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CASTING
FITZ
It's
always been common knowledge that Robbie Coltrane was never actually
the first choice for the role of Fitz, quite unbelievable when you
look back on his performance, but true all the same. When
Jimmy McGovern initially started writing Cracker he pictured Fitz as
being a "thin, wiry man with a sense of danger - a John
Cassavetes type" who looked like the had spent some time in the
army. Actor Robert Lindsay was the original choice of Series One
producer Gub Neal and McGovern, but Lindsay turned the role down. It
was only then that they turned their attentions to Robbie Coltrane,
who had previously been more well known for his comedy work, but had
impressed in BBC's one Alive and Kicking drama alongside
Lenny Henry.
As
was explained by Neal in the book Cracker: The Truth Behind The
Fiction by John Crace: "Robbie had just done his first
major straight acting role for a while as an ex-junkie in Alive
& Kicking in which he revealed a quality that we needed for
Fitz. He was capable of presenting a character and asserting a
presence that was genuinely dangerous. It's partly a physical thing
- if he didn't like you he could hurt you - but he also has an
intelligence that could abuse you. In fact he might well do so
anyway, regardless of whether he liked you or not, just because he
could".
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The
rest as they say is history. Coltrane took on the role, and Cracker
was born in 1993. It went on to become one of the most successful
and influential television drama series of all time and Robbie
Coltrane proved absolutely perfect as Fitz. Infact, now you cannot
imagine anyone else in the role. His performance also gained
him three consecutive Best Actor awards at the BAFTA Television
Awards in 1994, 1995 and 1996 - proof alone of just how good he
really was as Fitz - the troubled criminal psychologist who
continually triumphed professionally, but couldn't help but keep
messing up in his chaotic personal life.
Interestingly,
this was Jimmy McGovern's first pen portrait of Fitz which is worth
a read just to see what McGovern intended his character to be (this
is taken from the book "The Truth Behind The Fiction"
by John Crace - which is available to buy through all good retailers
and is well worth purchasing).
His
problem is he's easily bored.
He
drinks heavily. He chain smokes. He gambles compulsively. All
because he's bored. He chases women, but as soon as he's caught one,
he's bored again. Why don't they just shut up and lie back and think
of England? Why must they insist on conversation? So he attacks
them. He attacks them because they're middle class and don't know
what life is. He attacks them because they're working class and so
parochial....
He's
a criminal psychologist lecturing in a Northern University. He's
probably the best in his field and he's got a string of publications
to this name but fellow professionals think he's a maverick. That
doesn't bother Fitz - theyr're just a bunch of boring old farts.
Fitz understands crime you see. There's nothing immoral about it
whatsoever. Crime is just big league gambling. At stake is your
liberty, the prize could be millions of pounds or a wife six feet
under - nothing to do with morality at all, just a simple
calculation of risk and reward. That's the trouble you see, no one
is prepared to say things like that (bar Fitz). The whole world is
living a lie and Fitz will tell you that he sees it as his duty to
challenge the world, to expose lies and hypocrisy, to get to the
core of what people really feel. But the truth's a bit different;
Fitz takes on the world because he's bored.
Maybe
it's all down to this catholic upbringing. My god, how he hates the
church. Those Jesuits taught him to think, yeah, and argue, but
really they screwed him up in other ways. The Virgin Mary - for
instance, the only woman he's ever really trusted. And then all that
examination of conscience and analyzing motive. He's the worlds
leading expert on conscience and motive. Did you know, for instance,
that nobody has ever in the world history of the world, done
anything for a pure, decent motive? Quote Fitz for example and he'll
destroy you. Soldiers laying down their lives for others? Only
because they were too fucking terrified of being called a coward,
too cowardly to be a coward. And conscience? Schadenfreude -
well, there you are. The bloody Krauts have got a word for it - for
the way you laugh your balls off, when you hear someone has fallen
down a shaft lift. But the English, the pious, anal-retentive
English....hypocrites, all of them.
Fitz
never stops. He just cannot stop. Occasionally a massive depression
might strike - particularly just after he's lost a small fortune on
a horse that should have won by half the track. When that happens,
he'll drink and drink and listen to JJ Cale but eventually someone
will say something (his wife, for instance) and he'll be off again,
defending, challenging....
He
doesn't drive. When people ask him why he says it's because he's
never been sober enough, but the truth is he's never trusted himself
behind the wheel of a car - it's just too tempting to put your foot
down and close your eyes and gamble that you won't hit anything
before you've counted to twenty. So his main form of transport is
taxi. But when he's skint (as he is very often) it's the bus. Now
that's a problem for him because he just cant stand still so he's
always walking to the next stop and then the next and, sure enough,
that bus always comes racing along while he's between stops. And
it's no smoking upstairs and down these days but he lights up
anyway, and of course, someone protests and there's a row but these
health facists are all the same, the country's full of them.
So's
there's a little taste of Fitz - dynamic, charismatic, hurtling
along the road to self-destruction....
The
Unofficial Guide To Cracker 1999-2006
(http://www.crackertv.co.uk)
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