Daniel Mays: 'Filming The Thursday Murder Club gave me a fair bit of imposter syndrome'

It’s a Thursday. It’s lunchtime. And we are in the pub. There could be no more appropriate location to talk with Daniel Mays about his role in the screen adaptation of Richard Osman’s bestseller The Thursday Murder Club – a book that features more references to pub lunches per chapter than any piece of crime fiction in literary history.

The book is a phenomenon. It has sold 10 million copies worldwide, spawned three sequels (with another to follow next month) and copycats galore. These stories of septuagenarian sleuths are popular for a reason.

Osman can turn a phrase, he knows all the key ingredients for a compelling whodunnit and has created central characters that are smart, funny, quirky and believable – an odd quadruple of crime fanatics quietly raging against ageing at the Cooper’s Chase luxury retirement village. The big-budget Netflix adaptation, directed by Chris Columbus (The Goonies, Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, the first two Harry Potter films) and produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, had its pick of British and Irish acting talent. 

So it is that Dame Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie play Elizabeth (once a spy, doesn’t like to talk about it), retired union leader Ron, ex-psychologist Ibrahim and former nurse Joyce.

Mays joins them as DCI Chris Hudson – called in to lead the investigation when a murder occurs near Cooper’s Chase, alongside David Tennant as the dodgy owner of the retirement home, Richard E Grant, Naomi Ackie, Jonathan Pryce and Tom Ellis. 

A Big Issue ambassador since 2020 and a fixture on British television and film for two decades, Mays has agreed to give us the inside scoop on the biggest Netflix film of the year, starting from the beginning.

Audition – 27 April 2024

“I hadn’t read the books, but I was very aware of them. I was filming Franklin so I was on the Eurostar constantly and kept seeing everyone reading it. When my agent, who has read them all, saw they were going to make the film, she said, ‘You’ve got to play the copper. You’re absolutely perfect for it. I’ll get on to casting.’ I didn’t think anything more of it as I was doing Guys and Dolls at the time. 

“I went straight on to film Bookish in Namur, which is a beautiful but quite obscure place in the middle of Belgium. I had just got to the hotel when my agent rang to say I had to do a self-tape for The Thursday Murder Club by the next Monday. I was like, shit, OK! 

“So I skim-read the script on Friday, learnt three scenes on Saturday, then called up Connor Finch, this young actor in Bookish, because I needed someone to read with. And I could hardly call Mark Gatiss – he was lead actor, exec producer and writer on the show I was filming. So he was already spinning
a lot of plates.

“This picture [below] is Connor in the makeshift studio we set up in my room in the eaves of the hotel. 

“One scene we did was where I give a real dressing down to the whole of the Thursday Murder group. It’s quite vocal. Mark was in the room downstairs and called me, saying ‘Are you alright? You’ve just woken up the entire hotel!’”

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Landing the role – May 2024

“I was in a Belgian A&E when I got the news – I was ecstatic. In Bookish, my character has to carry a pig carcass around and I got blood all over me. I was attacked by mosquitoes and a bite on my arm got infected. To cut a long story short, I ended up in A&E in Belgium on a bank holiday. It was carnage. Loads of broken arms, crying kids everywhere. 

“In the middle of this chaos, my phone went and it was my agent telling me I’d got the role. It was surreal. I got around to reading the book. And yes, I did phone my agent when it got to the first description of Chris Hudson – this middle-aged, sad sack of a detective!

“I was like, so you think of me as someone who’s sat at home eating Twixes and watching Sky Sports with a bottle of wine? But I fell in love with the character. Richard’s book is so revered because he gets the inner life of characters so well. It was great source material; I really went to town on it.” 

First rehearsal  – 18 June 2024

“This was a heavyweight readthrough to walk into. Nearly everyone except Pierce was at Shepperton when I got there. So it was Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie and Sir Ben Kingsley – he was pretty relaxed about it, but everyone called him Sir Ben, so we all went along with it.

“These are heavyweight actors I’d watched and admired for years. Heroes of mine. When I first got serious about becoming an actor, there were two actors and shows that spoke to me. One was Robbie Coltrane in Cracker, the other was Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect. It was a game changer, you know? I’ve adored her ever since. 

“I’d met Helen briefly before. We did this Passchendaele centenary concert in Belgium – there’s a Belgian theme running through this – and she was just divine. It was a real pinch me, am I dreaming moment. Although on this, she did say she was sure I’d done Prime Suspect with her. I had to tell her I’m too young, and that she was thinking of Danny Dyer!

“As soon as I met Ben Kingsley, I said I was a massive fan of Sexy Beast and he did Don Logan for me. So that was very cool. A good icebreaker.

“Chris Columbus got us together and said: ‘This is the best ensemble cast I’ve had since Harry Potter.’ And it just came out… I went: ‘Yeah, and you fucked that one up, didn’t you?’

“He fucking roared with laughter, thank god! He loved that. Another good icebreaker.”

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Costume fitting – 21 June 2024

“Your heart breaks for Chris in The Thursday Murder Club. He’s a good copper but he’s at a bad point in his life. He’s lonely, looking for love, comfort eating. And that’s the thing I latched on to. Which brings me to an amazing moment with our designer, Jo Thompson.

“I said I was thinking about making him a lot bigger than I am – maybe putting on a padded suit. I mean, my wife and kids didn’t think I needed it. But I wanted Chris to have that extra midriff. Initially the bulge was too big. The moment it looks comedic, it’s gone too far. But we wanted him to be that kind of middle-aged man who gets a bit of a paunch but doesn’t change the size of their shirt, so the buttons pull when they sit down.

“Jo had this idea to put empty Mars bar wrappers in his pockets, so when I go to pull out my notebook you see them. These little touches were fun to work on. The padded suit was hot and uncomfortable, but it worked. Also, I know what happens in the next few books: Chris loses some weight. So it will help me with that as well.”

Setting the scene – 12 July 2024

“For my first big scene, I look up and there’s James Bond, Gandhi, the Queen, Whitney Houston and Miss Babs from Acorn Antiques. It’s when Chris arrives with PC Donna De Freitas [Ackie] to talk to the Thursday Murder Club about the death of property developer Tony Curran. 

“It’s such a memorable scene in the book – Richard describes how Chris is sitting between Ron [Brosnan] and Ibrahim [Kingsley] beautifully. He’s got his tea in one hand, cake in the other and he’s trying to be polite and ask questions. But his hands are full, so how does he eat his cake? He literally devours it straight from his plate. 

“At a screening, people just gasped. It’s so awkward, but very funny, and a great way to establish DCI Chris Hudson as a character. 

“I had a load of dialogue that day as well as the cake thing. So I’m sitting with top-notch movie stars and a fair bit of imposter syndrome. But everyone was so supportive, so you just think, ‘You’ve got to bring your A-game, Danny’. When you get a gig this big, with people this famous and talented, you have to embrace the nerves. 

“And I got the sense that Chris Columbus was really responding to everything I was doing.”  

The cast

“I’d love to say there were some raucous, big drinking nights out, but sadly not. Everyone was lovely, though. I chatted with Ben a lot and the level of detail he puts into his performance is incredible. One of the memorable days on the shoot was at the end of the film. 

“I didn’t have any lines that day, but I got to watch the great Ben Kingsley deliver this eulogy to utter perfection on every take. I did a lot of scenes with him and he was there with his notebook. He was so detailed. You can see the professionalism and expertise he brings, and how he produces the goods year in, year out, decade after decade. I felt privileged to be in the same room.

“Pierce is going to surprise everyone. There’s a hilarious scene at the police station where he comes in wearing this green abomination of a suit. And he just sells it. There’s been a bit of noise that looks-wise, he wasn’t what everyone was thinking for Ron. But I’m telling you now, he’s going to surprise everyone and blow it out of the water.

“When we talked on set, he described James Bond as the gift that keeps on giving. He gets such diverse roles now and is so prolific. 

“He and Helen went straight on to shoot MobLand together.”

If only

“My only regret is that I wasn’t working the day Steven Spielberg came to the set. I’d worked with him on [The Adventures of] Tintin – and I’m more experienced now, so I wouldn’t be so nervous. I’d bowl straight up to him and go, do you remember me? He probably wouldn’t, I was wearing a weird wetsuit and doing motion capture for Tintin, so I had 200 reflective dots on my face.

“When we filmed it, my son Milo hadn’t even started school. We filmed at Giant Studios; Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis were all there. My wife Lou and Milo came down and Milo was running around. Steven goes, ‘Who’s this?’ picked him up and carried him to the monitor. Peter Jackson was in New
Zealand on the live feed and Steven held Milo up, going, ‘We’ve got our first Tintin fan here.’ I want Milo to come to the premiere so I can tell Steven that story – because Milo’s 19 now and driving me mad!”

The right lines

“My pivotal scene is the same one I did in the self-tape. That was a huge day for me, filming at Cooper’s Chase in the library room. Chris was always saying if you see something in the book you want to put in, just go for it. And there was a lot of rewriting of my big scene. Some brilliant, funny lines were cut. 

“So I was thinking, why is that gone? I’d had a week off and was coming back for this huge scene and I just thought, I’m going to put it all back in! 

“I added a line about the weird llamas in the grounds and put this speech back together. When you do a scene, you do an ‘offer up’. It’s where you run the lines with the director, the DOP and the actors. I was quite nervous that I’d taken it upon myself to reinstate some lines. So I went, ‘Listen, I’ve just kicked the script around a bit when it comes to my speech.’ 

“But you’ve just got to go for it. The character bursts in and explodes at them – so I did that in the rehearsal and they all fell about laughing. Chris looked at it and said, ‘Do exactly that, Danny.’ So I got it over the line on set, and it’s all made the final edit. I’m not asking for a writing credit, but it was a great feeling.”

The launch

“Much as I’d love to be in a WhatsApp group with Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, there wasn’t one for this film. But we have a big premiere coming up. I’ll try to get pictures for Big Issue with all the main cast. 

“It’s great that The Thursday Murder Club is going to be in the cinema. Chris was adamant it had to be, even though it’s a Netflix thing. With this much noise and such a revered book and that cast – there’s a potential for it to run and run for all the subsequent books. 

“We’d have to really fuck it up for it not to come back.”

The Thursday Murder Club is in cinemas now and on Netflix from 29 August.

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