Keeley Filming Ashes (9/18/09)

Keeley filming the third series of Ashes to Ashes in London, the weekend of September 18, 2009.





(Photo source: The Daily Mail.) Read More......

On the Set of Ashes to Ashes (September 12, 2009)

Keeley, Philip and Ashes to Ashes crew members on the set in London, September 12, 2009.

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(Photos: Contact Music.) Read More......

Third Series of Ashes Begins Filming

The third and final series of Ashes to Ashes recently began filming. Daniel Mays is joining the cast as Discipline and Complaints Officer Jim Keats. Series Three will air in 2010.

And Keeley -- or rather, Alex -- has a new look for the new series!

Articles on the new season:
What's on TV
Seen It
Press Release from BBC Read More......

Ashes Renewed for Third and Final Series

The BBC has renewed Ashes to Ashes for a third and final series (season). Filming will begin in September 2009, and the series will air in 2010.

You can read more about the renewal on The Life of Wylie. Read More......

Mutual Friends Cancelled

The BBC has opted not to renew Mutual Friends for another season.

It was being considered as a returnable relationship comedy-drama with similar appeal to ITV1's 1990s series Cold Feet.

But it attracted ratings of around 3.5m at 9pm on Tuesdays last autumn, short of the slot's average of 5m last year.

[Series co-creator Anil] Gupta said that the departure of Peter Fincham, who commissioned the series when he was controller of BBC1, was a further factor in the corporation's decision not to ask for more.

(via Broadcast Now.) Read More......

Times Photoshoot

(Photos from K-H.com.) Read More......

Article: "Keeley Hawes on Ashes to Ashes"

"Keeley Hawes on Ashes to Ashes" by Benji Wilson. The Telegraph, April 17, 2009.

Match the copper with his office: an empty whisky glass with greasy fingermarks all over it, a framed certificate for the police Armed Response Training Course and a film poster on the wall for a film called Wild West with the tagline, ‘The maverick sheriff clears it up.’

The name on the door is ‘DCI Gene Hunt’, obviously. Outside is the desk of DI Alex Drake, complete with Silver-Reed typewriter and a couple of Betamax tapes.

This is the Ashes to Ashes set, the Ground Zero for Eighties fetishism.

If big calculators, rotary-dial phones and overflowing ashtrays are your thing, welcome to heaven. It’s wonderful to behold, although you wouldn’t want to live in it: 2009 is cleaner and tidier, and less beige.

But then, as Marshall Lancaster (who plays junior copper Chris) walks past in a stonewash jacket, flecked trousers and slip-ons, remarks, ‘I bet at some point we’ll look back to the credit crunch with rose-tinted specs.’

The first series of Ashes to Ashes ran riot with the Eighties theme. Detective Drake (Keeley Hawes) got shot in 2008 and woke up in 1981, becoming part of Hunt’s ends-justify-means police squad. Her series-long mission was to save her parents from their death, and then get back to her daughter in the present. But the show was just as much about the soundtrack, the brick-size Walkmans and the legwarmers.

This time round, according to 33-year-old Londoner Hawes, things are getting serious. ‘The main storyline is about police corruption,’ she says. ‘It goes right the way through, so rather than it being about Alex trying to save her parents it’s a storyline that actually affects everybody.’

It follows a pattern set by the show’s time-travelling predecessor Life on Mars, where in its second series, buoyed by its popularity, the writers started to explore weightier themes such as racism in the force. Now it’s 1982, so expect Thatcher and the Falklands to come to the fore. And the odd musing on the very nature of existence.

‘The line is beginning to blur between Alex’s reality and what she thought was her reality,’ says Hawes. ‘She’s starting to question whether she’s actually from here [1982] and in fact her other life [in 2008] is a dream. You have to keep up a bit.’

Not bad for a prime-time cop show. Hawes says that the breadth of the subject matter is in keeping with the broad nature of the audience, which averaged more than 6 million last series. Some people, she says, watch Ashes to Ashes to gawp at the hair-dos, others to engage with subtler themes.

‘If the writers had gone straight in to more serious issues like police corruption from the outset, people would have said, “Where’s the fun?”’ she says. ‘The Eighties is a lot of fun to look at. There’s a lot of fashion and a lot of humour to be had from that. But there are other comments to be made. We were never going to please everybody all of the time.’

Hawes’s arrival as Gene Hunt’s new sparring partner, following John Simm’s Seventies sojourn in Life on Mars, displeased a lot of people from the outset. Reviews of Ashes to Ashes when it began last year fêted the gloriously unreconstructed Hunt once again, but criticised both the character of Drake and Hawes’s performance, often blurring the line between the two.

‘I don’t think I’d ever had a bad word said before, so it was very unpleasant,’ says Hawes. ‘At one point somebody had written, “It’s clear that the other cast members do not like this actress.” But their characters are supposed to not like Alex Drake when she arrives. We’re acting! The cast were all coming over to my house for lunch and I had to say, “I have got a bit upset by all of this – you do like me, don’t you?”’

While she received encouraging letters from many women, as well as public support from Philip Glenister, who plays Hunt, most of the criticism came from men.

‘They didn’t like that Alex was coming in and shouting at Gene Hunt in a way they didn’t think was acceptable,’ she says. ‘I didn’t realise how tabloidy the show was either.

In the Mirror they have pictures of him [Hunt] with his head on the Prime Minister’s body – he can do no wrong. I wasn’t aware of that. Foolishly. Otherwise I never would have gone.’

If by ‘gone’ she means she never would have joined the show because of all the tabloid scrutiny, it has at least, she says, helped her to grow a thick skin. ‘Now I think it was probably one of the best things that can happen to me because nothing can ever get to me again,’ she says. ‘The worst thing that can happen, happened.’

And it’s Hawes who has had the last laugh: a third series of Ashes to Ashes has already been commissioned. Then, just as with Life on Mars, that will be that.

‘Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah [the creators of Ashes to Ashes] have always said it was a story that would last three series and then be wrapped up,’ she says.

How it will be concluded is something that, if the denouement of Life on Mars was anything to go by, will keep the blogosphere churning for months, and then confound all expectations.

All expectations except those of the cast, that is.

‘They’ve told us the whole plan, yes they have!’ says Hawes. ‘It was very exciting. We had a read-through and they just told us, basically. It was a hairs-going-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck moment because of course we all try to guess all the time. And we were all wrong.’

Ashes to Ashes is on BBC One on Monday at 9.00pm

Read More......

Identity (2010)

Genre: TV Series, Crime, Drama

Writers: Ed Whitmore

Synopsis: Series about a police unit that probes "the darker side of reinvention: murderers who literally take other people’s lives, criminals who create new personas to escape evil pasts, impostors who look, talk and sound just like us but would kill you in a heartbeat."

Keeley's Role: DSI Martha Lawrence

Other Cast Members:
Aidan Gillen as DI Michael Bloom
Holly Aird as Tessa Stein
Shaun Parkes as DS Anthony Wareing
Elyes Gabel as DC Jose Rodriguez

Status: Six episodes were ordered and filmed in and around London during April 2009. They aired on ITV July-August 2010.

Links:
Identity photos

also see:
TV Scoop article
Broadcast Now article Read More......

Article: "Hawes Teases Season Two"

"Hawes Teases Season Two: Ashes to Ashes" by Ian Cullen, SciFiPulse.net, April 17, 2009.



When we last saw DI Alex Drake she’d just failed to save her parents from a car bombing, and was in a state of total despair at not being able to save them. Season Two picks up the story one year on in 1982, and Alex has very much become a part of the CID team, headed up by DCI Gene Hunt, but still seeks to find her way back to 2008.

Monday 20, April will see Ashes to Ashes explode onto our screens, and the opening moments will see DI Drake and the gang looking for suspects in London’s underground sewage system. Thankfully this is not going to set the tone for Keeley Hawes as she reprises her role as Drake, and in a recent interview she talked on where she feels the second series will go.

“This series we get to see that Alex has calmed down a lot and has begun to settle into the 1980s environment. She now considers the people around her to be friends and, because we have moved on a year, things aren’t quite so heightened for her.

“I’ve found Alex really interesting to play this series,” continues Keeley, “because the lines are blurring between what she thinks is real and what isn’t. She is now beginning to wonder whether the 2008 part of her life, including her daughter Molly, only ever existed in her head. It’s definitely been an interesting angle to explore rather than the story simply concentrating on her trying to get back to the present.”

Much like as happened in Life On Mars before it, viewers will be introduced to an enigmatic stranger who is watching the DI and is trying to contact her in a mysterious manner.

“A strange man keeps leaving Alex roses which she initially thinks is another puzzle,” Keeley explains. “She starts to investigate further, believing that if she solves the puzzle she may be able to go home. There are certainly lots of twists but I can’t give the game away!”

Ever since Ashes To Ashes began veiwers have got used to the tempestuous relationship between DI Alex Drake and the brash and often dogmatic DCI Gene Hunt. Viewers have got used to their fiery exchanges, however Keeley believes her character has a degree of admiration for Hunt.

“They do still have their ups and downs,” reveals Keeley, “but Gene is beginning to take on board different ways of policing and is starting to understand forensics and the importance of collecting evidence. Occasionally he and Alex are quite in tune and they definitely admire each other to a certain extent.”

The actor also confirms that there is a darker edge to the second season.

“When Detective Superintendent ‘Supermac’ Mackintosh joins CID as Gene’s boss Alex instantly likes him, but then she starts to see a darker side to his life,” explains Keeley. “Roger Allam, who plays Supermac, is absolutely fantastic. He’s brought a mysterious side to the character and a darker side to the whole series which we’re all really pleased with.”

“The script writers have also explored Dean, Marshall and Montserrat’s characters more this series,” explains Keeley, “and we get to see a lot more of Chris and Shaz’s relationship.”

As everyone knows the nineteen eighties were a period of flamboyant fashion and big hair, and the second season illustrates this factor of the period even more so than the first season, and the shows core group of characters have had makeovers to reflect the changing trends of the day.

“Costume changes and fittings were very difficult during filming for series one because I was in so many scenes. Each change meant leaving the set and going to the costume department which took up a lot of time. So for this series the production team had to think up a way of building more time into my schedule,” explains Keeley. “Ultimately this meant we had more opportunity to delve into Alex’s wardrobe which was great fun!

“We haven’t gone down the silly Eighties fashion route because I don’t think Alex would wear those clothes,” continues Keeley. “However, Alex definitely wears a lot more outfits in this series and in one episode I think I have eight costume changes! I had one quite brilliant outfit which was a shirt with a giant pussy bow, covered in little anchors, tight jeans with red stripes down the side and anchor earrings which were on chains. It really was quite something! I also had a great Japanese look at one point. The costume department have gone to town with the details this series.”

A rare treat for Keeley was driving the Quattro, an experience usually reserved for the one-and-only Gene Hunt.

“I love driving the Quattro, the handbrake turns are particularly fun! However, there was one time when we were all in the car with a very expensive camera attached and Phil was driving. We were heading towards the end of the road, in the rain, and suddenly the brakes didn’t work! It was a hairy moment but Phil is a very good driver and managed to stop the car; we are all still here thank God!”

Much like the first season fans can expect to see cameo appearances from noted 1980’s personalities such as: Roland Rat and Morph who were mainstays of childrens television throughout the 1980s.

Ashes To Ashes returns to television on Monday, April 20 at 9 pm on BBC1. Read More......

"Identity" -- New TV Series!

Several sites are reporting that Keeley is to star in a new six-part series for ITV called Identity about "the darker side of reinvention: murderers who literally take other people’s lives, criminals who create new personas to escape evil pasts, impostors who look, talk and sound just like us but would kill you in a heartbeat."

Keeley will play the leader of the unit, DSI Martha Lawrence. The cast will also include Aidan Gillen, Holly Aired, Shaun Parkes, Elyes Gabel.

The episodes were written by Ed Whitmore, writer of Waking the Dead and He Kills Coppers.

The series is scheduled to air late this year or early next, which I assume means that filming hasn't started yet.

Here are some links announcing the series -- some of them are older and don't mention casting:
- TV Scoop
- Unreality Primetime
- Digital Spy
- Broadcast Now. Read More......