contacts:
Michael Hickson
michael.hickson@premiercomms.com
Amy Whittow
amy.whittow@premiercomms.com
Hannah Harris-Turner
hannah.harris-turner@premiercomms.com
Anthony Clarke
anthony.clarke@sky.uk
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